Dear Katie:

You are welcome. (I didn’t notice your reply dated 7/12 until this morning, maybe it didn’t show before, like you suggested).

In your original post you wrote: “In my past relationships, it seems that when I try to be open with my feelings (expressing love) and try to figure out what the relationship is, it’s the kiss of death.”

In your last post you wrote: “It’s more of a feeling that I got that things went downhill after opening up and becoming vulnerable”- that is probably the feeling of the child that you were reaching out to your mother who did not respond to you and kept her distance during her “cold, withdrawn and removed” times.

You wrote: “I remember telling one guy for the first time that I loved him and his response was to kind of laugh and tell me that I didn’t really”- what did his reaction mean to you (what did you think he meant by what he said) at the time and what does it mean now?

anita