Dear HoUremember:

You are welcome, thank you for your kind words and wishes and Happy New Year to you!

You wrote about this man: “he calls what we have intimate, something he hasn’t experienced before”.

Let’s look at his relationship with his parents, let’s look for intimacy there, a closeness, a trust:

1. “he’s been brought up to not cry and be there for others”- to let him cry and express empathy for him as he cried, and to encourage him to be there for himself, not just for others, would have been intimate.

2. “if they ask something he will do it… He was always a bit withdrawn to go outside his room (to pee for example) because when they see him they always ask for something (fixing this… asking for money).. I asked if they ever day thank you. His answer was: no and that its normal since it (is) their roof”- if there was intimacy between him and his parents, he wouldn’t prefer to hold his pee and be uncomfortable that way, so to not be seen and talked to by his parents. If there was intimacy, they would say thank you, showing him sincere appreciation for fixing and financing their roof. And they would do it so regularly, that it would appear.. normal to him.

3. His mother asked him for about $4,000 for a particular purpose, he gave it to her, she then used only $800 for her stated purpose and pocketed $3,200- –well,  if there was intimacy between him and his mother, she wouldn’t con him (a con that could be taken to civil court in the US, for the return of $3,200.

4. His mother repeatedly pushed him into a relationship he didn’t want to be in- she liked the woman her son was with, so she didn’t mind that he didn’t. What she feels matter, what he feels doesn’t- not an intimate relationship between mother and son.

5. “He now will work 12 hrs a day, 6 days a week, just to financially support his parents”- intimacy and financial servitude/ slavery don’t go together.

6. He wanted to visit you, but his father “demanded him to stay in Ireland.. help them out in and around the house. He was shattered, but obeys his dad”- intimacy does not demand, nor does it obey. Neither is it selfish.

The rest of my thoughts: you wrote “I respect him and the ones he loves”- he does love his parents, but why respect parents who use, con and enslave another person, specifically, their own son?

You shared that you come from a broken home, having been raised in foster care from 2-17, that you “don’t know how it’s like to have family”, but that you “do know what the importance is to have it in your life”- it is important to have a family in your life if it is a loving family. That’s not his parents, not my parents. So many of us grew up with unloving families.

You wrote: “it’s breaking my heart because we were such a good team and I really miss him”- this is what intimacy is, being a good team. Neither one in the team uses the other, neither one is selfish, neither one demands or obeys, neither one cons the other for financial gain or deceives the other for any reason, neither one enslaves the other.

He got a taste of intimacy with you for the first time in his life, but he was trained to be a slave to his parents.

Where do you take it from here, if anywhere?

anita