Hi Beni,

I am sorry if what I said in my last post upset you. I guess a part of my concern is that I myself am very afraid of re-injury and perhaps I’ve projected my own fears onto you.

Because this spinal injury is a completely different “beast”, a health condition I’ve never experienced before. Initially after my injury, I thought it was simply a strained back and that it would heal in a few days. After 7-8 days I did indeed start feeling better, and I resumed with normal activity (bending, ironing etc), and I think that’s when I made it worse. The pain became persistent – not strong, but constant. That’s when I decided to get a scan, because it was strange.

There was also a second instance, approx. a month after my injury, where I was feeling better again, and so I bent again while doing housework. I wasn’t even thinking about it, I did it automatically (not paying attention to how I was bending), since my pain was practically gone at that point. And that’s what caused the pain to spike, and then it took me months to alleviate.

So that’s why I am super afraid of doing a wrong move – because I know what it can do to me. Of course, I’ve done a lot of core training since and I did become more resilient, so even if I do a bad move – accidentally – I do get better after 5-6 days or so. So it’s not irreversible. However, I am cautious to never bend the old way, but to always have my spine straight. And I am taking other precautions as well, not to aggravate the pain.

A part of my problem is that in the beginning I wasn’t told by either my doctor or my physical therapist that some movements can aggravate the pain and that I should avoid them. And I paid a price of not knowing that…

So when you said that you’re still skating, doing the moves similar to those that caused your injury – I was like “nooo, please don’t do that, you might hurt yourself!”. I might have been projecting, because maybe you found a way to do those moves safely, so that they are less likely to cause you injury?

You said something interesting: that you don’t want to believe that there are wrong movements:

I try to let go of that belief that there is right an wrong movement. I wanna follow what feels light and bright.

Well, it’s kind of widely accepted (and I’ve experienced it on my own skin too), that with spinal injury there actually can be wrong movements, e.g. bending the wrong way or lifting something heavy without bracing. Maybe you want to say that if you do a movement properly, with all the necessary precautions, it can be pretty safe?

You said you do feel pain the day after skating:

When I have a lot of impact I usually feel it more the day after.

May I ask how strong is this pain and how long it lasts? Because if you have pain afterwards and it stays for a while, then perhaps it’s not so “light and bright.” Of course, you know your body best, but I think it’s important to consider whether you feel reasonably well in the following days, or you are experiencing a setback?

If you feel you are getting stronger and stronger every day, and you’re feeling less and less impact after doing those movements – then perhaps it’s really safe for you to do them.

You also said you did a Snowboard Teacher Training in December, which I guess means that you could cope quite well with that level of strain? This tells me that your spine is in a much better shape than mine, so perhaps you don’t need to be that cautious.

I start to belief that to heal it’s better to fully trust in my body rather then doing what makes the most sense. That’s creating insecurity cause I do not know what I’m doing.

I am sorry if my previous post contributed to your insecurity, by me “siding” with the doctors and telling you to do what “makes the most sense”, i.e. what is usually recommended for this type of injury.

As I’ve said, I am coming from my own experience and my own fragility/sensitivity, which still lingers more than a year since the injury.

I hope we can talk some more, because this is an important topic for both us, which has a big impact on our lives. And so I hope we can continue our discussion…

Take care, Beni!

Hey SereneWolf,

good to hear from you again!

It’s totally fine I can understand. I wanted to know if you’re getting better, but thanks for responding.

Thank you for your understanding, you are very kind. I did feel guilty multiple times for not responding, but I felt so paralyzed. But when you wrote last week, I sort of woke up and told myself “come on, enough of this self-pitying, it’s time to reply!” So thank you, you helped me wake up from my slumber 🙂

I know your health issues aren’t easier, so I hope it gets better and I also hope that you get more courage and love over anxiety for your health.

Thanks, yeah, those are some real challenges, both health-wise and career-wise. But yeah, I hope I’ll be able to keep defrosting 🙂

I’m doing ok. Trying for my self-esteem issues and love myself more. But I believe I’m getting better. I’ve completely focused myself for my career. No situationships for now.

Oh, so you broke up? Would you like to share some more, like how it happened?

Although my sister and brother-in-law kinda on a mission to find a girl for me and convince me to get married and I know their intention aren’t wrong and also started to tell me lot of good aspects from the right partner and marriage, so I’m not scared about marriage as I used to. Since I’m seeing a good thing about it. But I’ve told them only to start look for girls when I tell you that I’m ready. and they agreed.

