Dear t:

You are welcome and thank you for your appreciation and support!

“On the topic of CBT – this was one of the things that just didn’t work for me at therapy…  I don’t think my problem is that I’m imagining things, but more that I overreact emotionally“- when you overreact (ex., crying at work or in public) to him not being honest and direct with you about how he feels (something he admits to and trying to change), what thoughts go through your mind, if any?

Can you give me an example of what specifically he said or did (or didn’t) that led to one of your biggest overreactions?

(I will soon be away from the computer for a few hours).

anita

Dear antarkala:

“I think this is exactly what is happening. Is there a way out of this? Or are we just not meant to be together”?- I reviewed (again),  what you shared since March 23 this year, so to offer you my best answer, and I am glad to say that I have a new understanding this morning.

What you shared over time is a serious incompatibility between you and your boyfriend: an emotional, spiritual, social and familial-bonding incompatibilities.

Emotional incompatibility: you shared that you felt after more than a year of dating him “not very emotionally intimate” with him, that you “don’t know a lot about him“. You described him as “monotonous… mostly silent“, and when he is silent, you have thoughts like “‘how can he be so silent’, ‘I just want to have a heart felt conversation with him’“.

There is a lack of emotional and spiritual compatibility: “he is not spiritual. I would love to have conversations about his spiritual beliefs with my partner and it is something that would make me feel intimate and close to him… I turned to spirituality at a younger age – I am a very deep person and spirituality showed me a path in life…Since I got into a relationship with my boyfriend, I feel my spiritual life also took a backseat“.

There is a social incompatibility: “my boyfriend not being very social… I expect my partner to help me out in social situation… when I am with my boyfriend, I feel my social life and spiritual life are not thriving and it bothers me.. he is not helping me to keep the energy of the group up“.

There is a familial-bonding incompatibility: “I did tell my mother about my boyfriend and she told me he is not good enough for you..  I believe a marriage is not just about wife and husband but also about both families. I also keep thinking, if I marry my boyfriend, how compatible are our families?.. I want the family I marry into to bond well with mine…  I’m afraid my parents won’t be able to bond well with them“- to start with, for families to bond (since this is what you value and want), your mother would have to approve of who you marry, she’d have to think that he is good enough for you.

You shared about the relationship, that you “always felt something was missing since the beginning“, that “the spark is missing… something is missing, especially attraction… my heart keeps saying something is missing – my heart doesn’t say yes!“- there’s a lot that’s missing: emotional, social, spiritual and familial-bonding compatibilities.

You wrote about him: “he is a wonderful and genuine person who cares for me and loves me… he has a wonderful personality – just a different type of wonderful than what I have in my head“- this is the biggest part of my new understanding this morning: he is wonderful compared to how your father behaved with your mother and with yourself in earlier years (your formative years: the most influential years in regard to a person’s brain formation), and he is wonderful in some ways compared to the few men you dated in the past.

This is what you experienced in regard to your father in earlier years: “my dad always used to criticize (your mother) after coming back home… whatever my mom says, my dad will criticize her and tell her she should have done something else… He is always dissatisfied with whatever she cooks… Whatever I did or spoke – my dad would tell me I did something wrong… my dad was being hard on me“- compared to this, your boyfriend is wonderful.

This is what you experienced in regard to men you dated: “I was the one always giving and initiating things… most prominent behavior was not being ready for commitment, not being open about the relationship and hiding it“- compared to this, your boyfriend is wonderful.

“My boyfriend is a wonderful man, I don’t want to weaken him by showing my disappointment… I feel this is unfair to my boyfriend, why should he go through this?“- I suggest (and it is for you to decide, of course, because it is you- not I- who will have to live with your decision): end the romantic part of the relationship for good. Do it as kindly as you can, and deeply apologize for not having done it earlier. He shouldn’t go through this, and neither should you. Reason: emotional, spiritual, social and familial-bonding incompatibilities.

Somewhere out there, there is a man who will treat you respectfully (unlike your father in earlier years and the men who hid the relationship with you), a man who will initiate things and be committed to you (unlike the men you dated).

But it may be that part of you (the masculine part) is attracted to less masculine men. Do you think that you will be attracted to a more masculine man, one who will initiate things, be social, an extrovert, confident and assertive?

