Dear Anita,

Yeah, I named him. I’ve had a 1984 W123 Merc when I was 18.. It was my second car. First car was a Dacia which I’ve modified to go racing on the street. Such crazy years those were… Then, I thought I had my life ahead of me.. And I did. That’s still true today I guess.. but the feeling has changed. Now I just want some peace :))

I know a thing or two about the effects of alcohol on my social life. When I was living in Spain the majority of my social interactions were lubricated by alcohol. I felt good when drinking, I was less inhibited and didn’t feel self conscious. Then there was ecstasy. That happened on occasion.. whenever I would go to a bigger party with some friends and someone had some. That was just.. next level of connectedness. Then I felt truly complete.. as if everything is perfectly aligned. I felt full acceptance for everything and everyone. But I guess I’ve never cherished that feeling enough to get into regular use of any drugs.. I just saw it for what it was. I do miss those things sometimes. Its been years since I’ve done anything like that.

Alcohol has been always around in my life… when I was 13 I got into a coma because of drinking too much alcohol ( believe it or not…) It was kind of an accident.. I didn’t know I could almost die from drinking a few glasses of home made vodka. I ended up in the hospital – I was pretty lucky.
Have I learned my lesson?
No. Course not. Later on in my late teens I was getting drunk at parties, later on in Uni.. and well.. Spain… There I got completely immersed into the realm of alcoholic beverages. I began to develop more sophisticated preferences and got more into wine… but during the pandemic I took a good break from it. I always known I was drinking a little too much and felt pretty drained the next day. So.. pandemic was good. Pandemic was real good. I started eating well, working out and stopped drinking.
After that alcohol has become a every now and then kinda thing… I even had long breaks.. like months without alcohol. Now I fine tuned a little.. Now I have a glass or 2 every now and then when I’m in good company.. but that’s about it. Same goes for cigarettes.

For a while I identified with the image of a non alcoholic person who takes care of his body and does only healthy stuff. And.. yea.. it kinda felt good.. but I also felt bored. That was just some bullshit spiritual ego. I guess all is good in smaller measures..
I make wine with my dad every year.. we have some grapevine and we make a decent quantity of red wine. Its pretty good.. that’s what I’m drinking these days… Well.. once a week or so..

Ah yea.. u asked me about the cafe bistro thing..
Yes.. I’d very much like to own my own a place like that. I’d like to design it myself.. and I’d like to always play nice music in the background. Some days I’d like to do House or Balearic Chillout Dj sets there.. as background music. Yea.. that would be pretty nice 🙂 I’d channel my passion for sound and esthetics into a place that could serve a good place for community building.. Yea that sounds alright..

How are u today?

Dear Anita,

The idea 💡 that you and your girlfriend might get married in Poland 🇵🇱 crossed my mind.

How long have the 2 of you been together- in person and LD?

🇵🇱 🇷🇴 🇪🇸- where is your heart at this time, Robi?

– Well… we are pretty f*cking far from that to be honest. But somehow still together. We’ve been together for almost 5 years. As for my hearth.. I don’t really know anymore. Things have been pretty tough lately. I’m still here in Romania and I now feel like I’m officially stuck. Perhaps denial has done some pretty elaborate game on me for a while now but now I feel like I’m stuck. And it feels pretty bad. I’m fedd up with this..
There’s a lot of conflict going on.. with my parents, with my girlfriend.. within myself of course. A lot of blame flying around. Feeling guilty too..

Not the best of chapters, body doesn’t like either.

Anyway… what about yourself? How have you been lately? I hope all is good!

Take care,
Robi

Dear Roberta,

Good question. Yes, I’ve felt a strong attraction to a place. I’ve felt like that about Spain – and I’ve lived there for 5 years. I moved away form Spain after I met my girlfriend there. I often miss living there.. Sometimes I feel I’d like to be here in Romania.. living closer to nature. I’m not so sure about living in Poland though… The only good thing there would be my relationship but then again… I’m not sure that’s so good either…

These days I’ll have to decide on something. Do I go back there and try again… or.. not. We’ll be spending 4 days together starting from tomorrow… and I hope I’ll manage to decide.