Good to hear you’re not that scared any more. I’ve written some ideas in my previous post (about relationships), of what I think might be behind your lack of trust. What do you think about it?

Also, good that your sister and brother-in-law aren’t pushing you. Honestly, there is no point in pushing something that important, when you are not ready. It can only lead to problems and regrets down the line. So don’t do it until you’re ready.

But I think you will only be ready once you heal those fears and lack of trust in people. So my advice is to work on your relationship fears as well, don’t just focus on your career. Because focusing only on your career is an avoidance strategy too. It’s easier for you. But it’s not helping, on the long-run…

And lately I do try to be grateful and positive within, yet I still feel alone and helpless and losing hope sometimes. But I’m still being resilient. I’m trying to listen to Inner positive voices like Krishna and Uncle Iroh like and try to feel like someone’s watching over me and they got my back and things will get better.

Yeah, I hear you. I know this dichotomy very well: on the cognitive level, you know you are good enough and you try to be positive. But deeper, emotionally, on the inner child level, you feel helpless and alone. And losing hope, sometimes. For me, this hopelessness and helplessness got activated with my back injury and other health issues. That triggered it, but I’ve realized this feeling was always in me, only I wasn’t aware of it. And now it came to the surface. And there is no other way but to tackle it…

I agree it makes me remember our conversation about old beliefs and I guess therapy did helped a bit but not very significant. And just I’m not seeing therapist anymore. I do try to journaling and work on removing my old beliefs and rooted fears. What kind of things that I can do to remove my old beliefs and rooted fears more efficient way? Kinda like rewiring our brain you know

I’ve just dug up a youtube video on negative core beliefs, by my favorite online therapist, Barbara Heffernan. There is a link to the pdf file below the video, where she explains how to transform those beliefs. The video is titled “Core Beliefs CBT“. Highly recommended. I’ve just done the exercise in the pdf file, for transforming the core beliefs. Let me know if you’ve tried it.

I am sorry you’re not seeing your therapist any more. Is she still having problems with her eyes?

Ah I see, I know it’s not easy for you but have you ever tried being a reckless child at this age? Like I don’t care what happens to me I want to do it means I want to do it. I guess because concerned and matured adult would think and ruminate a lot. Reckless child wouldn’t. and who knows you can get good results although it’s something really out of your comfort zone but something that you can try and feel like you got the power.

No, I can’t think of myself as reckless. I don’t think my inner child ever wanted to be reckless 🙂 But it would be nice to “just do it”, without too much rumination. And I wouldn’t do reckless things, but good things, things that I love. So perhaps a curious child, enthusiastic child, would be a better fit 🙂 But thanks for the idea to involve my inner child in her “original form”, while she was still not frightened and stifled by my mother’s programming. I like it, I’ll see if it works…

Haha yeah, you’re right. Well, we got to try. Right!?

Yes! Discovering our false beliefs and then counteracting them is super powerful. I’ve just learned from Barbara Heffernan’s video that our core beliefs don’t reside in our cognitive brain, but in our limbic brain. That’s why we can’t overwrite them by simply thinking positively. We need to dig deeper into our old emotional experiences and re-write them as well… and that’s what her method should help in.

Hey SereneWolf,

I’ve never replied to your last post in November, so I’ll try do it now…

Oh I see, I didn’t know so thanks for sharing. Then how can same kind of wound could have opposite ends of spectrum?

I think it can be compared to a reaction to a physical attack: one person runs away, another person fights back. The same trauma, diametrically opposite reactions. Same here: you felt strong enough not to need anything from your parents, whereas I felt too weak to do anything on my own.

Also in my case excessive self-reliance is depleting my energy quickly and burning me out time to time yet still attacking my self-esteem. Like I’d be like I can do it no matter what and then when I’m not able to I blame myself subconsciously.

I can imagine how excessive self-reliance is depleting you quickly. And then you blame yourself when you’re burnt out and haven’t succeeded in your (Herculean) task. You’re expecting a lot (too much) of yourself, you give yourself (too) big tasks, and then you’re putting yourself down when you don’t succeed. Would you agree with that?

Because in my head I’m like what others can do? I have to rely on myself to get things done.

I think that’s your core belief speaking: I have to rely on myself to get things done. No one will help me.

