Dear MeowAnna/ Julia:

Your boyfriend’s traveling schedule would be difficult for almost any and every woman on the face of this earth. Being absent up to 20 days per month, month after month, is a whole lot of absence, a whole lot of leaving and returning.

First item in my input is that your feelings are not of your choosing, including the anger at him. There is a valid message behind what we feel. There are no good or bad feelings. Anger is not a bad feeling.

You wrote, “Relationship with my mom was never very emotional, warm or close”-  a baby, a young child naturally feels very, very close to her mother. There is no person closer, more important than one’s mother (or primary care taker, if different than the mother).

She must have rejected you repeatedly. She must have ignored your many, many efforts to reach out to her, to gain her attention and love.

When your boyfriend leaves, it may  be a bit like your mother rejecting you, and when he returns you are angry at him, as in, why did you leave me?

It may be your anger with your father as well, for not being in your  life after the divorce with your mother.

And so, the valid message behind your resentment, other than the difficulty in having a relationship with a person who is absent so often, is the old, still existing, anger at your mother for rejecting you and/or at your father for disappearing out of your life.

What do you think, or …better ask: what do you feel, if anything?

anita