Dear Seaturtle:

I hope that you are not experiencing any post surgery complications…. how are you?

anita

Dear Lunaryogini:

“He says he would be willing to take a polygraph test to prove that he hasn’t cheated on me as well” (June 2023)- I didn’t read this part earlier this morning, so, it’s interesting that he already brought up the polygraph test idea.

“The reason he lied was because he was scared of my reaction because he knew I was very uptight about anything to do with his ex-wife… he is scared of my reaction if he would just tell me the truth“- in every man there is a scared little boy who is scared of a woman’s anger.

“This morning, I was looking over our shared bank accounts and something came up along the lines of ‘EV raffle’ for $230 so I questioned him about it.  He lied and said that he did it last year… I don’t think $230 is a big deal but I am feeling very hurt and betrayed that he would lie to me about something so silly like this…We share finances, run two businesses together“- I don’t understand the reason behind this lie… have you been in the habit of criticizing his personal and business financial purchases and choices?

“I tend to have big reactions to things like this so his fear in my reaction is justifiable” (June 2023)- big reactions such as raising your voice, getting emotional/ angry… interrogating him like a harsh detective interrogating a suspect?

“I know this lack of trust stems from something inside myself, my past, my upbringing… I was and still am very traumatized by the fact that he lied to me about all of this, which happened back in late 2020/2021” (Feb 11, 2024)- You were in your late 20s back in 2020-21. I wonder who lied to you 20 years earlier, when you were a child, a lie so distressing that it traumatized you for years to come…?

“For about four months I kept having these invasive nightmares of him cheating on me with his ex-wife. One night he finally admitted that there was more as far as there being several times that she came to the house to visit the cats/etc. He promises that he never was with her intimately.“- he admitted and promised, but he can’t admit wrongdoings that someone else (a parent perhaps) did to you and make promises in the name of that person. It never works for us when, as adults, we try to retroactively resolve childhood traumas by proxy of a romantic partner.

“I am very avoidant and always threaten him with leaving the relationship“- it is abusive on your part to always threaten him, isn’t it?

“I am also an independent woman and own a condo that I am renting to his brother, but I am always fantasizing about just getting my condo back and leaving my partner because I don’t fully trust him“- because you don’t trust him and because you are angry at him and want to punish him…?

“His ex-wife has been completely out of his life for two years now since he gave their cats to her, but I am still traumatized by the lying/having things hid from me… last night I had another one of those invasive nightmares… I don’t know if this is stemming from my own fears, PTSD from the lying or if my intuition is trying to communicate something with me. Any outside advice here would be very much appreciated. Thank you for witnessing and reading my share“-

– You are welcome. You mentioned PTSD originating from being lied to by this man, in your late 20s. Are you familiar with the concept (and diagnosis) of Complex PTSD, which is about suffering repeated trauma experienced in childhood? I suffer from C-PTSD, and I know how heavily and terribly it affected the great majority of my adult life.

anita

Dear allette:

I hope that you are feeling better today..?

You shared that you’ve been in a relationship with your boyfriend for 2 years. A month ago, he told you “that he is not feeling the same way anymore“. You asked him “what brought the problem“?, and “he said it (is) nothing, his feelings are not just the same, and he feels like we should break up as he doesn’t want a recurrence in the future“.

The two of you then agreed “to work out for a month on the connection“,  and the result, 2 weeks later: “he said there is an improvement but not enough… he said he need some space to navigate through his feelings“.

The two of you then took a 2-weeks break, which ended yesterday (Sat, Feb 10), when he told you that “there is no way to save our relationship“. The two of you agreed “to meet for a dialogue“, but he postponed meeting you, and by yesterday afternoon (your 2nd post), you did not meet for a dialogue, “he doesn’t want to explain anything… we have really never actually talked seriously about what is happening to us now“.

