Dear Seaturtle:

I hope you are well. I want to elaborate on my answer to your question “Do you think there is any possibility that N and I end up back together in a healthy relationship?“- my answer still is that a healthy relationship between the two of you is possible, but what do I mean by “healthy relationship” (it may not mean the same as what you mean by it)?

What I mean by a healthy relationship is a fair relationship which works for you and for him, a win-win prospect. Clearly N cannot make you perfectly happy, but no man can. Clearly, he cannot be everything that you need and want.. but again, no man can be. There needs to be clarity in your mind about what you will compromise about when choosing a lifetime partner, and what you will not compromise.

It cannot be a healthy relationship if you feel superior to him. You have to feel that he is as worthy of you as you are worthy of him, and that while his strengths are different from yours, his strengths are as valuable as yours.

We talked at length about his closed 3rd eye chakra and your open 3rd eye, but it’s not this simple: in some ways, your 3rd eye is a bit closed (as is mine). For example, in regard to the topic of money and the relationship with N,  your 3rd eye is not open, I think, or I suspect, I should say.

Looking back at the cash incident, clearly, he felt that you were taking financial advantage of him, and you expressed- at length- that maybe you did take financial advantage of him and you felt guilty about it. When I suggested that you arrange to (some day, when you are able), to pay him what you think you owe him, so to relieve your guilt, you didn’t respond at all to my suggestion (as far as I remember) and never mentioned the topic again.

You shared that he worked very hard for his father for little pay and that he worked hard for his money in general. You moved in with him while you were employed, with the understanding that you will be his roommate (and girlfriend) and pay into the rent. You then quit your job, with his emotional support, and didn’t pay into the rent for a year or so (?) It reads like N is financially generous and (?) spent a lot of money on restaurants and entertainment with you.. while working very hard for his money…? If this has been the case, I can understand him feeling taken advantage of, financially.

There may be something here that he is seeing, but you do not…?

A topic that I didn’t think about when I answered you earlier, is his daily, heavy duty use of weed, something for you to consider as something you may not want to compromise about…?

anita

Dear Tara:

Like I wrote in my previous post, I wasn’t able to access your previous threads and our previous communications in those threads earlier today. After submitting my first post today, I re-read through your previous threads, and I am amazed by how much we have in common in terms of growing-in our families of origin. Actually, we have more in common than I thought back in 2022, when we last communicated, and I am quite shocked at this revelation this afternoon.

Your first post was on July 14, 2020. Five days later, on July 19, you shared: “I don’t remember much of my childhood, I know that my parents fought a lot, but I don’t really remember any distinct memories from those events… I was always in trouble for various random reasons almost all the time when I was younger, and I believe it because of this I felt I could not confide in anyone. I do not remember confiding in my mom much until about the point of 18…

“I don’t remember any direct details from any of my parents fights except very vague memories. I remember a time, not even sure what age I was at, standing at my parents door listening to them scream at each other, I remember crying, feeling as if it was my fault, because a lot of the fights I believe involved their ways of parenting me. I don’t remember exactly what I felt, as I can’t think back to my feelings much before the age of around 14-15. I remember my mom talking to me about their fights even from a young age, about how horrible and mean and angry my dad was, even though me myself didn’t directly experience his anger as far as I know or can recall.

“I was mostly in trouble for various normal reasons, such as messy rooms, bad grades, attitude towards my parents, talking back, defying their wishes, such as talking to boys or texting and making social media accounts when I was not supposed to. When I was a bit older I remember my mom and I often screaming at each other when I reached my teens for things like missing curfew, not doing as well in school, etc. and the only direct thing I can remember saying from these fights is something to the extent of ‘you only punish me for the bad things I do, you never tell me you’re proud of me for anything'”.

On June 19, 2022, while living with your parents, You shared: “As I have been staying at my parents’ house nothing too horrible has happened, but my mother still tends to complain about my father and her relationship with him constantly. Another thing is my father also tends to have small angry outbursts when little things don’t go his way. I always go into my room to escape the anger, though it’s not directed at me, I hate the cussing and yelling and screaming over the smallest little inconveniences in his day. It gives me feelings of anxiety”.

