Dear Bob256,

It seems last year’s been a big journey of growth and self-awareness for you, and you’re seeing things much more clearly than before. It does seem like your mother and grandmother don’t have a good effect on you, since they probably have expectations from you and can’t accept you as an independent person with your own goals and dreams. Your father on the other hand seems to support you in going after your dreams and is willing to help you pay for the college. That’s excellent!

I agree with anita – if your mother and grandmother aren’t open to repairing the relationship, and are only willing to accept you on their own terms, it’s better to stay away. I understand it hurts to keep a distance, because you love them both, but if you cannot be yourself around them and they don’t respect your choices, you have to protect yourself. Because as you said, being around them affects your mental health.

Perhaps you need to grieve the loss of the close relationship from your early childhood, grieve all the pleasant moments you had with your mom and granny. And then let go, because now, this closeness isn’t possible any more, because they don’t accept you for who you are. You can still love them and have gentle feelings for them, but at the same time, keep your boundaries and don’t allow them to disrespect you. So you keep an open heart, but you’re also prepared to protect yourself from harm.

It’s good that you’re going away to college because that will make it easier for you to stay physically separated, and yet in touch with them from time to time, if you choose so.

Good luck and stay strong!

Dear Felis,

I am sorry you have to go through this. I’ve been in a similar situation quite a few years ago, and it’s really exhausting and frustrating, especially the inability to let go. From your description, it seems like you were the anxious party in the relationship, needing as much as his presence as possible and sort of clinging on to him, while he was more of the avoidant type, needing space and time away from you.

It’s a frequent match – anxious and avoidant type getting together, but also often breaking up, because the ambivalent party starts feeling suffocated in the relationship, and the anxious party feels neglected and unloved.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the attachment theory, which talks about different attachment i.e. bonding styles between the parent and the child, which then affect our adult relationships as well. If we had secure attachment with our parents, we won’t be that clingy and needy, and will be able to give the other person room to breathe, so to speak, and allow them to have their own interests and hobbies, which might not always involve us.

If we didn’t have secure attachment, there are two scenarios: 1) we will either become very clingy and anxious, constantly fearing that we’ll be left alone, or 2) we become afraid of intimacy and closeness, and want to be left alone, especially when the other party is clingy and insisting on intimacy. The first is the so-called anxious attachment style, which would be yours, and the second is the avoidant attachment style, which seems to be your ex boyfriend’s style.

I too was the anxious party and literally thought I would die when my boyfriend threatened to leave me. I felt like I was falling into the ground and disappearing. I thought I won’t be able to survive without him…

Fortunately, I could work through my fear in therapy, and realized that when I am obsessing about him, it’s the small child inside of me scared of being abandoned. I realized I won’t die without him, and it made things easier. From then on, I wasn’t clinging on to him so much, wasn’t controlling his every step, I could allow him room to breathe. And the result was that he didn’t feel threatened any more and spontaneously got closer to me. As I stopped clinging on to him, he stopped resisting and running away. Now we’re married 😊

I hope this helps. Good luck to you!