Dear laelithia:

Regarding the first part of your post, I agree with how you put it: “the majority of my preoccupation with the ex of two years ago and my attraction to him was primarily due to the reactivation of old core wounds”. I also believe that you were attracted to him for being “physically attractive.. ability to communicate about emotions (etc.)”.

These qualities you mentioned about him are relevant to your attraction to him at the time, but are irrelevant to your “problems moving on”, that is, your obsession about this long ago relationship.

You wrote, “when I envision my ‘perfect’ or happy relationship, I often imagine it with someone like him, with these qualities”- as I envision you, based on my understanding, meeting a man with these qualities, I see a woman having the perfect slice of pizza in front of her (pick your favorite food in place of pizza, if you will), perfect melted cheese, crust, toppings, fresh. She is eager to  it the pizza, it is perfect for her… but alas, she doesn’t have teeth to chew it. There it is the perfect pizza and no  way to chew it and enjoy the flavors, the textures, the freshness, no way to swallow it without gagging.

Regarding the second part of your post, you are making a very common mistake, one I had made for many years (and unfortunately you are promoting this mistake to be made by your clients). This is the mistake: you are sitting in a place of judgment of your mother, considering her performance as a mother not from the point of view of the child that you were, but from a neutral, removed point of view, considering her childhood, her performance compared to her own parents and other parents out there, giving her credit for this and that-

But for the child that you were, none of these  considerations existed. All that existed was you and her and the interactions in between. The rejection felt painful and raw, unexpected and devastating.

Your core wounds were created in the context of the early relationship between a little girl and her mother. To heal from these core wounds, the relationship has to be healed  or terminated.

For as long as the relationship between you and your mother continues based on both parties ignoring the fact that she created your existing core wounds, pretending that you “had a very charmed and privileged childhood”, your healing cannot take place.

anita