So your false core belief could be: I have to rely on myself.

Because my trust issues adds up in this as well. But we can change our “modus operandi” right? How you’re still coping with feeling helpless?

Yes, we can change our modus operandi. A part of it is changing our false core beliefs. Mine would be “I am helpless”. Yours would be “I have to rely on myself”.

Yeah, I guess my mother thought peace in the family means more than my protection or my mental health and to be honest even now my parents aren’t much aware about like mental health is a thing. They think if you’re getting basic needs, you should be happier and kind of materialistic happiness. Because of the small village mentality.

Same here: peace (no conflict) was more important for my father, and they didn’t think mental health is that important. They were otherwise educated and all that, but still, it was long ago when I was a child, and they were still applying a lot of the “old school” upbringing methods, specially my mother.

Also My mother did told me most of her life all she did is just calm my father’s anger because of relatives and other things going on. Which I think is very toxic on my father’s side.

Yes, same here. My father was trying to calm down my mother, I think he believed she was emotionally fragile and would break down if he were stricter with her, i.e. if he set some boundaries. I think he was protecting her from mental breakdown, in fact. But he did us all a disservice, because he just enabled her toxic behavior, which had a huge negative impact on me (much more than on him, because he could disconnect and emotionally numb himself, which he did. But I couldn’t – I grew up in it and it formed me.)

I guess she just didn’t think about standing up for herself. Which could be the same case for your father?

Yeah, I think the key issue for my father was his own upbringing with a “martyr” covert narcissistic mother and him always suppressing his needs to trying to make his mother happy. That was what formed him. And my mother was a similar “martyr” (in her own eyes), though not narcissistic. But his dynamic was similar: trying to please and appease his mother, and later his wife. So there was no way he would stand up for himself. I mean, he did have success in his career, but he was pretty suppressed at home.

For your mother, she was perhaps financially dependent on your father as well, so that came into play as well? And the whole patriarchy thing, which I guess was still strong while you were growing up, right? So I can see why it might have been more difficult for her to standup for herself than it was for my father.

Yeah that’s right and I think main issue here is our ruined self-esteem as a result which isn’t easier to heal faster. So now that you are aware that you weren’t the faulty child yet it’s still rooted in you? That’s what you mean?

No, I don’t believe I am unworthy any more, but I still have a lot of procrastination when it comes to my career and the things I’d like to achieve. It’s like I am frozen a bit. And having all these health issues, and worrying about them, isn’t helping either: it makes me worry about it and ruminate and I end up feeling paralyzed. Like, I know what I want, but I am not working towards it.

It’s related to my childhood “freeze” I think, where my mother feared too much for me and was the happiest when I was by her side, in “safety”. Riding a bike was seen as risky by her, so my parents never bought me a bike and I never learned how to ride (I think I’ve told you that already). So it’s this “deep freeze”, deep fear of facing challenges.

In my case luckily it’s not bad as before (But still) I do feel I have to achieve much more and I’m not good enough just yet.

Yeah, it seems your sense of not being good enough manifests in you pushing yourself above the limits, expecting too much of yourself (and believing you need to do it all by yourself). Whereas for me, I am not pushing myself at all, I am frozen. Again, we have the opposite reaction to a similar injury…

It’s like you would need to tell yourself: “I am good enough and I am doing enough“. And I would need to tell myself “I am good enough and I can do this next step.” Perhaps 🙂

I’m going to pause here and reply to the rest of your post a bit later…

Take care!

Hey Beni,

I got that too and it’s on the sciatic and the piriformis muscle in the butt might do the same.

yeah, piriformis can press on the sciatic nerve too. But since you feel it while lifting something heavy, I guess it has to be a disc bulge, right? Did you get a scan to have it confirmed?

I don’t really have pain it’s more like my right leg, right back feels different by times mostly when emotional or when I lift too heavy. I don’t know how reliable it is.

Do you also feel it while snowboarding/skateboarding? You mentioned that you sometimes fall and experience pain, and then you start fearing a little… is it your sciatic pain that you feel when you fall?

I can imagine and worry how it is to find new strategies for self regulation when those things don’t work at all. It broke me last spring when I was in pain a lot and that is one thing.

I am glad you are now better, not experiencing so much pain. You said it was caused by a lot of physical activity. Was it caused by heavy lifting by any chance? Sometimes people get a disc bulge while weight lifting, or even by working their leg muscles in the gym.

