lgdelacruz92 – thank you for the support, that means a lot to me. It is a perspective like the one you shared that I possess when I am at the most peace in my life but I know in the last several months I have lost it or found it increasingly difficult to grasp. For whatever reason. I think I just need to practice being mindful and non-judgmental about whatever I am feeling. I like this image of picturing ourselves as the clouds.

Anita – thank you 🙂 To answer your questions, that is basically correct although I never really told him that he needed to man up. This was what he realized that he hadn’t done when we were together the first time and so was trying to when we were together more recently. I do feel that my mom constantly thought he wasn’t good enough for me and it’s possible I slowly adopted that feeling also.
Overall, my relationship with my mom is a pretty big can of worms. She has been diagnosed as bipolar but after taking medications and suffering side effects for years she is untreated. I don’t think it’s severe but it has shown itself in my own life as her presence being very inconsistent. She will be super involved and energetic for a month or two and then emotionally disappear for a month or two. This has happened repeatedly throughout my life. Also a lot of anger and bitterness but I’m not really sure what for. Anyway…she and my dad divorced when I was a baby, she remarried when I was 6 to an emotionally abusive and EXTREMELY controlling and jealous man. She and I couldn’t do anything together because he thought it wasn’t fair to leave his kids out. She went along with it all but there was constant fighting. She was in this relationship till I was 16 and we moved out, but ex-step-dad continued to come over for sex for a couple years. Gross that I know that, but I do. To this day she gets defensive when I try to bring up that shitty part of my childhood but has no problem talking about how rough she had it when she was married to him. She hasn’t displayed any real interest in dating since. As for her role in my own dating life, other than her dislike of J, she’s left it mostly up to me. She loved S big time, but he was a parent’s dream really. I know my mom loves me probably more than anything but I do sometimes struggle with wanting to blame her for a lot of my issues…self loathing, being overly critical, isolating myself, having a hard time connecting with people….