Thank you,
Have a nice day! 🙂
Robi

Dear Anita,

Indeed, both you and the AI describe exactly how I feel. Its good to see that I’m not exaggerating.. I always thought this situation would bother any other man not just me.. but every time I would say something about it (and that happened very often because it bothered me so much) my girlfriend would act like I’m imagining things.. like I make no sense.. like I’m telling her she a has a toxic relationship with her mother while none of that is true. To be fair I never said that to her.. I never said she had a toxic relationship.. it’s her who often says that when she gets mad. And I always reply: ” But I never said you had a toxic relationship… why do you keep saying that? “.

”What’s wrong with having a good connection with your mother? Most people don’t have that.. most people don’t get along well with their parents. ” – she would say.

And.. I agree with her. Most people don’t have that.. and having a good connection with your mother is a great thing, I’m sure. But still, something in me feels like there’s something not quite right there.. something’s going on. As I said before, as you confirmed, even the AI confirmed – there is no space for me – because that seat is taken. And I told her that, many times.. but she doesn’t seem to get what I say. I think she actually does but its too difficult for her to accept it.. I often see her so frustrated because she knows I see her.. I’m triggering the painful spot.. I know.

Now, I find interesting what you said. I read it earlier today and did some sprinting on the local football field. No one plays football anymore.. everyone looks at TikTok around here so I get my own private empty football field to do my sprits and workouts. Amazing! There I was, sprinting, resting, sprinting… and thinking about you telling me I should RUN :)). I am practicing. I should run probably.. I thought about it so many times.. I thought this is so ridiculous.. this whole thing..
I thought.. she’s also waiting for me to get my shit together.. and maybe its only fair for me to do the same.. I mean, I’m not perfect either.. but I still feel deep unfairness.

You are probably wondering – why would a 39 years old woman be so fused to her mother? That’s a very legit question. These things don’t just happen like that.
So.. her father died when she was 10. The last years of his life were quite tough. He’s been cheating on his wife for years and treated his daughters pretty badly. Then he just died.. The guy had a hearth attack while banging his 25 years younger mistress. Some way to leave…
They were living very well at the time but after his death they lost almost everything. There was no more big house.. no more money.. So they sold the big house and moved into a small flat – the small flat. They struggled a lot for many years.. her mother was deeply depressed and couldn’t work for years.. savings ran out..
Her older sister moved to Moscow where she lived for more than 20 years now.
The 2 of them were left together in the flat. Somehow they made ends meet. Her mother eventually managed to get a job but they always struggled financially. They’ve been through thick and thin as she often says. And I get it.. those are very difficult things to go through.
Later on in her 20’s, she started working, doing her yoga and pilates classes and started earning money. She didn’t go for the corporate job, she went for the thing she liked even if that meant a lower income at first. She said she couldn’t have afforded doing what she likes and live on her own – so she decided to stay in the flat instead. She decided to convert one of their rooms into a yoga/pilates studio and do classes there. I mean, sure.. I get it. It makes sense. Depends how you look at it.

But there’s also another angle. I sometimes ask myself – didn’t she just build her entire life around her mother? home, job, even romantic relationships ( the one before me and for a while, with me ). Before I met her she’s been in a longer relationship with a guy who lived there, with them – who never complained about these issues. But the guy didn’t want a relationship.. he only needed a place to crash and that was convenient for him. I’ve been told he didn’t have very high standards of living. That was a difficult relationship for her.. for different reasons. The guy was quite traumatised and had many issues..

Now.. when I met her and moved there.. I noticed right away.. This is so strange.. how does this work? What’s going on here?
So.. it didn’t take long until I started asking questions.. and since then we must’ve talked about it hundreds of times but it never took us anywhere. We always ended up arguing.. I felt bad for ”stepping all over” her life, home and relationship with her mother. She felt triggered and she kept telling me that I should focus on my problems instead.