Have you done some exercises for pain relief after it happened? Or it just went away on its own?

I feel relieved to read that you find way’s to live with it and function cause it show’s that it’s possible.

Yeah, I went to physical therapy (after it was determined it was a disc bulge), but it didn’t respond that well at first. But then I did a lot of swimming in the summer (swimming on my back), and that finally helped. Now I am maintaining it with regular exercise at home, light walks and cautious lifestyle, as I said. And a more positive mindset as well. But I feel I wouldn’t be able to ski or do any sports with my injury, so it’s very limiting 🙁

Maybe there is a way to make progress with it, maybe to exercise more, push myself more. But I am a bit apprehensive to push myself too much, because it starts hurting. So far I am happy that I can maintain this relatively low level of pain, even if it limits me quite a bit.

Cool, thanks for sharing.

You are welcome!

Hiooo to you too 🙂

Hey Beni,

I’ll light a candle!

Very much appreciated!

I forgot to tell you the fundamental of what I write is. My back started hurting last spring. I feel glimpses of the pain (3-4%). It’s also me pushing myself which creates the condition and what the doc says. It’s confusing cause I expirience that it’s what I belief is good and bad which creates this experience. I start to belief that to heal it’s better to fully trust in my body rather then doing what makes the most sense. That’s creating insecurity cause I do not know what I’m doing.

Oh I see, so you have back pain, slight though, and you’re afraid that doing certain moves while snowboarding or skateboarding might do you harm? And that’s what also your doctor says? But another part of you trusts your own body and wants to do those moves anyway?

What caused your pain, if I may ask? Did you injure yourself or it just came out of nowhere?

I too am suffering from back pain, got a herniated disc. And it came out of the blue, with no trauma, no wrong move or anything like that. I just bent to pick up something from the floor and that’s when the pain started.

When you get injured is it physical? I notice it changes as I get older. I’m more prone to injuries or sensitive to pain.

Yes, it’s physical. I’ve had physical injuries in the last 5 years that remained chronic (like knee and back pain), and this is limiting me quite a bit…

I think when I wrote it, it was more like that I’m so curious about this topic and there’s so much potential and hope that I have to talk about it as soon as the topic goes in such a direction. It’s in someway reactive and also authentic. Also I thought it might benefit you to hear it cause I see all that.

Yes, I am interested in that topic too, because of these injuries and chronic pain that I have to manage and live with. It was quite an adjustment, emotionally and mentally too, to suddenly have to live with physical limitations, to not be able to do the things you loved before. I had to grieve those things. It still causes me pain (emotional pain) but I’ve learned to accept it.

What helped a lot is also a more positive attitude towards my chronic back pain, like not catastrophizing, not believing it’s the end of the world, not fearing my every move, but believing that my body has the ability to recover, that it’s more resilient than I think. And even if I make a wrong move unintentionally, that I’ll be able to recover to my baseline, which is not pain-free, but with manageable pain, provided that I follow a pretty cautious lifestyle (unfortunately).

What also helped me a lot in managing my back pain is the whole idea that chronic pain is largely regulated by the brain and our perception of threat and danger. If we believe that every move is dangerous, we will be more tense, more anxious, and it will cause more physical pain.

This concept was first discovered by Dr. John Sarno, and now it is taught by Dr. Hanscom, Dr. Schubiner, as well as Tanner Murtagh, who is teaching the somatic tracking practice. He has a pretty cool youtube channel, with lots of exercises for tracking our body sensations and reducing chronic pain.

there’s so much potential and hope that I have to talk about it as soon as the topic goes in such a direction

As you can see, this topic can make me talk for hours 🙂 It came out of necessity, but it is what it is, I’ve learned a lot about it as I am trying to help myself…

Dear Worldofthewaterwheels,

You are welcome!

There was no violence, no shouting even but my mom was always at the top and my dad often seems incredibly weak

Indeed, there are similarities with our families, although there was yelling in my family – my mother couldn’t control her emotions and she would have angry outbursts at my father and me. When I became a teenager, I started yelling back, so there was conflict.

But my father never wanted conflict and he tried to appease my mother and calm her down. He allowed to be yelled at and insulted. I think he suppressed his own anger and numbed himself emotionally. I guess that’s how he could stay mostly unaffected by her insults and accusations (I mean, he could go about his life, he had professional successes and was respected at work. Just not at home).

