Dear Chloe:

Welcome back to the forums! We communicated back in December 2016, just over seven years ago, and on the same topic. Hopefully our communication back then will help me in my reply today.

You shared today (I will be adding the boldface feature to all the quotes): “I’m trying to make a change in life but I’m having trouble determining the root cause of my issue.  I want to build lifelong relationships, I don’t want to be elderly and completely alone, but I seem to be getting in the way of myself somehow“-

– (1)  You stated your goal: to build lifelong relationships (friendships, not romantic relationships), and to not be completely alone at old age, (2) You suggested that you may be getting in your own way of accomplishing this goal, (3) you want to figure out how you may be getting in your own way/ what is the root cause of you not having lifelong relationships.

About your family of origin, you shared today: “My family of origin is not close with me- they only talk with me when they are asking for money.  When I don’t have money to give or choose not to, they don’t speak with me… there is no closeness or belonging there“.

Seven years ago, you shared: “As a child, I definitely was defined by my accomplishments and successes… I was always the ‘smart’ one, the ‘good’ one. My sister was more of a wild child and was in trouble a lot, and my parent’s marriage wasn’t good most of my childhood. So in essence, in my youth invisibility was better. Attention meant you were in trouble, you did something wrong, or someone was mad at you… my family is very blue collar, and ‘love’ wasn’t really spoken of in my youth. So I probably am idolizing others, seeking some sort of parental bond that will provide me with the corrective experience of love I’ve sought since youth“.

I want to develop the last part I boldfaced right above: how it may be that you are idolizing friends and seeking them to love you in ways you needed your parents to love you as a child, and how this seeking may be in your way of having lifelong friendships:

“I think my difficulty is that I struggle to find people that accept both the positive, giving parts of me and the down, needy parts. People enjoy me when I am loving, positive and giving, and then turn away or become angry when I need that encouragement or help” (Dec 2016), “One thing I’ve noticed is that if I have a time of need or if I ask for something in the relationship, like more consistent communication, that’s damaging to the relationship… People identify me as fun, so supportive, a good communicator, a good friend. A good friend often says one thing she loves about me is that I’m ‘low maintenance’ and I don’t put obligations on people” (Jan 15, 2024).

Is it possible, Chloe, that in the beginning of a friendship and during most of the time within a friendship, you behave in ways that are indeed positive, supportive and giving, which attracts people to you. But at the rare times when you do express your emotional neediness, you express such deep, unsatisfied and unresolved, decades-long neediness, that you do so in ways that are not appropriate for an adult woman in the context of an adult friendship. More like a very hurt and maybe angry child who is looking for that “corrective experience of love” which friends are not able to provide for you even if they tried, and no matter how hard they tried?

Within the context of your original family, your role was that of the invisible, agreeable child who didn’t seek attention, “the ‘good’ one“, the tamed child, while your sister was the “wild child“. Thing is, a tamed, controlled child still has a wild side to her (a hurt side, an angry side, a demanding side), and that wild side has to show, it has to express itself. Question is: how does your wild/ untamed side show within friendships…?

anita