Well.. I was! But somehow this situation became more and more personal.. and that kinda makes it.. also my problem.

These days I feel I cannot stand her mother. I just.. don’t wanna hear anything about her.. I don’t wanna talk to her. I’m just very irritated by her. I’m just not interested. There’s something almost repulsive about all this..
I’m not saying Its okay for me to feel like this.. maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m being very rude. Does that make me a bad person?
Well.. maybe. But I’m ok with that. What is it that I’m supposed to change in me so I accept such things? Should I accept such things? Well.. I don’t feel I should at all. I often feel I just wanna tell her to go back to her f*cking mother and be with her instead. She doesn’t need a partner – I feel she already has one.
Yeah.. I’m actually getting angry right now.. even though I’m listening to Jazz. Imagine if I listened to Prodigy.. I might’ve needed a new MacBook :))

Now. Live has a very funny way of arranging things. These days I’ve been a little more distant. Well.. burned out.. therefore distant. So guess what? This morning she sends me a screenshot of her plane tickets to Romania and some AirBnb reservation she had rented for a few days. So we’ll be spending 4 days together next week in Cluj ( again ). She said she wanted to see where we are, and how we feel about each other. Sure.. I get it. She started feeling like I was losing interest in her. But what I find very interesting is this: she refused to pay rent for us to live together but prefers spending money on holidays with me instead. Hm.

Now.. of course.. there’s a lot more I could write on the topic.. but It’ll cost me the rest of my days. And.. I’ve just realised my tea had gone completely cold. I forgot about it.. again. I always do that. I don’t know why do I even bother making tea..

I hope I provided you with some context. I’m sure it all makes more sense to you now.
Now I’m curious, what do you think?

Oh yeah! Did I tell you I’ve dusted off my old photography equipment and I’m thinking about starting to shoot portraits again? I’ve got a bunch of pro cameras laying around, studio lights, umbrellas etc… I sometimes ask myself.. When I’ll be on my death bed will I be pissed off that I’ve wasted my potential?

Perhaps there’s still time..

Have a good evening where you are 🙂 I again forgot what time is is there in The Evergreen State.
Stay in touch,
Robi

Dear Anita,

Just watched a film, feeling a little better now. One of the newer Woody Allen’s.. You like his films? I guess he stopped making films.. he must be 90 something these days..

The interview went well, better than expected. The whole thing left me energised and feeling quite light. I thought I would feel drained. I actually felt much better after that.. spent most of the day outside in the sun, fed some cats and drove around a little.

You asked me about the arguments I’ve been having with my girlfriend… Well… they very often have the same starter.. The fire starter! like the Prodigy. ( never drive a car listening to that band .. make you do crazly things ).
Of course, it’s the relationship with her mother. It’s the main topic. Somehow we almost always end up arguing about that. Somehow, all roads seem to lead there… :))
Its usually me saying something, maybe even casually.. Something like..
“ Should we have coffee at that nice corner place later on? “
“ Ah.. I told my mum I’ll be spending some time with her. “
And then I would make one of my usual faces. Something like.. “ here we go again “. Yes, okay sometimes I roll my eyes a little.. but I’m so damn fed up with always hearing the same thing.
“ I see.. OK. But.. you live with her.. don’t you spend time with her every day anyway?”
And from there, things just.. explode. She lets out all those thousands of times I said something on the topic – which she bottled up very, very tightly. Boom. From that point she’s mad that I’m again criticising her relationship with her mother, and I’m pissed off because in 4 and a half years nothing has changed there and here we are again, having the same conversation.