I will be trying to bring up possibilities in the following quotes & comments as to what’s been happening in your relationship. These are only possibilities based on the little information that you provided in only 2 posts:

“When I told him it’s gonna be a long talk, he simply said ‘no it’s not‘. Why can’t we just hear each other out?“- you did not ask or suggest to him that the two of you will have a talk, and a long talk at that.. you told him. And like a child who does not like to be told what to do/ to be bossed around, he said: NO, IT’S NOT (going to be a long talk)..?

“We have the most perfect relationship…   By perfect I mean, We really never had a heated argument. We always try to solve the problem immediately“- there were arguments (although not heated arguments). I wonder how those arguments were resolved and if they were resolved to his satisfaction. Maybe some heat built up in him during many (?) not quite resolved arguments, and that heat caused him to end the relationship eventually.

Maybe he is and has been a selfish, heartless man who does not care about most or all other people, including about his girlfriend of 2 years. Maybe he felt powerless in the relationship (for valid and/ or invalid reasons) and wants his power back…?

anita

Thinking about you this Sat evening, me aka Pete aka blckhwkdwn1, nothing weird, just wondering how you’re feeling/ doing…

anita

Dear Seaturtle: I was focused enough to understand that the surgery went well, no cancer identified.. good thing! I’ll read and reply further Sun morning, good night, Healing Seaturtle!

anita

How are you, Ssleeping?

anita

Dear Caroline:

I re-read your thread from the beginning, taking notes, and this is what I figure this morning after a few hours of study (I’ll refer to your girlfriend as G, and in my comments, I will be using the present tense in regard to what you shared back in 2023 and onwards, for simplicity):

About G: “She works from home and is on camera very often and her mother is coming into her apartment (it’s in the same house) when she’s in a meeting sometimes” (July 1, 2023)- reads like her mother is intrusive and doesn’t ask G’s permission before entering G’s apartment. I assume that this is not new behavior on her mother’s part.

When you met G, “She did not have a job for years and didn’t believe in herself, she had this job where she cleaned some lady’s house, earning very little money. You wouldn’t even pay rent for her monthly earnings. She had no self esteem… she was so humble, shy” (July 1, 2023). This is in line with her growing up with an intrusive, dominant mother who made G feel powerless.

In relation to G, at the time of the beginning relationship, you felt superior, the one in power: “Then I got this job and I recommended her. (I have slightly higher position)… Me bossing her around was.. I don’t know really.. telling her to make dinner while she was at my place, telling her to pick up a package etc. The least she could do, because 4 days a week she was at home (she cleaned only on 1 day)  and I worked 6 days a week” (July 1), “When she was cleaning and I had better job.. I think yes I thought of her as inferior. She is younger and I already had more money, I paid for her many times. So I think I saw her as less capable at this time. Also I did shopping, made dinners etc. She usually just stayed at home doing nothing” (Jan 21, 2024)-

– At the time, you felt more powerful than G. You wanted to help her feel more powerful than she felt, and, I think, you didn’t feel comfortable with that power, so you decreased (diminished) your power in the relationship,  so that she will feel increased: “I wanted her to be more confident and to see her succeed. And it got out of hand because I started to diminish myself so that she wouldn’t feel worse” (July 1)

But it got out of hand (your words) and she became the dominant one in the relationship: “She does this often – I like something or want something like new furniture or new tv, or just order sushi – she always says ‘Why do you need it?’, ‘No, stop it’,  ‘don’t’,  and I …. stop it. I listen to her” (June 2, 2023), “she tells me to do or not to do things all the time, and the reason might be that I ask her about everything. While we are shopping I ask her ‘should we buy this’ ‘maybe I will buy this’ and she almost always says ‘No, don’t’. ‘You can’t afford it’ ‘Why do you need this’ and it’s always on grocery shopping that she cares about spending too much money (my money buying my things – and I have my own money)” (June 3, 2023)

Growing up, she had little to no power. For example, when she accompanied her mother shopping, and her mother over shopped, she had no power to stop her mother from buying too many things (“she used to shop with her mother and she would go around the shop for hours choosing stupid and unnecessary things to buy“, June 3, 2023), but with you, Caroline, she .. sort of made up for that lack of power by telling you what she couldn’t tell her mother: “No, stop it“!, “Don’t“!

