Dear Mina:

You wrote: “I am open to my parents for every single thing except for my own feelings”- if we were robots, that openness would have been enough. Because we are humans, and feelings are an integral, most important part of us, not being open to your parents about your feelings is … a severely lacking openness. A lack of openness that you are not responsible for, they are.

You were taught that ” Expressing emotion means … I am weak. Vulnerable and I will be easily attacked by people”- it is harmful to express your emotions to individuals who don’t care or are going to use your expression so to have power over you and harm you. But expressing emotions is not the same as feeling them. A parent can teach a child that it is okay to feel whatever she feels, that there is a valid message to listen to in every feeling and that expressing them indiscriminately is not a good thing to do.

Everything you shared here about your ex boyfriend describes a wonderful young man, exceptional. (Not a god though, to keep in mind). No wonder you got so attached to him. You were not accepted by your parents (it is impossible to be accepted when your feelings are not accepted!), so to be accepted by him meant a whole lot to you and it still does. This is understandable.

As to the last part of your post: you know that the breakup happened logically but emotionally you don’t. Again, we are not robots. If you were a robot knowing that the break up happened logically would be adequate. Because we are born as emotional beings, we have to know important things logically and emotionally, both. When you stated before that “we know that we will always love and support each other”- that indicates to me that emotionally you still feel that you are having a relationship, that the breakup didn’t happen.

The breakup with you happened and that means that he is likely to love and support another woman, now or in the future, so he is not likely to “always love and support” you.  You wrote that you want to “open my eyes now, Anita. Even if it is scary – I will want to see reality as reality If I do contact him”- well this very paragraph I just typed is reality. Are you able and willing to open your eyes to it?

anita