Do you think that you can take on a more feminine role in a relationship with a more masculine man?

anita

Dear Zenith:

“My brain started telling me that I felt less anxious in India and its more lonely here. So I am worried about if I should settle here or go back to India and take care of my parents. How will I survive this anxiety when I get old? I am in my mid thirties lol. My brain started getting worried about future.“- (1) Time to talk back to your brain, says I,  and tell it (kindly) that you need to focus on surviving anxiety today. Tell it that you’ll take care of future anxiety after you learn to take care of today’s anxiety, (2) I remember that you’ve been sending money for the care of your parents, so there’s someone there, in addition to your sister (and others) to care for your parents’ physical needs..?

(3) Remember the mix factor I mentioned earlier: mix some negative memories of your visit to India with the positive memories, so that you do not get into nostalgia (remembering only the positives and missing those too much). Here are some negatives from June 16, two weeks into your visit: “It just triggered my religious OCD. Everybody in my family are more religious and ocd is telling me that I am a bad Muslim… I don’t have the peace of mind… I did talk back to ocd instead of running away from it. But the voice in my head still persists. Its making me anxious and hard to sleep through it“- which brings me back to talking back to your brain/ OCD: as calmly as you can, tell it the truth and reject its untruths.

anita

Dear t:

I will share at length with you Wed morning (in about 14 hours from now)

anita

Dear Zenith:

I wish the title of your thread could apply to your anxiety, as in Passing anxiety. It’s a habit of the brain, by this point: the habit of getting anxious. What are you anxious about this afternoon?

anita

Dear t:

You are welcome! “Growing up my mother never communicated but expected me to read her mind and anticipate her moods and needs. If I didn’t do this, she would blow up and yell, throw things, etc. As a result I have a tendency to mind read others and try to keep them happy, and I assume a lot from little things“- it is as if I am reading about my mother and myself, same thing. What a coincidence.

“My boyfriend… is a very different person from my mother and would never become angry like that, but his behavior has similarities that put me on edge… he’s made a genuine effort to understand me and work on changing his behavior. He did promise to text back faster…“- it will take a combination of him being considerate of what puts you on edge and you healing from your childhood experience with your mother. Without dedication to healing on your part, no matter how hard he tries and for how long, it will not be enough.

“Emotional regulation is what I’m really struggling with… I am trying the normal things to calm down – taking walks, exercising, distraction, meditating, spending time with friends – which have helped a little but often just result in me crying in public.“- did you ever attend therapy? If so, what was the experience like?

anita

Dear antarkala:

Still trying to answer your question from yesterday (“Why does he want me sooooo badly?“), in connection to his childhood. I re-read some of what you shared in this thread.

March 26: “My boyfriend’s dad, in his words, has not been a great father since his childhood. He did not work hard and did not proactively provide for the family“- growing up, your boyfriend did not have a strong male father figure in his life.

Growing up, you took on the role of a strong father male figure. I wrote to you back on March 27: “seems to me, antarkala, that your role reversal situation was that of you being your mother’s.. father, teaching her to stand up for herself, to act confidently and assertively, a parenting job traditionally done by the father in the family… for the purpose of helping her/ strengthening her, (you) took on the manly traditional role. So much so, that you even walked in a manly way“.

(In regard to walking in a manly way, I was referring to what you shared: “My school teacher once described me as a lady don to my dad and I once remember one of my teachers telling me my walk is too manly“).

On March 25, you wrote in regard to your boyfriend: “Initially, I did get thoughts like ‘maybe he is not strong enough’… “I don’t think he is manly enough’“.

My response to the quote right above was: “what this is telling me is that you need to..  finally not be The Strong One, to.. finally have someone else be the strong one, so that you can relax“.

In your reply to the above, on March 30, you posted: “‘Finally have someone else to be the strong one…. So that I can relax’ – in one sentence, this is all I want. You really understood where I’m coming from“.

It seems to me that his attraction to you may have to do with your appearance of male strength, such that he didn’t have growing up, a role you took on when you were growing up. But it’s only a role. You need a partner who will appear or actualize male strength, hence your dissatisfaction with him.

In your very first post, on March 23, you wrote: “we have been in a relationship for more than a year, I always felt something was missing since the beginning“. In your most recent post on July 29, you wrote: “since the beginning of the relationship whenever we catch up I am always telling her ‘there is something missing and the reason is him and it bothers me that he does not fight back or puts up with it’”- the missing-something may be the missing appearance or actualizing of male strength on his part.

You need him to be the strong male figure so that you can abandon your strong-male-figure role and relax into a female role, while he needs you.. to continue your strong-male role?

* When I mention male and female in this post, I am referring to masculine and feminine energies that exist in both genders.

anita