On Aug 7, 2022, you shared: “Throughout my life, my mother has always been unsupportive and extremely judgmental of any relations I have had with males, and I think this too also contributed to the feeling that I needed to lie about my whereabouts.
Recently, they caught onto this lie easily (I really didn’t hide it well) and I ended up having a conversation with my mother about what has been really going on and apologizing for lying to her and my father. This conversation did not go the best. I was told that I quote ‘need therapy’ and that ‘she knows it’s not casual.’… This spiraled into my mother listing everything that I have done wrong while living in their house, and threatening me to move out and also to get rid of my dog. Since this discussion, my mother has not talked to me in 4 days”

Aug 8, 2022: “I decided to try and make amends with my mother, and write her a little apology card with a small gift and flowers. I left them for her before I went to work today, then I got a text from my father telling me it was a very sweet and thoughtful gesture and she cried. Then proceeded by him telling me she is going to stay with her friend for a few days? I am so confused on what is going on in this situation and why this situation lead my mother to the extremes of leaving our house. I am unsure what to do and feel as if I am walking on eggshells inside our home. As soon I get home I say hello to my father, who is always in the living room, and then immediately go into my bedroom for the rest of the day. I feel as if I am trapped here in some weird way. I also don’t understand my mothers reaction to this whole situation, I am confused and unsure of if this whole ordeal is my fault or doing or not”

Sept 17, 2022: “This is where it get’s difficult, as I have written before, my mother tends to be very disapproving of every single interaction I have with men. Whether this be casual, or in a relationship. Last post I made, I lied to my mother about having a casual relationship with a man, and this ended in dramatics. She ended up leaving for a whole week to go to her friend’s house, and then came back like seemingly nothing happened. I am wanting to go out and have relations with men, as I am young and in my 20s, but every single time I want to go out I feel the need to lie about what I am doing now. I also can’t go to places or to houses that they don’t recognize when viewing my location, because then they will blow up my phone asking who I am with etc. To clarify, I am not a deadbeat doing illicit activity or doing anything more than having fun and going out and living my life outside of their home, but this seems to be the problem to them. I am working 2 jobs, 40+ hours, and going to college part-time. Even the smallest things in my life I feel that I have no privacy in, my mother does not even knock before she walks into my room. I feel stuck and hopeless and like I will be living the life of a teenager until I find some miracle that will help me move out of their house. I am stuck between lying about where I am going and inevitably getting caught and yelled at, or being truthful about where I am going and still getting yelled at and reprimanded like a child. I am unsure what to do and can’t seem to find any escape from this place. Every time I leave the house its ‘where are you going?’ Even if it’s just the smallest errand I have to go run. I don’t understand and I don’t know what to do”.

Like me, you have few memories from your childhood because a lot of what you experienced back then was negative, and you therefore dissociated from your memories and emotions, pushing your emotions down/ in (growing in), aka suppression and repression.

Like me, you grew in in an angry home: anger between your parents and anger directed at you from one point on, as you were always in trouble for various random reasons, accused and blamed, listing everything you (allegedly) did wrong. Anger in the home scared and scarred you, as it did to me. And like me, you couldn’t confide with anyone, and wouldn’t confide with your mother, as a child.

My parents had terrible fights (before they divorced when I was 6), and like in your case, my mother talked badly/ complained about my father to me (as well as talking badly about everyone else, sooner or later).