But for me as a child, my mother’s constant complaints, bitterness and misery were devastating. I grew up in it, and it formed me. I never felt good enough and no matter what I did, it couldn’t make my mother happy. She too blamed everybody else (specially me and my father) for her unhappiness. She fits your description very well: “My mom could victimize herself easily with him being very apologetic.”

The result of it all is that I grew up believing I was bad and that there is something terribly wrong with me. Similarly like you believe about yourself: Its like there is something wrong with me and i cant put a finger on exactly what.

A bit more specifically, this is what you said about yourself:

i do loathe myself in the sense that, i cant seem to put a foot right..just nothing works out for me. Like i seemed to discover, oh! im a dork…not a creative nerd. A real loser who can only fuck up.

The false core belief would be: I am a dork. I am a loser.

I am guessing it has been formed based on many instances of being put down and ridiculed by your mother. Or compared to others. It has been formed based on your mother’s general attitude to you: that there is something wrong with you.

First your mother believed you were not good enough, and was sending you this message, and then you started believing it too. It became your “truth”. Because as children, we believe our parents, they are our mirrors. Their behavior towards us tells who we are and if we are lovable and worthy or not. And if they say bad things about us, if they mistreat us, we believe them. We always blame ourselves, not our parents.

When we grow up, we still have that same false core belief working in us. And we sort of attract more of the similar experiences of failure and embarrassment. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Basically, if deep down you believe that you are a failure, you will indeed fail. And I think that’s been happening to you all these years.

***

You have another set of core beliefs, which is about other people. You believe that everybody is jealous of you and nobody wants you to succeed. I think that too is the result of your mother being jealous and competitive with you, even to this day when she isn’t happy when you achieve success but goes silent.

These are your experiences (in your adulthood) of people being jealous of you and trying to undermine you:

When i really did well, there was always someone in the crowd visibly unhappy and it would bother me.

There has always been someone more accomplished vying for my job, or next to me or coming up behind me. Always a boss who wanted more and made me feel like i wasnt enough. A boyfriend who needed more of something i didnt have. I never mastered a corner of the room for myself that somebody else couldnt do. So therefore i feel fairly worthless.

You get crushed by the people who are out there looking to win against other people. I feel like there is always a lot of jealousy around me and i cant control it, how others react to me, but it ruins everything.

I often feel angry that other people are rude, mean or wonder what their problem is. I know what it is though…they want attention.

When you read the above examples, does it apply to your childhood as well? Because my guess is that you’ve experienced something similar in the relationship with your mother, even as a child and young adult, and that’s where the main wound stems from.

The main false belief in this area of your life (area of relationships) would be: People want you to fail. People want to hurt you. People are not to be trusted.

This unconscious belief is what directs your relationships and how you see people. And that too becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As Anita said, there were for sure instances where people wanted to harm you and take advantage of you. But there were probably also instances where you misinterpreted their intentions, or where you approached them with mistrust, ready to defend yourself (i have to defend myself against what i perceive as possible danger right?), and they didn’t like it.

My take is that a part of your experiences (not all) is based on these false beliefs that run in the back of your mind, and attract such events. I am writing this not to dispute your reality, but to tell you that there is more to experience, that there is a broader reality, in which not everybody is out to get you, and in which you are not a dork but a wonderful and creative person.

These false beliefs were created due to repeated negative experiences with our parents, but they can be reversed, with healing.

What do you think of all this?

Dear Worldofthewaterwheels,

I can relate to a lot of what you are saying, because my mother, although not a narcissist, made me feel bad about myself and criticized me a lot, while at the same time presenting herself as a good mom and a martyr. My father was her enabler, so to speak, because he wouldn’t protect me – his main goal was to keep her anger and sadness at bay, to keep the “peace” in the family. He never demanded her to go see a counselor and deal with her own issues, but minimized the problem and gaslighted both me and himself that things aren’t so bad.

I can imagine that with a narcissistic mother, emotional abuse is even more severe, because she is also in competition with you and is trying to pull you down, being jealous of your successes. There is a great youtube video about narcissistic mothers and the damage they can do to their children. The title is Signs your Mother is a Covert Narcissist & How to Recover, by Barbara Heffernan.

