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anitaParticipantHi LeenBee:
You are very kind to thank me for inquiring about you. Most people don’t bother to say thank you 🙏
I am not surprised that the former new tenant left and that you intend to leave as well. It’s a good thing you’re not in a rush to leave.
Some dynamics can’t be changed or adequately changed, so better leave them behind.
Does he know that you intend to move, or are you keeping it a secret (as well as where you’d be moving to, when time comes)?
🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantGood Friday, Zenith:
Thank you for pasting the above here! My goodness, ChatGPT sounds almost as intelligent as Copilot 🙂
To no longer try to win an argument (in your head), but to exit it 👍
Yes, I agree that you’re (particularly) sensitivity to imbalances in relationships, and that family hierarchies tend to be permanent, and that the wiser choice is to set quiet boundaries rather than dramatic 👍
I ditto ChatGPT 👍👍👍
🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantContinued (moving from 🖥 to📱):
In your first post, Nini, you wrote that he loves you deeply, that he is the one for you and that you don’t want any other partner but him.
But clearly, you want him to be different from who he is.
I imagine he is attuned enough to sense that indeed you want him to be not as he is.
Did he express to you anything like that and how he feels about it (perhaps he feels inadequate?)
Seems to me that if you want to stay with him, it’d be best that you truly accept him like he is, and be content with modest changes he is able to make (like buying you 💐 for your birthday, let’s say).
But how to do it when you’re hurting so much?
Attend to that old wound I mentioned in the earlier message- through Journaling perhaps, by sharing about it here, and/ or by attending therapy.
As a side note: personally (and I am much older than you), I have never come across a man who is even close to how attuned you wish your boyfriend to be.
And perhaps and I wouldn’t have liked it if I did because I need lots of emotional space, not over- involvement.
Is my input this morning helpful?
🌄 🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantGood morning, Nini:
Rereading your posts, I can see that you love through attunement.
Attunement is the ability to tune into another person’s inner world — their emotions, needs, signals, and subtle cues (LIKE a shift in tone of voice/ facial expression) — and respond in a way that makes the other person feel seen, understood, and valued.
You sense what the other person might be feeling, even if they don’t say it directly, you adjust your behavior in a way that matches their emotional state, and you remember details that matter to them because those details help you understand who they are.
Attunement is like dancing. Some people naturally feel the rhythm and move with you. Others love you just as much, but they step on your toes without meaning to.
Nini, you are highly attuned to your boyfriend. He is less attuned — not because he doesn’t love you, but because he’s wired differently.
The mismatch creates pain because you feel unseen and he feels confused about why you’re hurt. You interpret his style as lack of love, and he may interpret your needs as “too much”
Yours is a high‑attunement attachment style. You love by immersing yourself in the other person. This is not “too much.” It’s simply your way of loving.
Your boyfriend loves you — but in a different style. From your description, he is steady, cares for you, tries his best, but is not naturally expressive, forgets details, multitasks, etc. This is a low‑attunement attachment style, but not a lack of love.
He loves differently through consistency, through presence, through trying, through being there in his own way. He’s not withholding; he’s simply not wired the way you are.
The real pain is that you feels unseen- this is the emotional core. You say: “No one ever listened to me… even now my family doesn’t take me seriously.” So, when her boyfriend forgets things, misses emotional cues, multitasks, doesn’t respond with the same intensity …it doesn’t just disappoint you.
It reopens an old wound. It confirms a story she learned long ago: “I am not important enough for someone to pay attention to.”
That’s why “small things” feel big.
(I will continue in the next message)
Anita
anitaParticipantMay be annoying, Zenith- but it really says nothing about who you are as a person, and everything about her pattern of thinking and relating before she ever met you.
(These are my closing thoughts for this Thursday night 🌙)
Anita
anitaParticipantHow R U, LeenBee?
anitaParticipantHappy Friday (tomorrow), Anna, 13 years after you posted the above, followed by no one’s reply; 2 years before I knew about tiny buddha and singed in.
You were 43 at the time (I was 52) you submitted this one and only post in the forums. You should be 56 now.
I wish someone answered you back then, and of course, the chance you are reading this is close to zero. Yet, you have been noticed and responded to, finally.
🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantI am not sure, but lots of things vanish when guilt gets into the picture. Guilt in small potions can be useful (like a potion of 🍦 or 🍕), but too much and (wait, the emoji is appropriate here) you 🤢
anitaParticipantOh, I get it. She’s (the other DIL) the wife of a “king” (to her) and you are the wife of a lowly serf.. why didn’t I get it beforehand..
That’s annoying, isn’t it 😐
anitaParticipantGuiltfused Confused?
anitaParticipantI understand you not wanting to hurt your husband’s feelings. He sounds like a good man and you are good for caring to not hurt his feelings!
Why do you think your MIL dumps all this generational trauma on you and not on her other DIL?
🤔 Anita
anitaParticipantHmm Confused, I think that you are making an excellent point 👉
You needed time for yourself back then (Nov), time to be alone, but felt too GUILTY to ask for it, fearing that your fair need (everyone needs alone-time) would hurt her.
That’s an emotional quagmire: guilt 4 a natural, human need.
What do u think 🤔?
(no vomit face emoji), Anita
anitaParticipantHey again, Nini 🙂
* “We all can’t be Shakespeare” (Roberta)- I like that,funny 😊
Yet your feelings that eat away at you, Nini, aren’t a funny thing 😐
You need way more attention than you’re getting. For one, because the two of you live far away from each other and you only talk on the phone these days, and second, because as a child, “no one ever listened to (you)”, your words.
How did it feel back then, growing up (and now, as an adult) to not be listened to and to not be taken seriously by your family?
That sounds painful 😒. It creates a need, a desire to be super listened to as an adult, by a romantic partner.. does it?
You may think that him telling you that his favorite color is the color of your eyes is not too much to ask, except that he can’t read your mind and know what you would love for him to say at any one time.
You say that you can read his mind. Wow! I was never able to do that. As a child I tried real hard to read my mother’s mind but I think that my reading failed every time.
Reading your posts, on one hand you sound reasonable, logical, in regard to your expectations of him. On the other hand, I “hear” a hurt little girl who needs the kind of attention she never got: to be listened to, to be taken seriously, that which you deserved back then, and now.
🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantb back 2 u in a few hours, Zenith
anitaParticipantI understand you wanting to be happy and wish you will.
I will soon be away from the 📱 for a few hours but when I’m back I would like to get back to you.
In the meantime, I woul like to understand how your boyfriend shows that he doesn’t take you seriously, an example or 2 perhaps?
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 