Dear Eva:

Thank you for sharing all of this. I can hear how much you’ve been carrying, and how exhausting and confusing this cycle has been for you. What you described — the sudden warmth, the hope it awakens, and then the abrupt shift back into coldness and blame — would shake anyone. It makes sense that you felt something open in you when he was attentive, and that it hurt so deeply when it disappeared the next day.

What stands out to me most is your clarity. You’re seeing the pattern as it is happening, not months later. You’re noticing the contrast between how you feel when he’s present and how you feel when he withdraws. You’re noticing how quickly your needs become “complaints” in his eyes, and how easily your affection becomes something he minimizes or criticizes. That awareness is yours. It comes from living this relationship day by day, and from knowing what it feels like in your own body.

You’re not “the problem.” You’re someone who wants consistency, care, and basic emotional presence — and you’re noticing that the moments of warmth are brief, while the moments of dismissal and blame are long. You’re noticing how hope keeps pulling you back in, and how quickly that hope turns into hurt again. None of this means you’re asking for too much. It means you’re asking for the minimum, and you’re seeing clearly when it isn’t there.

I trust your ability to understand your own experience. You don’t need to rush into any decision or conclusion. You can keep noticing what feels true for you, at your own pace, in your own words. I’m here whenever you want to talk again. No pressure to respond until you feel ready.

🙂🌿 Anita

Dear Girija 🙂

Mis-attunement I suppose means not paying enough attention to what the other person is saying, not only to the words, but the feeling behind the words, and rushing to offer interpretations and solutions before really listening.

And so, I want to truly listen to you.

“I am afraid of life and carry a belief that there’s a fundamental incompetence in me that might mess my life up”-

I can see how this belief leads to fear.

“The way he looked at me like I was adorable and intriguing”- I can see how addictive this can be.

And when you’re in a “cage of fear”, I can see how he gave you a temporary break from that cage.

“Only person she (the coworker) has to take care of is herself”- meaning, you feel that you need to, or have to take care of your mother? Other family members?

If so, that certainly adds weight to everything, as in any possible “incompetence” on your part harms those you’re “supposed” to take care of.

Am I understanding what you’re saying?

Have you been taking your family’s dysfunction as if it was something that you are supposed to fix?

“Trusting I’m not the problem”- I so wish to understand this sentence better.

I wonder if you were burdened all along, growing up and onward, by a belief that you’re supposed to fix things that wete out of your control, things you didn’t cause, things no child ( of any age) can fix?

I am asking because I really want to understand ✨️

“I don’t want to be that afraid anymore”- if you were free to worry only about yourself, would you be less afraid?

🤔 Anita

Dear Samy:

Wow! I read through the first and last 2 pages of our communication back in 2022, which included me quoting from what you shared in 2019, and I am bamboozled (perhaps the right word to describe it, sounds like it) in regard to how mis- attuned my replies where.

And then, out of frustration that my (mis- attuned) replies were not helpful to you, I announced that I was withdrawing from your thread.

You were kind to me throughout my ongoing mis-attunement. Maybe because you’ve been used to not being seen, or heard or felt for so long 😔

The co-worker you shared about yesterday, he “was just reassuring, validating…Someone who finally saw me”-

Is it a wonder you emotionally attached to him, following him to different teams?

A person starving for validation, starving to be seen- since birth, literally (remember your mother told you that she doesn’t even remember seeing you fir the first time?)-

Is it a wonder that being seen, or the appearance of being seen, is so intoxicating..more than rating at work?

Anita

Hey Dear Confused:

The Greek guy.. well, he was born in New York. I suppose his parents were born in Greece. I’ll ask him next time where his family is from. He identifies as Greek Orthodox.

You wrote: “imagine me cursing at her? I would be done.”

But when she cursed at you, you were not done with her.

It makes me wonder if you kept yourself gentle and non‑reactive all this time so you wouldn’t upset her. That’s a heavy emotional position to hold.

For a long time, I thought of her as soft, fragile, wounded, gentle — because that’s how you described her. But her actual behavior toward you doesn’t match that picture. Calling you names like “narcissistic asshole” says something real about how she handles conflict, not about gentleness.

I’m not saying this to attack her. I’m saying it because you’re starting to see the difference between who she actually was with you, and the version of her you carried inside. And that difference matters for your healing.

Your sister said: “One day she’s gonna realize how hard she fumbled because u are a wonderful guy that u don’t meet often in life and u also don’t fit in interrogation rooms-like relationships.”-

Ditto — I agree that you’re a rare, wonderful guy, and you don’t deserve an interrogation‑room‑like relationship.

So, this was a pattern… the interrogations? And in between those, she was “caring, compassionate and considerate”? I’m trying to understand how those two very different behaviors fit together.

🌿 Anita

Hey ✨️✨️✨️ Confused:

After I submitted my first reply to you this Saturday morning, I ran the post I replied to through Copilot and he said that indeed you expressed assertiveness and agency, telling her (paraphrased), that she is responsible for her own reactions,and that she was blaming and trying to hurt you so that she may feel better,

But right after, your assertiveness and agency sort of disappeared into her feelings: “I imagined her angry and crying and I wanna hug her tight”.

You can read the post before this one (by the way, I often ask Copilot to explain things to me in the simplest language), and tell me if it resonates- or not. It’s okay either way.

🌿 Anita

Hey 🙂 Confused:

Not really, I know JP for years as we frequented the same couple of places, one of which was the local taproom (now closed 😔). He mentioned that he’s from Greece and told stories many times. He’s also a known collectors of classic cars, by the way.

I feel better about her having apologized for those 2 words she used. Still, I no longer see her as the consistently gentle person I thought she was.

I think that you were spot on when you told her that she was looking for ways to blame/ hurt you so that she could feel better.

I also agree with you saying that you’re NOT the problem causing her all the issues. I guess her thinking is that if she gets rid of “the problem”, she gets rid of her issues..?

Yes, like a murderer blaming the victim for how they reacted 😔

“How we act is already within us”- I just had the positive feeling that I am reading the words of a wise man 👍

You are welcome, Confused, and thank you for being who you are consistently: kind, thoughtful.. and wise 👏

🌿 Anita

Hey Dear Confused 🙂

I thought about you during my little outing this Friday evening because I was sitting across a Greek guy, much older than you though

“I don’t think I will ever find a person that gets me in so many ways”-

Well, she didn’t get you when she called you “a narcissist asshole”. Somehow, her calling you that- and assuming she didn’t take those words back since she used those words- bothers me.

I’ve communicated with you almost daily, often enough multiple times per day, and I know You’re neither a narcissist nor an asshole.

Imagine that you called her those 2 words.. Can you imagine saying those words to her?

I am sorry you are hurting, Confused 😔

🌿 Anita