Dear Quirine:

You mentioned that sometimes you fall in love/ get infatuated with women who are not available- that happens to everyone: possible romantic partners are otherwise engaged (in a relationship, a different sexual orientation, and such). It doesn’t mean you are necessarily attracted to unavailable women, but that reality is not everyone is available.

Being afraid of your father, living fearfully of his anger, as a child, him being hotheaded and attacking you from time to time unexpectedly (“time to time him to tell me off for whatever reason”) is a very difficult situation for a child, scary. It explains to me why you would be afraid and distrustful of women/ girlfriends. When your father was nice or acted loving toward you, you didn’t know how long it would last. You were cautious, wanting to prepare for the next attack, to not be surprised, correct? If so, in a similar way, you want to prepare for the ending of a relationship before it ends, so to not get so painfully surprised.

Keeping your sexual orientation a secret, even from your safer mother, was an added complication to your life.

I suppose you will need to deal with the fear, the fear you already experienced growing up with your father, the fear of being rejected for your secret, the fear of re-experiencing pain in future romantic relationships.

Perhaps healing-type of psychotherapy can help you. Therapy where you will be taught such a thing as “emotional regulation skills”- so to endure and manage the anxiety, to not be overwhelmed and to function effectively in a relationship in spite of the anxiety. It will also help to further learn communication skills so to communicate effectively with the next girlfriend, or potential girlfriend.

Another very important skill: to evaluate people, so to avoid women who will disrespect and mistreat you.

anita