Now, here is the commonality we have that I didn’t notice until a couple of hours before: “Throughout my life, my mother has always been unsupportive and extremely judgmental of any relations I have had with males.. ‘she knows it’s not casual.’… my mother tends to be very disapproving of every single interaction I have with men. Whether this be casual, or in a relationship… I have no privacy in, my mother does not even knock before she walks into my room… Every time I leave the house its ‘where are you going?’ Even if it’s just the smallest errand I have to go run. I don’t understand and I don’t know what to do“-

– Both of our mothers were angry at their husbands (when married to him), and both did not have a positively close and intimate relationship with a man for the entirety of our childhoods and beyond. As a result, they got inappropriately close to their daughters, walking into your room without knocking (walking into the bathroom to wash me..), and both acted like.. jealous men when it came to boys or men in our lives. Isn’t this amazing..? It’s called emotional incest.

Notice her reaction to when you gave her a card, a small gift and flowers: she cried and left the home for a few days. I think that she was jealous of the attention you gave to the men in your life, jealous of your romantic interest in them, and when she received some.. romantic like gesture from you, she was so overwhelmed, she had to go away for a few days. This is my understanding of what happened.

How do you feel about my understanding: is it too overwhelming for you to consider it?

Now to your recent post, a year and five months since your Sept n2022 post, in light of re-reading your older threads: “I have never been able to keep friends for a long time“- maybe partly because of loyalty to your jealous mother.

“I’ve been in a notable amount of failed relationships, some serious and some not, which I have ended up ending all of them“- again, maybe you ended all, or some of your romantic relationships partly or wholly because of loyalty to your jealous mother?

I shared with you in my earlier replies, before I re-read the previous threads, that my mother isolated me from everyone.. from herself and from everyone else. She didn’t want me to be close to anyone. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want me to answer her brother (my uncle). It’s like she wanted me all to herself but couldn’t have a close.. an appropriately close relationship with me or with anyone else. And throughout my life, I felt that being close to anyone beyond a moment here or there, was a betrayal of her.

“I am currently in a relationship now, but I am starting to get that “it’s not enough” feeling again. Once again, I feel guilty…  Am I the only one who goes though this?“- guilty for .. betraying your mother? This is what I went through..!

“There is some kind of longing in me for something more, only I don’t know what that something is. At this point, I’m insatiable. No relationship is good enough. No job is good enough. No career path is good enough. No friends are good enough. I don’t know what is missing…Am I the problem? and what even is the problem?“- the longing I had was always the longing to be loved, not as a thing or a possession (of my jealous but unloving mother), but as a person with the right to my own thoughts, feelings, choices, initiatives.. my own life. To be really ALIVE, with emotions free from suppression and repressions, directing me (together with rationale) to live my life as.. as if it was my own, not my mother’s.

And like in your case, nothing was good enough when I was missing (guilt free) me in the driver seat in my own life, too.. loyal to the one who took unfair, inappropriate.. and inhumane possession of me.

If you would like, feel free- if you will- to post again and let me know what you think of my replies today.

anita

Dear Peace:

Thank you for saying such a nice thing.. makes me smile! I am doing well, now that I have electricity and internet back after more than 12 hours.. actually, I did quite well without electricity and internet.

Please focus on your two exams in the next 10 days, and I hope to read from you after your exams and after you are rested following the exams, take good care of yourself!

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

“To be honest I think I might be stuck in whether to categorize N as with or without a conscience…“- when I wrote about people without conscience, I wasn’t thinking about N. I remember early on that you shared that he cares about people, and that got stuck in my mind, and what you shared today about him fits with him being an okay+ guy a lot of the time. His instinctual spider behavior comes up, I think, when he is particularly stressed (like during the cash incident) and when confronted (like during the C word incident).

“I can’t help but think he is more of a conscious person that ‘struggle(s) with getting (his) needs and wants satisfied’ and that he may be part of the ‘many struggle to identify what they need and want’….Do you think there is any possibility that N and I end up back together in a healthy relationship? Am I being unrealistic to wonder if it is possible for him to take responsibility, apologize and grow with me? I just hate being reminded of his positive attributes and that I have to go look for that again..”-

– I think that there is a possibility that you and N can be in a healthy relationship if (1) the two of you want to get back together, (2) you accept him just as he is, third eye and crown chakras as they are; if you don’t try to change him, or get him to want to change; if you don’t try to make him see you any more than he does, and if you focus on his positive attributes, and get your being-seen needs, humor needs etc., with other people, in non-romantic relationships, (3) you don’t ask him to apologize for anything that happened pre-breakup. If he initiates an apology, fine; if you tell him to apologize for X or Y.. then his apology would be pointless, meant to pacify you, that’s all.