The thing is I’m just done feeling like there isn’t enough space for me. There has never been space for me. I know .. right? But this.. this is different. When I met her in Spain I thought we will build something together.. and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew things won’t be easy.. even while growing up. Something had told me that I’ll be facing a lot of challenges and harmony won’t be earned cheaply. I entered this relationship knowing there’s a lot I’d have to be working on and when she told me my relationship with my parents isn’t serving my growth I couldn’t agree more with her. She was right.. and I accepted that. I’ve decided to try to work on it. Although I’m not too happy with my progress, I know I’ve done a lot. Somehow I thought I’d see her do some work too.. Because I thought there is some to be done as well.. Perhaps I was wrong. But was I?

Ok..I know. I should give you a little more context.

What was I saying earlier.. I constantly feel like there isn’t space for me. I constantly feel like I’m being put in the same basket with her mother and the 2 of us ( me and the mother ) are being carefully balanced so each one of us gets a fair share of time, space, interaction. This sounds silly, I know. But the thing is.. I don’t want to be put in the same basket with anyone. Her relationship with her parent and our romantic relationship have absolutely no reason to be that close. Actually, they need distance from each other, they don’t need to be fused together. I don’t need her mother to be everywhere and in everything and often I feel that’s the case.
If we are somewhere out, she’s texting her mother, calling her, there’s always something. And the more it happens, the more evident it becomes.
When we are in her flat.. let’s just say.. we’ve decided ( me and her ) to go buy some groceries.. half an hour tops. Once we are ready to leave, there’s like a ritual going on. Her mother gives her a long hug while they whisper something to each other’s ears. In the mean time I’m unlocking the door and wait. Once they are done I just say goodbye to her mother and both of us leave. While we are walking towards the elevator her mother watches her, until we reach the elevator and the elevator doors open. They say goodbye once again. Once we get outside the building her mother already reached the balcony window and she waves to her again. It’s always the same, the exact same. Even if she’s only away for a few minutes.
Once we are back, there’s another ritual. They do it all again, only this time they do it backwards!
No.. I’m joking :)) Well, I’m only half joking…

I remember talking about my girlfriend to a therapist during my therapy session… and I briefly mentioned that my girlfriend has a close relationship with her mother. I didn’t even get into details.. and the lady says to me:
What makes you think she’s going anywhere?
Back then I thought she was going to move to Spain with me.
I thought… maybe I’m missing something. That was a couple of years ago when I did think she wouldn’t leave her mother’s flat.. but I thought I’m making a bigger deal out of it than it actually is.

So I confronted her about this many times… I told her how I felt.. I told her that I didn’t feel like a priority to her..
And.. well yes.. I blamed her for it. I told her I’ve done so much for us to be together, I moved to Poland ( more than once ) in order to be with her.. in a country I didn’t like, language I didn’t speak, I had no friends, I had no job. But I thought its worth it.. because our relationship was more important than all those other things.
But then I realised for her, moving out of her mother’s flat in order to be with me wasn’t an obvious thing. I also realised I wasn’t really her priority.
When I moved to Poland, I found a place for us to live, something I can afford and also had great confort and space. I managed to pull some strings and rent a nice house from a guy I met in Warsaw for a good price. We had a great space, a garden, a gym. But guess what, she choose not to be there full time with me… she chose to live half of the week with her mother. She said the because she works from her flat ( she has also a Yoga studio running there, in her mother’s flat ) she couldn’t travel for 40 minutes via bus 3 days a week when she had classes there. So we didn’t live together 100%.. That didn’t feel right.. because I feel I’ve made a big effort for us to be together. I didn’t feel like she made us a priority. I moved countries but she couldn’t take 40 minutes a bus ride 3 times a week. So half the time I was on my own.. which wasn’t completely bad. It’s nice to have some alone time.. sure. But I felt like.. well.. What am I doing here.. in Poland? Why am I here while my 39 years old girlfriend prefers living with her mother instead of living with me.

