Dear  Vee:

Maybe this explanation will help you:

There is nothing a child needs more than to feel safe. It is a longing so intense. When a child feels safe, the sun seems brighter, the grass greener, she is filled with joy, eager to run  on that grass to the other side, to catch that rabbit,  to  pick up that flower and look at it close. Joy, curiosity, eagerness, all these are possible when feeling safe.

On the other hand, when a child feels unsafe, the sun is gone, the sky is grey, the grass is dull and  she doesn’t want to run on that grass, she doesn’t care to catch that rabbit or to pick up  flowers.  Instead, she sits somewhere, looking so sad.

And that child,  when she grows up and romance becomes an option, the hope for safety wakes up, and she thinks: this boy, this young man will make me feel safe. With that hope come the joy, that eagerness, this beautiful life experience.

For a while it feels this way but it doesn’t last because that childhood feeling of safety when not experienced  in early childhood, it cannot be produced and  maintained in a romantic relationship. You are no longer a tiny little girl and the young man is not the all powerful parent that existed in the mind of the young child.

If you corrected your expectations  of a romantic relationship, you will probably feel differently, your feelings will be grounded in reality.

anita