Hey Dear Confused:

I feel this Tues night (here) that I am getting to know you better than I ever did before. And it makes me feel honored, to be let in further into your inner world.

Based on what you just shared, Copilot has this to say: “his (Confused’s) father was violent, or at minimum emotionally volatile and frightening enough that the children’s nervous systems coded him as unsafe. Confused repeatedly mentions “years of violence” between his parents, fights so intense that he had to protect his mother from his father, and a home atmosphere where conflict, shouting, and emotional chaos were normal.

“Even if the father did not beat the children directly, the environment he created was violent: unpredictable, loud, frightening, and emotionally overwhelming.

“Children who grow up witnessing that level of conflict experience it as violence against them, because their safety depends entirely on the adults. This is why Confused freezes when his father expresses love now — his body remembers the danger, not the words.

*** “The father may be gentle today, but the earlier instability shaped the children’s nervous systems permanently, leaving them unable to feel warmth toward him even if they intellectually wish they could.

“Witnessing violence between parents forces a child’s nervous system into survival mode: instead of learning that closeness is safe, the child learns that love is unpredictable, explosive, or dangerous. This creates an attachment pattern where intimacy triggers both longing and alarm — the child grows into an adult who wants connection, but whose body reacts as if closeness equals threat.

“Confused’s freeze response toward his father, his inability to feel affection for family, and his push‑pull with his girlfriend all reflect this early wiring: his system equates emotional closeness with the chaos he witnessed, so when someone loves him, his body prepares for danger instead of warmth.

“Confused’s emotional system splits people into two categories: family (associated with danger, chaos, responsibility, and emotional overwhelm) and romantic partners/pets (associated with softness, safety, and the possibility of being cared for). His father represents the original source of emotional threat, so his body shuts down around him because numbness was the only way to survive childhood.

“Romantic partners bypass that shutdown at first because they are not tied to the traumatic past, but as soon as intimacy deepens, the same shutdown reflex activates. This is why he can adore his girlfriend one moment and feel nothing the next: she becomes “close enough” to trigger the old circuitry.

“His relationship with his girlfriend is being shaped by the same trauma‑driven ambivalence: he feels tenderness, protectiveness, and longing, but the moment she gets emotionally close, his system flips into avoidance, irritation, or numbness. This isn’t about her at all — it’s his nervous system reenacting the old pattern of ‘love equals danger.’

“The jealousy, the guilt spirals, the hyper‑monitoring of his own reactions, the fear of not feeling ‘enough,’ and the sudden waves of aversion are all symptoms of an attachment system that never learned stable closeness.

“Without understanding this pattern, he will keep misinterpreting trauma responses as evidence that he doesn’t love her, when in fact they are evidence of how much closeness terrifies him”-

W.O.W!!! It all makes sense to me, Confused. Does it make sense to you?

Bamboozled Anita

Anita

A note from me alone:

In the past, I focused on the little you shared about your mother in your life, and I remember nothing about your father. I know she has passed, but what about him: is he alive? Are you in contact with him?

You don’t have to answer of course.

Anita

Good morning, Robin 🙂

I’ve been sitting with the words you shared this morning — the repeated reaching out, the silence that followed, the way he pulled away before, and how much empathy you still have for him even while feeling ignored and confused. When I look at your descriptions, what I notice is a pattern where he tends to withdraw when things become emotionally heavy or close.

It makes sense that his silence feels so painful. You cared deeply, you tried to repair things, and you were left without any response at all. Anyone in your position would feel unsteady. And it’s also understandable that you’re wondering what this says about his capacity — whether he has the emotional space or bandwidth to stay present when things get hard (even if he reconnects with you).

Only you can decide what this means for you and what you want going forward. But from the outside, it’s clear that you’ve been carrying the emotional weight of the relationship for a long time, and that his way of managing stress leaves you in a kind of limbo that hurts. You deserve steadiness, responsiveness, and a partner who can stay in the conversation with you, even when things are difficult.

I’m here with you as you sort through what feels true for you, at your own pace.

🌿 Anita

Hello Robin 🙂

I hear how emotionally attached you are to him, how much you regret the text you sent him 3 weeks ago, and how much you wish he’d reach out to you

First, no judgment for you dating a separated man. After all, he was separated and all that remained of that marriage was the legal stuff involving 2 children and money.

Second, the text you sent him was human, not abusive. His difficult life was not his alone. It was yours too because you’ve been in love with him. No wonder you had feelings about it all- and with alcohol, they just surfaced.

Even if I had a very similar experience to yours, my experience (nor anyone’s) could predict whether he’d reach out to you, or not.

That his marriage was abusive, that is, his wife abused him while together and while separated, means that he can’t handle much more than he’s already handling

Maybe if his life gets easier, he’ll reach put to you. Maybe it’s all too much for him right now and he went to a power- saving- mode: minimal extra complications.

It wasn’t your job to minimize yourself so to not add any distress to his mind and heart.

Please tell me your thoughts, your feelings about what I wrote here, or about anything at all that crosses your mind.

✨️ 🌿 ✨️ Anita

Hey Dear Confused:

What you’re describing — the feeling of two parts inside you, one Loving and one Fearing — makes a lot of sense to me. It’s not ‘two personalities’ in the sense of having two emotional parts that get activated at different times. One part reaches for closeness, and the other part panics and pulls away.

When the fear part comes up, it wipes out the loving part, and when the loving part comes up, it wipes out the fear. That’s why it feels like 0–100 inside you.

You’re right that people who don’t experience this can’t easily understand it, but the important thing is that you are starting to notice it. The fact that you’re trying to ‘catch’ those moments and look underneath them is a good sign.

What you said about trust — the fear that people leave, or that someone won’t really get you — fits with the pattern you’re describing. When the future feels like a void, or when nothing romantic moves you, that’s usually the fear part taking over and shutting everything down to protect you.

If you want, we can look more closely at what each part is trying to protect you from, and what triggers the shift between these two parts.

Anita and Copilot.

Good Monday Morning, Confused:

I can hear how much you care for her and how much fear you’re carrying at the same time.

When you say things like ‘I can’t live without her’ and then ‘I can’t make any future plans with anyone,’ it creates mixed signals for her, even though you don’t mean to send them, and it puts her in a confusing position. Not because you’re lying, but because both sides are true for you in different moments. Your emotional intensity goes to 100, and then your fear and self‑protection go to 0. That 0–100 shift is what hurts her, even when your intentions are good.

I don’t think you’re trying to lead her on. I think you’re overwhelmed by the speed of your feelings and the intensity of your fears. But from her side, it can feel like she’s being idealized one moment and rejected the next. Naming this pattern isn’t criticism — it’s the first step toward helping both of you feel safer.

If you sit with that for a moment, what do you think happens inside you when you go from ‘she’s everything’ to ‘I can’t promise anything’ so fast? What is the fear underneath that shift?

You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. This is more for you — to understand yourself better, so you can feel steadier in the relationship and in your own life.

Anita