The sad truth is that being raised by a narcissistic mother (and I am assuming an enabler father?) does a lot of damage to the child, because it ruins both the child’s self-esteem and also trust in other people. As Anita said, the first “society” you knew was your family, and if you felt rejected by them, and even bullied, it would make sense that this is how you see the world now in your adulthood, and encounter such experiences as well.

Our core beliefs about ourselves and the world develop based on those early childhood experiences – because that’s the “world” that we know and that we get socialized into. So we see everything through that distorted lens.

I totally understand your pain as you go through life and encounter more and more of the painful experiences, because they probably make you believe that you will never get out of this nightmare, that you will never have it going for you.

My suggestion is to take a step back and realize that indeed, you grew up in a nightmare, but you don’t have to keep living in one. And that there is help. There is healing. And that you are capable of healing.

Apart from finding a therapist who knows how to deal with victims of narcissistic abuse, the first step in healing is always self-compassion. Try to have compassion for the little girl that you were, being deprived of true love and tenderness, and being manipulated by a mother who only cared about her own needs. Have compassion for that little girl who, like every other child, was in a huge need of love and appreciation, and received so little.

You can help yourself and help that little girl get what she needs. With the help of therapy, you will be able to slowly but surely meet your basic needs. Maybe you can start with self-care: do something that soothes your body and soul, something that you enjoy.

It can take years to recover…to meet someone compatible to me so i can finally relax a bit more, enjoy life more..ive been like a soldier for so long, there is no mistake when people say this.

You don’t necessarily need to wait till you meet someone to relax and enjoy life. Try to relax your body in a warm bath, try to create for yourself small, simple experiences of relaxation, and try to enjoy and savor those moments. Start small, with something that you can create for yourself, not waiting for others. That would be a part of self-care, and so crucial for starting to meet your basic needs, both physical and emotional. It’s a long road, but it starts with self-care and self-compassion…

I hope this helped a little… I am rooting for you, Worldofthewaterwheels!

Dear Dafne,

thank you for your kind words and for caring about my well-being. It means a lot to me!

(BTW, I haven’t set a profile picture, so not sure what you mean?)

I am sorry about your father’s coldness and lack of empathy. What he said here is pretty awful:

Now he is saying that if I think that he is not a good father, I should stop calling him and he doesn’t want any contact with me if I ever mention my feelings or want anything from him. He said that his father never helped him and my life should not be easier than his. Also he said that many families are not in contact so it won’t make any difference for him if I disappear from his life

He was probably treated poorly by his own father, similarly like he is treating you now. It’s pretty rare for a parent to say that their child’s life shouldn’t be easier than theirs. It’s like he wants to punish you for being treated poorly as a child. In any case, I am afraid you really should heed his words and not call him, or at least you should stop expecting him to be different.

I felt so sad, disappointed & hurt that I cried many nights like a small child. Maybe I’m trying too hard to recreate what I’ve lost as a child which is impossible? Maybe he is not able to love me at all?

Yes, I am afraid he isn’t able to love you. He is a very selfish and closed-hearted person. I am sorry, Dafne. I know this is hard for you…

He dared to say that children should help financially their parents. That was his understanding of having kids. I told him that yes, you’re right but as a child I needed you first…

You told him well. He indeed sees everything through his own self-interest, and the funny thing is that he actually didn’t help you and your mother financially at all while you were growing up. So you don’t have any moral obligation to help him, after he has treated you and is still treating you poorly.

Tee, I agree with you that there is some strong connection between childhood and the future decisions that are mostly fear based. I’m trying to choose people that are the opposite of what my dadd is but still, the same patterns emerge. They are cold, emotionally unavailable, distant or angry types.

It’s good that you recognize the bad qualities in these men and are not trying to pursue them. That’s already a good start. In order to start attracting more emotionally healthy men, you’d need to work on meeting your own emotional needs first, as we’ve been talking about. Because the religious man seemed kind, but he might have been alarmed by your neediness.

I remember that he asked if I want to get married and I told him that yes, I’m looking for a friendship that leads to something more serious like engagement and hopefully marriage. Maybe this was the reason?

Hm, I don’t think he was put off by you wanting a serious relationship that will ends up in marriage. If he was religious, that’s what he too was probably looking for. I don’t know what has alarmed him, but as I said earlier, it might have been you feeling uncomfortable about his keeping in touch with his ex-wife and his stepson, and maybe feeling some extra neediness on your part?

Thank you Dafne again! You take care too!