Hello X,

Your conversation with Matt about relationship was quite lovely. It’s always nice to learn about another person’s perspective on dating and relationship.

Now, going over your posts, there were some ideas that popped up and it might you with working out your current structure. Though do ignore it if you don’t find it helpful.

Regarding your childhood, it seems that you’ve spent the majority of it with your grandparents, which is not bad, but it seems that what you yourself needed was an authoritative figure, i e your father, rather than a gentle mother-type figure. Which is why you idolized your father, but you didn’t spent much time with him so you couldn’t develop too much emotional connection between the two of you. That was detrimental to you.

Then there was your mother, whom the best way to spend time with you was to read books together, but she found the activity boring so instead taught you to read so you could do it yourself. Again, not a bad thing, but for you, reading together was a means of building an emotional connection with your mother. That she would unknowingly reject it probably hurt the child you. So during childhood, you were only able to developed a partial relationship with your parents, whom you viewed as the first authoritative figures in your life. Hence, probably why you identified with the orphans in the novels. You felt abandoned by your parents, whom you wanted to spend as much time as possible together, but the circumstances didn’t allow that. It wasn’t that your parents didn’t try, it’s just that circumstances and the method of raising you wasn’t attuned to you so much as what they think was the best for you. It was a mismatch of expectations.

Then when you were older, you began to pull away. But that’s typical teenage behavior as teenagers are at an age of trying to explore their own individuality. Your parents didn’t know how to response to that since it seems that they were too used to you being obedient to their expectations. And it seemed that they stopped trying to guide you or at least communicate with you at a level that made you felt heard, which was even more detrimental to your psyche because though you might have quietly rebelled, you still needed the proper guidance. Or at least an authoritative figure you can depend on as a safety net while you try to understand a little more about yourself. That would explain a little of your romantic affiliation towards older men who are in position of authority. You idolized the thought of having someone guide you and that mixed in with the quality of potential romantic partner.

You have really good intuition so when you met your previous partners, something about them had appeal to you. One of the theme that connect them was that they were unavailable due to being married or unable to forget someone. But intuition doesn’t pick up status, it pick up emotions and motives. And if there’s a running theme between your exes, it was that they were unhappy in their relationship. And you being emphatic, you probably wanted to help these people who were able to catch your interest. Now, combined that with your need for a true mentor/teacher/guide, idolization of your father and romantic idealism of ‘love conquers all’ (with your previous exes likely looking for a distraction from their current relationship), it’s not difficult to imagine why you entered into a pseudo-relationship with men who can only make empty promises. After all, those men were older, charismatic, likely knowledgeable given their position and unhappy.

Even now, you are still searching for answers from those whom you think is a leader in certain fields. You wish for a guide. You wish for answers to what confound you; from your preference in men to why your exes just could not choose you. Because those answers might help you move on. Because knowledge might help you stay in control in a situation with brittle foundations. A pity you can’t really predict human behavior.

I caution you against labeling your ex as a narcissist. He had his vices, but you also decided to accept those vices, along with his promises of settling down with you. You yourself chose to accept those promises as valid, you chose to believe him regardless of what his actions might have indicated. You chose to wait for him, but he didn’t choose you in the end. For whatever reason, it wasn’t you. And it hurts because he was someone special to you for the six years you were together. You might have even thought he would be the one. It’s not something that is easy to let go of. But labeling him as someone narcissistic is merely trying to place the blame of the ruined relationship on him. It’s merely trying to say that you were in the right and he was wrong, that he is the one at fault. It might make you feel better, but the you that chose him can’t be all that perfect either, can you?

The analogy of a choosing to commit to a relationship in the form of watering a flower is lovely, but you’re still missing a piece. If the flower represent the relationship and all its emotions (from the spark to affection) and the watering the choice/decision to commit, then you only chemistry. You forget about compatibility, which is the earth that houses the flower. For whomever you meet in life, you can have chemistry, but not compatibility. Or you might meet someone who is compatible with you, but no chemistry. It is difficult to meet someone who has both chemistry and compatibility with you. Thus, there is compromise and separation.

You can love a person, but you might not love the life with that person. Because each person respect the other as individual with their own needs and desires. Because each person respect the other’s need for a life that they want. Because they want the other person to be happy, even if it’s life without them. So they separate, because while they did love each other, they couldn’t live the life the other person wanted. So it was better to let go. Love is letting go.

It’s not always the ‘why’, but rather the ‘how’. How do you choose to love someone?