Dear Ash:

Both your parents were not emotionally available to you as a child. No one to attend to you then. But they did attend to others, didn’t they? Parents often ignore their children but attend to others, their siblings, their own parents… neighbors, perfect strangers.

Parents are often not so nice to their children but are nice to others, sometimes going out of their way to be kind to others.

Maybe this is what you experienced as a child and that is what gets triggered when you notice your boyfriend received a text from someone else, you worry that the sender of the text, whomever that is, will get the attention that is now yours…?

anita