Hi Anita,

What I meant when I said my mother doesn’t have as much as an effect on me as my ex is that I have taken your suggestions and reduced contact with her, set boundaries and stood up for myself when she didn’t respect them and told her how what she had done to me in the past had affected me. Lately, I have totally reduced contact, but when we do speak, she has begun to apologize for the specific hurts she has caused me, but it doesn’t seem to matter in the sense that I don’t feel any different whether she does or doesn’t apologize. I suppose the past has already happened, and there is nothing that can be undone. I am disappointed though, as I was really hoping that in rectifying her role in my life, I would start to feel at least some relief from the obsessive damning thoughts I have about my past relationships, but I have not.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, and I have come to realize that there are many women (and men) that have been heartbroken after dating a separated/newly divorced partner. One pattern I noticed, is that both the ex of 2 years ago and the one following him that I wrote about to you (https://tinybuddha.com/topic/getting-over-infatuation-with-someone-who-wasnt-real/) were newly out of serious relationships. I seem to thrive in these relationships where I am the rebound, but I don’t see it until it is too late. I think is the openness of these men, the vulnerability and the neediness on their part for me that I crave. However, it seems as they “use” me and begin to heal from their past hurts and are moving on, I can’t seem to let go. I don’t believe objectively either of these men were necessarily the best men for me on paper (both dabbled in recreational drugs, lacked my level of ambition and long term goals, partied too much in my opinion), yet I idolized them as the perfect partners, and in a lot of ways still do. Their flaws didn’t seem to matter, because I was so happy. I felt loved. However I would get jealous and insecure, and often “check” if they were honest with me (look what time they were last online social media vs. responding to my texts, etc.). It seems the more fulfilled I feel in a relationship, the more nervous/anxious I am that they might change their minds. I suppose this is a textbook case of the anxious attachment style.

That being said, I cannot shake my feelings about the ex of 2 years ago. That had I reduced contact with my mother sooner, not cared what she and my father thought of me so much, that I wouldn’t have been so anxiously attached to my partners at the time. In fact, it was always soon after introducing my partners to my parents, that the relationships would fall apart. I can’t imagine that this is a coincidence. How can I possibly let go of these regrets, when it feels like I have doomed myself to never finding someone that I cared as much for again? I keep thinking that had this relationship worked out, we would now have been together for 3 or so years, and I could enter my 30s in a strong and healthy, loving and fulfilling relationship. As it is now, I am not at this point, and so far from it, it seems. I keep trying to tell myself that my ex of 2 years ago likely was not ready to enter a new relationship with me, that the new partner he has is luckier than me in the sense of timing. By the time they met, he was formally divorced. He only divorced mid-way through our relationship. That being said, the horrible night in late September, I believe he was trying to be with me, fully, and I blew it. I am constantly angry with myself, and full of regrets. If the relationship had ended over anything else, perhaps I wouldn’t have to be so hard on myself. But as it is now, I am constantly wondering “what if?” and worried that the rest of my life will pale in comparison to what it could have been with him.