Dear Cass:

Having read your opposite schedules at the time, in combination with the distance between the two of you, I agree with you that “realistically it was never going to work”.

A few of my thoughts that may be helpful to you:

1. In the context of the relationship and the break up, his pre-existing fears of rejection and abandonment awakened and your being-less-than pre-existing feelings were awakened. These italicized were not products of the relationship. They were awakened in the context of the relationship and breakup.

2. Regarding you, the ex and anger: in your example, you wrote: “I told him that was fine as long as he actually planned something and went through with it… Well he got really angry and went off on me telling me…” It read as if you were calm and he got angry. But later, you added regarding you part in that verbal exchange, before his angry reaction: “I’m sure it came off as accusatory and at the time, I was upset as well”.

So reality is you expressed your anger at him and then he expressed his anger at you.

You wrote: “It wasn’t that he got upset that bothered me, it was the way he would show his anger that was a problem” – this leads me to wonder, what way of showing his anger would have been acceptable to you.

Would  it have been acceptable to you if he too “came off as accusatory” as you did, instead of using the f word?

And what if your way of expressing your anger, coming off accusatory but not directly stating the accusation, what if your way is not acceptable to him.

3. Regarding your mother, your father, you and anger: you wrote that your mother “always says to not marry someone older… she resents these qualities in my father. She doesn’t seem interested in doing anything with him…My father is the kind of person that talks at you rather than to you which causes her to just stay quiet”-

it is not that your father is angry at your mother in isolation. She is angry with him too. They are both angry at each other and they both express their anger in different ways. You may be aware of his way of expressing his anger and not like his way. And you may not be aware of how your mother expresses her anger toward him. But notice: your mother’s ways of expressing anger at your father have been so unpleasant to him that he has been withdrawing from her company for many years.

You are angry at your father, not at your mother, based on the belief that the state of their marriage is his fault because of his ways of expressing anger. In reality, the state of their marriage is both of their fault and her ways of expressing anger may be as distressing to most people as his ways.

anita