Look at your original posts on both of your threads: you’d need to accept with no more complaints everything that you complained about him in those posts.

“Whenever I would make a little wish on a birthday candle, fortune cookie or when he’d blow my eyelash away, I would wish that he was my soulmate, I so badly wanted it to be him and seems I still do. Is this 100% wishful thinking?“- I think so, that it’s a romantic, wishful thinking.

“I have been so patient in waiting for the right moment to get my things, the last chance I might have to talk to him, I want to do it right now, but some part of me I think is hoping this patience is for a reason and will be rewarding“- I don’t know, Seaturtle. How about you re-reading the two original posts I mentioned, the things that bothered you about him so much and for so long: can you accept those things with equanimity, with peace of mind, putting out ZERO efforts to change him and/ or to motivate him to change?

anita

Dear Stephanie:

I need a bit of Taoism this morning, so I looked up quotes from Wayne Dyer’s Taoism:

“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be”

“The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your mind”.

“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with”.

“You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought: I release the need for this in my life”.

“If all you do is follow the herd, you’ll just be stepping in poop all day”.

“Every thought impacts you. Shift from a thought that weakens to one that strengthens you”.

“Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you”

“Attitude is everything, so pick a good one”

“Giving is replacing my demand for more”

“I resist any brokenness by being flexible and bending when storms appear”.

Thank you, Stephanie!

anita

Dear Ssleeping:

You are welcome, good to read from you again. I re-read your previous two posts. In your first post (Feb 5), you wrote: “He’s had a tough time recently with work and depression“, and indeed from what you shared about what he said to you, he sounds depressed.

The way I understand depression is that when a person is too anxious for too long, the anxiety (a negative excitable emotional state), turns into depression (a negative but calmer emotional state) because the brain/ body can’t endure excitability for too long.

He felt anxious (“He then started feeling anxious when thinking about it, he felt anxious when just thinking about things he loved related to me“), and then over several days, his anxiety turned into depression (“He felt like this for days and eventually broke down and told me, over the coming days he said he doesn’t want this anymore and needs to be alone“).

A hallmark of depression is the loss of interest or pleasure in things previously enjoyed, as well as indecisiveness, and so, he lost a significant amount of the interest he had to be with you, and he wanted to be alone, and he is indecisive.

From the DSM-5 (the American diagnostic guide for mental disorders), two of the symptoms of major depression are: “Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day”, and “Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day”.

You wrote: “I don’t know what happened… Could this be caused by avoidant attachment style?” (Feb 5)- I think that what happened is that he sank into depression, and that his current state of mind and behaviors are caused by depression.

“He doesn’t wear his bracelet and has changed his Lock Screen photos on his phone. I can feel how much he loves me when he looks at me, I can feel the affection and the want but I think he stops himself“- back to the DSM-5, “Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt..” is another symptom of major depression. Maybe he feels unworthy of you and that’s why he doesn’t wear the bracelet, and why he stops himself from expressing love for you (when he feels it)…?

Did he seek medical help for depression, recently or in the past?

anita

Dear Nichole:

“Very true, the stability from my job and consistency of where I have been living have helped get me back in a better place. I had not recently thought about the correlation between the moving around I was doing and my childhood. Growing up we moved around quite a bit. Finances were not stable.  I can still get really anxious when something unexpected happens. I fear the worse. I’ll be homeless and unable to provide for myself“- this is an excellent testimony to how important STABILITY and CONSISTENCY are for a person’s mental (and physical) health. Experiencing instability and inconsistency as a child translates to excess anxiety in childhood and in adulthood.

C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S   for creating stability and consistency in your life!

