Dear Jasmine:

Welcome back! I remember you, we communicated for a long time, you had a different account, had your photo above your screen name. Unless you deleted your thread, it’s still on record. I want to find it, if it’s there, and if it’s okay with you that I refer to it. I remember you got your high school equivalent diploma: so it was in 2022 (feels like we communicated before 2 years ago, more like five). Do you remember the month (and year) you last posted here?

“I currently cook at a high school, the schedule allows me to drop off and pick my son up from school. But it does not cover our living expenses, so I am depending on the government for partial food and shelter assistance. My goal is to go to trade school and earn a license so I can fully provide for us“- I remember that your last job, when we communicated, was a security guard, and back then, like now, your son is your first priority.

“I think I don’t feel accomplished because I can’t afford our basic needs. So my Goal is to Figure it out.“- your first and most admirable accomplishment is and has been: being a good mother!

I hope to read from you soon!

anita

Dear butterfly:

I want to re-reply to your original post more attentively than yesterday:

You: “I like being organized and tidy in my physical space, tend to be very focused and detail-oriented when I do stuff, I always seek peace and harmony… I need huge chunks of focus time and hate being bothered when I am working. I tend to hyperfocus on the task and is very sensitive to interruptions. I feel stressed out for him to barge in dramatically every time he has emotional outbursts”.

Him: “he is a great guy…  he has ADHD… He is spatially chaotic, extravagant…  He has constant meetings with clients and he pointed out that he LOVES when I am here too, since he can share everything that happens at his job, which he is very, very fond of. And that he wants to share that spontaneously, when it happens… He admitted to be very intense and would not change as it has always been like this… He said that he would still open the door and barge in”.

Question: if you were spatially chaotic, extravagant, very intense, and would share with him everything that happens at your job any time you felt like it, spontaneously when it happens, barging into his space when he is focused on his job, either during a meeting with a client, or when preparing for one, would he like it?

It so happens that I’ve had ADHD since I was 5 or so. When I happen to just be around, or interact with other hyper, untidy people, I get distressed. I can’t even follow what they are saying, nor do I want to. What suits me is people who are the opposite of me: tidy, organized;  people who appear calm, even keeled, composed, people who are not talking fast or too much. People who talk slowly, with some breaks between words and sentences. So, if I was in your place, butterfly, I would go crazy!

Maybe he is like me in that if he lived with a woman like him, hyper, untidy and all, he’d go crazy, so he needs someone who is the opposite of him, someone like you.

Here is a key word for me in what you shared: LOVE- not his love for you, but his love for accommodating his ADHD: “he LOVES when I am here too, since he can share everything that happens at his job“- I used to let ADHD take over me but I have learned not to accommodate it anymore because I know how unpleasant and distressing it is for me to absorb someone else’s ADHD, let alone to experience my own. (Maybe his ADHD is stronger than mine, I don’t know).

It is now possible for me to want to say something and.. not to say it. As a matter of practice, I do my best every day to use what I term the NPARR Strategy: when I feel distressed, I Notice that I do, I Pause (before I say or do something), Address the situation (asking myself various questions, one of which is: should I say or do this or that in this situation, will it help or harm me/ others?), next: I Respond-or-not (I say or do something, or not), and finally I Redirect (my attention elsewhere).

“He wants to be close to me so much, and I love it but at the same time I hate it.. What do you think?“- I think that if he is not able,  and/ or is not willing to adequately discipline his reactions to his ADHD, then the only way you can be in a relationship with him is in smaller portions: working (and perhaps living) separately in two locations far enough from each other so that he can’t barge into your space whenever he feels like it.

Looking at the title of your thread: “I try setting boundaries and fail a lot“- physical boundaries: working and perhaps living in two different locations, far away from each other, is all I can think of.

anita

Dear Sandy:

You made a clear and convincing argument as to why you should not marry this woman, but break up instead: (1) you called the relationship toxic (“I realized that we are in a toxic relationship“), (2) she wants you to live with her and her parents, and you can’t (“she can only marry a man who can live with her parents after marriage, and I can’t because I want to live independently with my wife“), (3) you care about healthy eating habits, she and her parents do not (“I build healthy eating habits, while her family doesn’t“), (4) she and her parents are religious Muslims, you are not (“Her parents don’t know that I am not a religious Muslim, so it would be weird for them if I am not praying. She also lives in a very religious village, so I think the environment wouldn’t fit me well“), (5) you believe in privacy, she does not (“she always wants to know who messages me on WhatsApp or wants to know my social media passwords so she can check them anytime“), there are more differences that you pointed out, but the above is convincing enough (isn’t it?) that marriage with her is a bad idea (a bad idea for you and for her).

“I must decide whether I should marry her or break up, and I have ended up with indecision for some time. What I know is that she thinks breaking up is a negative thing to do“- do you think that breaking up and preventing a troubled  and miserable marriage is a negative thing to do?