Anyway… recently she visited me in Romania.. I’ve been here for many months already. Last month… we spent one week in Cluj. I decided not so stay here and rent an AirBnb there. Although there’s space here I wanted us not to stay in my parents house. I think it’s time to stop playing house in our parents house and try to move on to something that serves both of us better.
Of course.. we ended up arguing about the same thing. She’s been writing to her mother every hour – from morning to evening. Since I’m a watch enthusiast it wasn’t very difficult to come up with this accurate conclusion.. I just had to glance at my wrist every time she pulled out her phone. I’ve never done anything like that before.. but this time I thought.. Ok.. let’s see how often do they actually text each other.
Don’t get me wrong… it’s not that I have something against her talking to her mother… or anyone else. It’s just that after seeing all that, so often, it always hits me in the same way – This will not change, she will be wherever her mother is.. and if I want to be with her.. so will I. And.. I don’t want to be wherever her mother is. I want us to be wherever the fuck we want to be. I’d like us to be a couple – not a bunch of kids who meet in their free time and go back home by dawn. Fuck that.

And I told her.. of course. We live apart.. haven’t spent much time together in the last more than 6 months and although we only have a week.. there she is writing to her mother evert hour. She was going back to her in a couple days anyway.

So… yeah… I don’t know. Maybe you think I’m an asshole for criticising her like that. And.. maybe I am. That’s fine. But this is just how I feel… And I know I shouldn’t have told her all these things so often.. I must’ve told her hundreds of times.. Wrong thing for me to do. Perhaps I should’ve just left.. or stayed.. when I was in Spain.
Some say all this is here to teach me something. Sure.. I agree. But I’m so damn tired. I thought I needed to be well rested in order to learn anything.

This is longer than I wanted it to be.. as always. If I knew then, when I met her… that I’ll be moving to Poland to live with her and things will end up like this… well.. not sure If I’ve would’ve done the same thing.

Oookay. I might even have a glass of wine. I’ve recently decided I can have some alcohol on occasion. I’ve become too healthy and too boring!

Take good care of yourself Anita,
Thank you!
Robi

Dear Anita,

I’m still in Romania right now.. and still not sure when or if I will go to Warsaw.
Indeed.. if only things could be simple and easy.
These last weeks haven’t been easy at all.. Actually I’ve felt more and more confused and exhausted lately. These days I’m trying to be as quiet as I can.. I feel I need some quiet. All the arguments and conversations we’ve had in the last weeks are now showing results – my body feels exhausted and my mind feels foggy.

So I’ve decided to tell my girlfriend that maybe we can text each other but not call for a few days. We’ve been arguing and blaming each other for so many things in the past couple weeks that I have no more room for anything. Tomorrow I’m having an online job interview for a job I don’t even want – in Warsaw. Of course It’ll be good for my financial independence and it would help me stay there with my girlfriend.. but I don’t even know if I still want that to be honest. I mean.. I do want to get a better job and make more money so I can stand on my own feet but I’m not so sure about being with her anymore. I feel like I’ve tried so hard and I gotta change so many things in my life for things to work but she doesn’t really want to put much effort into it.. I feel like I’m on my own. And.. so does she. She feels like I’ve blamed her too much for not being more committed to our relationship. And I did.. I told her that I’m tired of not being a priority to her. I always put her first but she couldn’t. She always prioritised spending time with her mother over spending time with me.. Although I’ve moved to her country and found it so hard to live there. Still, I feel I ended up sacrificing so much in order to see her giving as little as possible. I feel like these dynamics leave no space for a relationship. I know that my own struggles don’t help either.. and I might not be ready for a stable, healthy relationship.. but neither is she.. and from her side I haven’t seen much effort to change anything.

Anyway.. I don’t want to start ranting about it.. it makes no sense. These days I’m just trying to sit with my emotions and leave all distractions aside. I don’t know what I’m going to do. These last weeks seem to bring out so much uncertainty and very little clarity. I feel I need to sit down a little, stop stressing out about making everything work.. and just be for a moment. I’ve been so damn stressed lately. Of course I feel a little guilty for not calling her, for not being more chatty.. but to be honest I don’t feel like talking to her at all. So I won’t – until I feel like it. I feel I’ve been giving so much.. and I got tired.

