Hi Anita,

Again thanks for your reply.

I feel like I shouldn’t be ‘whining’ because there was no ‘physical’ abuse or trauma. Even going to a therapist feels like I am being dramatic because people would ask why and just tell me it’s a bad day and it will pass. But I know it is rooted in my childhood and it’s like a jar that was closed all these years and now I took the lid off and everything is coming out and overwhelming me. But it is happening inside of me. Nobody can see what my mind is doing to me and how I am mentally affected by it. People just see my life and think I must be so happy. And of course I am so grateful to be in this relationship and to have two parents who are healthy and well. But that doesn’t take away the fact that internally I just can’t handle it all. The pressure of having to be happy and shocking people when I tell them that I actually feel really miserable is something I now have to deal with as well. So everything together – the things that were already going on and the new stress factors of living here – just got too much and I guess that’s why I am in the position I’m in now and why I took it out on my relationship – and maybe made myself believe it was the relationship that was making me unhappy as it’s the only thing I’ve got control over right now.

I indeed was always angry and jealous of other kids whose parents were still together. Luckily I have good friends in both situations and I always was able to talk about that with them. I realise what seems like a happy home often isn’t. But as a child I didn’t have that ability, I never questioned my situation because things just were the way they were. People often tell me that I’m actually lucky because I was so young when they divorced and I don’t remember them fighting. But of course I am not lucky because I didn’t grow up in a healthy marriage, even if that later fell apart. Even though my parents found new loves and started new families, I saw how they were both managing a household by themselves, which is not what your intentions are when you start a family. So in that way I am used to seeing and kind of always expecting relationships to fail. My mom would start dating somebody and I would meet them and their kids and then I never saw them again. And of course this is what happens when you date and it doesn’t work out but to me it was always very confusing. I just had to be flexible and accept it. I never got a choice what my circumstances looked like. Which has given me anxiety as I often wake up and believe everything good is just going to be taken away from me without an explanation.

One of my biggest fears is that my boyfriend is all of a sudden going to decide he doesn’t want to be with me anymore. He has never said anything like that or has given me the feeling like that is going to happen but still I am kind of awaiting that moment. And in the past when I broke up with somebody – I always had reasons and I don’t regret any of the breakups, it’s more the way it happened that scarred me more – I was always feeling like oh yes of course this happens, because that’s how it goes. The fact that I felt like I just don’t love him anymore and I don’t want to be with him anymore even though that I do, is probably me sabotaging myself because I need to bring that balance back. I am used to having things not going my way and seeing people leave my life that I am so rooted in this believe that it will eventually happen, if not now than after a few years.

It is really painful to open the jar and realise all of the traumatic experiences because I’ve pushed them away for so long. I read that’s what children do as a coping mechanism, as adults you remember things from your childhood that you had ‘forgotten’ all this time because you just couldn’t handle it as a child.

But I am ready to do what it takes, because I owe it to my future children and myself. I know that I can be fully happy and that I deserve it and I want to accept it all.

Take your time reading this and give me more of your advice when you want. Thank you so much, you are a blessing.

Hi Anita,

What you say is completely true. I’ve had a rough childhood. My parents divorced when I was 4 and I have no memory of them ever being (happy) together. From then on when I was with my mom I had to miss my dad and vice versa. I mainly lived with my mom and my sister and even though it wasn’t easy, I saw how my mom managed it all and eventually find the love of her life. My bf’s parents are still together and he has lived with them in the same house his entire life – something that is foreign to me as I moved houses often, also having to pack bags all the time to go spend the weekend at my dad’s house or living at my grandparents for a while. His entire life has seemed the same up to now and he never had to deal with drastic changes.

I’ve always thought that I was okay with my childhood as nothing majorly traumatising happened. But the older I get the more I realised how it emotionally scarred me. I don’t think that I’ll ever feel ready to marry a guy and have children because of my parents. I will always keep thinking that I don’t want to put them in the same situation as me. I love them and I no they did the best they could, but they themselves were trying to figure out life, so that is obviously not going to make my life easier.

My dad hasn’t been around much, when I was young we had a ‘legal’ arrangement but when I got older and went to boarding school, I didn’t visit him regularly anymore. I’ve never felt good enough for him and have sought his approval my entire life. When I broke up with my ex I saw a therapist. She understood me so well and she explained how I was dating that guy to make up for the emotional pain my dad had given me. This got me to learn more about my ‘inner child’ and I really see how it has affected a lot of my life decisions.

My bf doesn’t understand this because he never had to deal with these situations. And I’m happy he is an emotionally stable person – my ex boyfriend’s parents were in the middle of a divorce while we were dating and it felt like I was reliving the whole thing over again. So my current bf never having dealt with divorce, or divorce of the parents of somebody you loved and not even having dealt with heartbreak, of course I’m going to feel as if he doesn’t understand me. That’s all very intense and he doesn’t know that, he just sees how it affected me.

But I don’t know how to recover from this childhood, if that’s even possible. I know that seeing the triggers and knowing where it comes from, is a lot already. But it doesn’t benefit my bf or our relationship if I can’t change it or act on it. To me it is a lot of progress but to him it is as if I’m an emotional machine who can’t live with herself sometimes.

Anita, you ask all the right questions because in the end it always comes down to this. You have advice on how to truly deal with it?