“Also, I have some questions: 1. Should a couple have the same spiritual path/religion for marriage in order to have a healthy relationship and a happy marriage?“- not necessarily, but a couple has to have the same basic values and expectations in common, such as: living with, or not living with parents after marriage; keeping some privacy after marriage, or not; practicing a certain religion, or not.

“2. Even if I choose another partner who can compromise with me (not her), after some years, values might change. What can we do if we can’t compromise again?“- focus on now, on your current situation, not on a future-maybe- situation. There are serious incompatibilities in this current relationship, now.

anita

Dear Zenith:

“My husbands childhood was so normal because he doesn’t overact to situations/people like me“- maybe he under-reacts as a result of his version of abnormal childhood.

“For the past 6 years . My anxiety was effecting only ME. Now this anger is effecting my relationships. I never felt this much anger before in my life.“- Rage at not getting the attention you want..?

You can type away your rage here, if you want, let it express itself through your fingers and into the screen..?

anita

Dear Zenith:

“I wish had a NORMAL childhood so that I don’t have to go through this.“- I understand your sentiment. I used to wish the same, but stopped wishing this,  knowing that it-is-what-it-is. I don’t personally know anyone who had a normal childhood. The term “normal childhood” may be wishful thinking in itself.

anita

I am so sorry, taiga: it’s been 5 years of a non-consummated marriage.. not a real-marriage, is it? (I will reply further Mon morning, Sun night here).

anita

Dear Zenith:

Aug 10: “I feel like I am good enough. I feel like my friend is not good enough. She is the one who caused the distance by mingling with other group of people“, Aug 6: “This has been happening since childhood. When I look at my past or since I started schooling. There were so many friends who were so close with me in the beginning and they would leave me when they found new friends“- it is your painful childhood experience, since you started schooling, that is awakening in your life now, as an adult.

It feels like what you feel is unique to what is happening now, but the intensity of your hurt and anger is about what happened 20-30 years ago. I know that you wrote in regard to the above (Aug 6): “I never left angry or obsessed about it. I would just let it go. I am unable to let go of this friend“- when we experience deep hurt and anger as children, we instinctually push it down to below our awareness (feeling numb to it), but then what is pushed down rises up and enters our awareness- in a new, adult context.

The article you sent me a link to ends with: “Have the courage to seek the truth within yourself and acknowledge the effect of your thoughts, beliefs, and actions with compassion and without judgment. Only then can you choose a different way, a freer way. Sitting across from her that day, there was freedom. I could feel it. And I think she could feel it too.”-

– (1) have the courage, Zenith, to seek the truth within you: the truth about how you really felt growing up when your close friends left you to be with new friends (at least how you felt initially, before pushing down your feelings), (2) practice compassion for yourself as you remember the truth (and later on, find compassion for those you currently judge, whenever possible and appropriate), and (3) experience a measure of much needed freedom from the parts of your past that have been so painful.

anita

Dear t:

“I was very emotionally numb as a child and have mostly successfully avoided my mother as an adult. I have never experienced this kind of outward emotional instability with crying and everything“- the pushed down crying and everything was there within you since childhood, it’s just that it recently rose to the surface.

In your original post, you wrote: “When we aren’t spending time together I am extremely emotional in ways I have never experienced before“- I think that long ago, as a child, you experienced being extremely emotional before you instinctively pushed that extreme emotionality down below your full awareness (repressed ad suppressed it), resulting in feeling numb.

“The biggest similarity I see is that my boyfriend, like my mother, has good intentions. He never intends to hurt me but hurts me anyways“- my mother, who behaved similarly to yours, repeatedly told me that her intentions were always good. It confused me a whole lot: why do (supposed) good intentions hurt so much? It is only within the last few years that I understood- finally- that what she told me so many times wasn’t true.

Lets look at what you shared July 30: “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.“- when she blew up, yelled, threw things, etc., she was angry, wasn’t she? What is the motivation/ intention behind anger (in animals, not only in humans), if not to hurt (or to threaten to hurt) the object of one’s anger?

Back to your recent post: “Then it’s followed by lots of reassurance – affection, ‘I love yous,’ talks about fun things we’ll do in the future. A very similar pattern to my mother, though of course the arguments were different (my boyfriend has not yelled at me or anything like that).“- once your mother was done expressing and releasing her anger against you (however temporarily), she tried to make it up to you, to sort of, undo her violence with I-love-yous, etc., wasn’t she?

That’s what my mother did. I think that she was trying to make herself feel better: to feel like a good, loving mother (her preferrable image of herself), following her verbal and physical violence against me.

But your boyfriend, exhibiting no violence against you, when he is being reassuring and affectionate- he is trying to make you feel better. A different pattern, different motivation?

anita