“She is in power and allows me to do things. She decides” (June 8)- I am guessing that she found this new power intoxicating.

“I hope she will stop bullying me but I am afraid she kind of.. got used to it already. As I mentioned she apologized and then she continued doing the same. I think she doesn’t really notice it anymore, it’s how she communicates with me… I hate this life. Sorry if this is too much. I coped with so many similar situations already and seems like I have no one. No one who respects me anymore.” (June 2, 2023)- she likes her new power. And you hate going back to powerlessness with which you grew up.. your old powerlessness.

You hate your powerlessness, but you keep feeding it: “I realized she tells me to do or not to do things all the time, and the reason might be that I ask her about everything. While we are shopping I ask her ‘should we buy this’ ‘maybe I will buy this’… I ask her everything” (June 3, 2023).

Why do you feed something you hate (being powerless)? I believe that the answer to tis question is in this quote: “I  feel like there is no ME in this relationship. I became HER… I do not have autonomy. I become the other person. I think I am a bit scared.. of not being someone else, of being my own. I don’t know if this makes sense but I feel like this is what is happening here. I think being separate will break us up because I need her approval, I am scared of doing something she doesn’t like, of having life that she does not like, approve, does not want to go into. I prefer becoming someone else than risking her not approving my hobbies, lifestyle etc.” (June 13, 2023)-

– Seems to me, that being yourself is scary because in your mind, ever since you were a child, being you (having your own opinions, likes, wants, etc., and asserting those), meant being totally alone. And for a child, being totally alone is a threat to one’s very life.

“We finally agreed we were going to see Italy or some other place but we agreed on Italy. And I wanted to include her in searching for plane tickets etc., because I felt like she was leaving this for me and it felt too much” (Feb 4, 2024)- she wasn’t controlling (she didn’t take your power away) in regard to deciding on plane tickets, etc., you had the power to make those decisions, but you felt uncomfortable with that power.. it was too much power, for you, too much of a threat.

What followed reads like a negotiation of where to go, a negotiation in which, seems to me, she fairly included you, and the choice of where to go was not because she bullied you, not at all in this case. You said let’s go to Athens (“I said: no, let’s go to Athens“), so Athens it is.

Back to the fear of having and asserting your own opinions, likes, preferences, etc., what happened to you as a child when you expressed such to your parents/ family members?  In my case, when I did (and I don’t remember expressing), I know that I was dismissed at best and punished at worse.. ridiculed and made fun of.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

“The dreams change, but the last two nights in a row in the dream, I have an opportunity to go back to the way it was, and my dream self wants to. As if my dream self, third eye closed, thinks that suffering through the bad parts of the relationship are worth getting the good parts back in my life. I miss the smallest things like kissing his cheeks..”-

– there is a saying, “the heart wants what the heart wants“. In other words, your heart chakra wants N back. It’s not the job of the heart chakra to see the suffering through the bad parts of the relationship, it’s the 3rd eye chakra’s job. When you’re asleep… all your eyes are closed, and the heart and sacral chakras have their say. All chakras’ input are valid, but the crown chakra has to do a good job putting all the input together into an accurate bigger picture.

“Tomorrow I have my pre-operation for my surgery… The surgery is supposed to be Friday“- I am looking forward to read, I hope, that there are no complications and that the surgery was successful.

“Next is to get my passport from N. I have thought about sending someone to get it for me, but there is a bigger part of me that wants to see him“- it may turn out to be a good idea to see him in-person. Who knows, maybe he will arrange to have your stuff outside his home right before you pick it up, and not see you… so to hurt your feelings.

anita