Dear WestCoastGal:

Your father left and came back, then left again and remained gone. When you reached out to him (sharing with him how you truly feel, hurt), he rejected you, blocking you “on all types of platforms”.

Fast forward, you are a teenager/ young woman, “if a guy was interested in me, I would immediately be turned off”- you expect to be left and rejected, so you shut down, it happens automatically. There is fear and anger in this response: fear of being hurt again, anger at having been hurt.

You probably absorbed some of mother’s attitude toward the men in her life (“My mom has been married and engaged three times, and doesn’t have the best attitude towards men”), an attitude that added to your reluctance to be be hurt again.

“In my adult years, I’ve tended to chase men that aren’t ready for a relationship, have issues, or just aren’t interested”- what drove that chasing is your inborn, natural need and desire to be in a relationship. The reason you didn’t shut down, or got turned off with those men is because they were not chasing you, so you were not in danger.

In your original post you wrote: “I’m very sensitive and vulnerable”- by shutting down and either not developing an interest or an attraction to men, or losing it- your brain has been automatically protecting you from feeling hurt again, feeling that intense hurt of childhood.

“should I settle for someone who doesn’t speak the same love language, someone who I’m not attracted to? Or do I try and break my pattern, and learn to love?”- the love language issue is a minor issue, as I see it. The main issue is your fear of getting hurt again, your fear of re-experience the hurt you felt as a child.

Young children feel very intensely. As adults we may forget that intensity, but it was there.

To break the patterns, it will take the lessening and managing of your fear of getting hurt. You will need to attend to the fear because at this point, it is more powerful than love.

anita