“With the work I have been doing I know this to be untrue. I have, even at my most fearful, always provided for myself. In the future I would like to better my relationship with money. I would like to thrive. Nonetheless,  I am grateful for what I do have“- I remember that I was concerned, in the past, about you giving your money away to family members, such as to your younger brother. I wanted you to take better care of yourself!

“Yes, past relationships and even the most recent one created turmoil. This last man was really just a distraction from dealing with where my life was. But I was also craving male attention as I still do… I still believe in my heart that I was born to be a Mom and wife. My lifelong dream! I am 35 now, will it ever be? I have juggled with maybe it won’t. and I will have to live with that. I really just struggle to make friends or relationships. It is the trust issue. I hide myself a lot“- like I wrote above, instability and inconsistency in childhood translate to excess anxiety in adulthood, and with that excess anxiety, we are afraid to trust, we struggle to maintain relationships… and we hide.

I hope that within the next few years, you will manage to be a good wife to a good husband and a good Mom!

“I also attract similar patterns in people, but now, more than ever I feel so much more self aware about this“- awareness makes changes possible in what and who you attract and .. what and whom you are attracted to.

“Last week I started back into my new role after my voluntary demotion. It has been peaceful. I learned so much in leadership. I learned that I lead well. I lead with my heart and soul. My team loved me and I loved them… Most times I gave way too much of myself. I look forward to spending the rest of this year treating work as just work and creating a life outside of it“- imagine giving more to yourself, and then, to the right man.. and then, to your child, creating stability and consistency in your family of choice!

“Bringing me to my family.. You’re always spot on Anita! I can easily go into a nostalgic place with family. I do believe we had some wonderful times. My Father came in June, and it was great! We spent five days together. I knew better than to get attached. He struggles with alcohol and drug addiction. I know too well. He loves me when he can but he will most likely always return to his ways. I am coming to peace with this“- you knew better than to get attached to him because he loves you when he can, you wrote, meaning that his love is not stable and not consistent: it’s there at times, gone at other times.

“As for my brother, it is just simple texts. I just want peace with them. I know they cannot provide the family environment I craved for so long“- you craved for stable consistent love in your family of origin, a craving unsatisfied.

“But with my niece, this relationship is important to me. I know that she will need me in her life. She is 15 now. She will soon be heading for life’s ups and downs, as well all do as we grow up, and I want to be a wise person in her life. I love her so much. I am so happy to be in touch with her. I would love to go see her this summer“- true love of an aunt for her niece, the love of a woman for the girl you once were..?

“Yes, I wish I would have been able to apply your wonderful advice on relationships in a better way back then. I do believe I can function this way now. Mindfulness can be hard for me some times but I am starting to slow down more. I really would like to create connections that are stimulating and balanced.  I know that it begins with me. If I give/offer to much of me too fast I will likely attract people that will take quicker than I give. I look forward to slowing down. Paying attention to people and just having fun if I can. I just need the motivation to do it. I think talking about it is a start!“- you express yourself so well, I am positively impressed with your state of mind, awareness, insight and maturity!

And again, thank you for your kind words.. You are an amazing person, Nichole, thank you for being you!!!

anita

Let’s see if I can change the format of the above:

Dear Seaturtle:

“And it was this moment my mom revealed to me that she had slept that that guy a year ago that was suppose to meet me for a date..“- this is giving my saying a literal meaning (a blushing and sad face emoji

“Family really has the power to bring you higher or lower and why they choose lower, I have no idea“- so to bring themselves higher. In the above example, I am guessing that your mother told you because she was afraid at the time that someone else will tell you, she felt anxious about it, and so to feel better herself, to feel calmer, she told you. The result: she felt calmer (higher) and you felt somewhat distressed (lower), I imagine.

“and hope I do not do that to them..“- keep your 3rd eye chakra open and your crown chakra working (with approved breaks and sleep time, of course), and you will continue to not elevate/ help yourself by lowering/ hurting them.