Dear Josh:

I re-read all your posts on the two threads again this morning, incorporating the information from your recent post into the bigger picture in my mind. I will separate the following with #s and include quotes from your shares in parentheses:

1. Anxiety in childhood and disassociation: you witnessed your father physically abusing your mother (he “took a lot of anger out on my mother physically… I had witnessed that a few times. Physically and verbally. Occasionally we’d hear the physical violence going on in their bedroom”). It was a scary experience that repeated itself during your early childhood, before you were 8, the time your parents divorced.

The disassociation is about tuning down the volume, as you heard the violence in your childhood home, you turned down the volume, so to speak.

Fast forward, in your five year relationship, you didn’t “hear” the noise, that is, the troubles in the relationship for the longest time, until your ex girlfriend left you that note, being loud enough for you to hear. In that relationship you didn’t “hear” the bickering loud enough, you didn’t hear her dissatisfaction (“when she left the note saying she was staying at her parents for 6 weeks, it blindsided me… we were absolutely best friends, we’d bicker but NEVER fought…. There were weeks we’d go without a romantic kiss, and sex slowed down dramatically to the point of stopping. She wanted it, but I had no interest”).

2. Anger- your early life promise to not be like your father, to never get as angry as him, led you to turn down the volume of your own anger to a point that you are hardly aware of it, and so, you are missing the emotion that lets us, humans, know when there is something wrong that needs to be addressed, this is how you missed your ex girlfriend’s dissatisfaction, not being aware of it until she left you, and it is the reason why you are too agreeable and not assertive (“at a young age-maybe about 10-after seeing my dad physically assaulting his new girlfriend, after me and my sister ran and hid, I promised my sister then that I’d never turn out like my dad, and never get as angry as him. I remember it very vividly.. to be anything like my father was dangerous… I’m very agreeable. And I’m not assertive at all”).

3. Aloneness- you were very much alone as a child, not starting grade 7 when you were taken out of public school, but before. When you heard the violence between your parents, there was no parent there Together with you, comforting you.  When your father assaulted his new girlfriend, there was no parent Together with you, comforting you.

At home, living with your mother, she worked many hours, not available to be Together with you. And then, being taken out of public school, you were alone in other ways, no peers Together with you.

And so, on one hand you prefer being alone, you are used to it, it is easier, but on the other hand, you never outgrew the need to be Together, this need in you is intense (“I tend to be a homebody and sit at home a lot even during that weekends.. I’m extremely introverted, very shy, and don’t get out very much.. I DO have a tendency to fall hard and quick.. why after a single date am I having such intense and emotional feelings… What’s been putting me on the brink of crying these days is the thought that she’s gone. ‘She’, being someone that didn’t mean much to me to begin with… I still find that I grow unreasonably attached to women that show interest in me, at unreasonable paces”)

A thought about the kind of woman who will be right for you: it is very important that the woman in your life, who will be in your life, in a romantic relationship, will be honest and assertive, one who will tell you very clearly (loud enough, so to speak) what she feels and what she wants, and yet she needs to be not aggressive.

You are welcome to give me your feedback on what I suggested here, in this post.

anita