Dear joanna:

Dec 8 last year you wrote: “when I met this guy (Tom) he reminded me of my father so much, felt so familiar, so nice and safe…I’ve been stuck with this guy for the last 7 years and he’s been my whole world and purpose in life, and can’t let him go and move on.”

In your post today, you wrote: “I always thought of my dad as my rescue. If only he was there, he could support me through everything I’ve been through when I was a child and she (your mother) was bullying me, when her partner was mocking me. My dad wouldn’t allow this, if only he knew.”

This is my (yet growing) understanding:

Who Tom is in reality and who he is in your mind are two different, unrelated things. Who he is in your mind is fantasy and  has nothing to do with reality.

In Reality Tom in his interactions with you is possibly something like this: this joanna, so much fun, I can say anything I want to her, can do anything I want to her and she still wants me… don’t have to spend any money on her, don’t have to promise anything… she’ll take me anyway, do what I want, like a slave. I can hurt her and she’ll be back. Sex with her is fun, when I feel like it. Oh, I have no plans for her, no way, just having fun. It doesn’t cost me a thing, so why not.

In your Fantasy Tom is this: god, all powerful, The One who saves and protects and makes it all okay (if you say and do the right thing, of course, if you earn his willingness to use his power to save and protect and make it all good for you).

When you were a child, bullied by your mother and by her boyfriend, it was too scary to be alone, so you made believe your father was there, with you, and would be protecting you, if he was there. In reality your father “didn’t do anything”, your words. You made believe, created a fantasy, understandably, because being alone, unprotected was too scary of a reality.

Your father was your first Fantasy man. Who you imagined him to be is who you needed him to be, not who he was.

“I always thought of my dad as my rescue. If only he was there, he could support me through everything… if only he knew.

Fantasy has shifted from your father to this man, Tom.

Question is: will you ever move from Fantasy to Reality. I don’t know the answer.

anita