There’s probably a lot more to come out but I lack the energy to write anything that makes sense..
You asked me about the coaching session – how do we mirror each other. Well, both of us depend on our parents. I depend financially and she depends emotionally. I challenge the relationship she has with her mother – because I feel that the way her mother is omnipresent in her life makes things very difficult for us to be together and have intimacy. She challenges the relationship I have with my parents – them supporting me financially – which also makes having a relationship very difficult.
I guess you get the picture..

I want to write again these days.. once I get more energy going..

Take good care of yourself Anita!
Thanks for writing 🙂
Robi

Dear Anita,

I’ve only seen your last posts now. I gotta somehow set this thing to send me e-mails when you write to me. I’m sure there’s a way to do that. Its funny how I manage to do my morning breathwork, workout and journaling but don’t have enough discipline to check this forum. Hm.. perhaps my mind is avoiding growth?

Words struggle to come out today… These days I’ve been struggling with work, arguments and trying to decide wether I’ll stay here longer or leave as soon as I can. I don’t like where I am ( in life right now ). Romania is nice.. the mountains, the silence and the friends I got to know here recently.. but living here with my parents doesn’t work. Also being in a long distance relationship makes things difficult. So as you might know already, I’m looking for work in Warsaw and I’m hoping to move in with my girlfriend – just the 2 of us. Easier said than done – at least right now. Let’s see what comes. These days I felt so disconnected from her, so tired of feeling so confused.. I told her I wanted us to break up. There multiple reasons for me to feel that way.. I often feel she didn’t make our relationship a priority.. and I think there’s something in it. But I also know that my emotional imbalance these days had something to do with that. We didn’t break up though.. we actually ended up talking clearly. She agreed that she hasn’t made our relationship a priority and she apologised for making me feel neglected. Now we are taking things slow, trying to see how we feel and what needs to be changed. I’m pretty sure this is a good thing – I’m pretty sure this is part of our process.

Actually the reason why I opened this forum today was to read through a few of our posts. Tomorrow mid-day I’m having a coaching session with someone I’ve worked with before. The topics, as always, the relationship, my financial independence and work. I found here a lot more than what I was looking for. I didn’t know about the later posts you wrote until now. So there’s a lot more I’ll be discussing tomorrow.

Now.. about those posts! Thank you so much for the big effort to put all that together. I myself I’ve used ChatGpt and a thing called Purpose for similar inquiries but this one seems to be spot on. Or perhaps its how you use it, not the tool itself 🙂
Well… you ( and the AI ) are both right… It does feel spot on.. and Its getting harder and harder to live with it – to know all that but not get into motion. So I feel motion is much, much needed. I feel the more I stay here the foggier all gets. My moving to Warsaw depends on finding a job there… and so far I haven’t been very lucky.
I also asked my girlfriend if she could help with paying the rent for a couple of months until I get stable.. but her answer hasn’t been very positive. I get it.. but I also don’t. And I was somewhat disappointed. We talked about it though.. and showed my disappointment. She said she’s afraid I’ll be coming and leaving again after a few months… So I guess she doesn’t really trust me then. So yeah.. we kinda have a problem here.
I know.. I shouldn’t have asked her for help. I probably need to be crossing that river on my own.. If I want to truly move on and grow. But I thought – I would help her if she was in my situation right now.

Anyway, now I’m taking a few notes for the coaching session tomorrow… these days had been so overwhelming that I can barely thing of all these things. Also I want to digest all that you sent me recently… there’s a lot to be felt. Also.. sorry for my writing being all over the place.. probably a bit of a struggle to read – but my functioning lacks a little flow and ease these days. Thank you so much for everything! I am surprised that apart from being Romanian we also share so many childhood experiences.. Its crazy 🙂

I hope you’re doing alright, let me know how you are!
Robi

* god dammit! its right here.. I was about to press Submit and I see on the left ” notify me of follow-up replies via email “. Of course it was there all this time – like so many other things. 🙂