Dear  joanna:

You are welcome and  take as  long  as you’d like  between posts. Always  good to read from you. I figure compared to your experience with your mother, the  one with your father was the safer. Compared to her yelling  at you (you shared  that before), criticizing you, giving you silent treatments, her boyfriend bullying you… compared  to that, your father was the safe  place.

* You wrote about your parents: “they divorced… so that I would  have a ‘normal and calm life'”, that is what your mother told you? It wasn’t the truth, was  it. She divorced  him for her reasons, not so to increase your emotional well being. If your emotional well being was her motivation,  her concern, she wouldn’t have repeatedly damaged  it and allowed her boyfriend to do so. (It reminds me  of  my mother telling  me that the reason she got pregnant and  had my sister was  so that I will have a sister, that  I will not be  lonely.  That was  untrue as well).

Back to the comparing: in comparison to your life with your mother and her boyfriend after the divorce, your father was the safe place. A child  knows only  what  she  experiences.

You wrote a couple of posts ago about this guy: “I do not understand this whole  situation… why is he talking like that now, is it about sex  only,  which also hard to believe since  he lives  with a girlfriend, why would he need me f or a sex, what’s the  point of that. Is he  really  that  damaged… “- lots of men (true  to women as well) look for sex elsewhere even though they have a girlfriend or a  wife. Many times there  is nothing  wrong  with their sex life  with the girlfriend or wife, they just want something different from what  they have  available.  It is  the  excitement, more action in their life, distraction, something  to do. He enjoyed  something  about you and  he wants to experience it again.

In regard to a relationship with a man,  the  hope as I see  it, is  in you experiencing something  new, a relationship with a man who loves you, is committed to you,  is not aggressive with you,  respects you, loyal to you.  If you relax into such a relationship and  participate in it in a  healthy way, then you will have an experience that will enter  that  comparison sheet in your brain. Compared to this yet-to-happen experience, a guy like the one your thread is about, wouldn’t stand a chance.

anita