Dear Michelle:

I hope that you are okay with me responding to your recent post, which was very interesting to read. I don’t know if the other member will reply to you, but I doubt it because she has posted three times on that one day only, and hasn’t posted since. I agree with your analysis of her two replies: “These replies .. were judgmental, hasty, and quite insulting… place blame.. see(s) the world in black and white.… that might appear like it has a black and white appearance, when really it’s coloured with all shades of the rainbow… I kind of wish it were as simple as what you reduced it to… fit in a tidy little box… just to labelled users and those who are used“.

Before reading your recent post, I re-read today much of our previous communication on this thread and noticed something I did not notice before. Combining that understanding with your recent post, I want to share with you my thoughts:

Imagine your boyfriend’s mother being similar to the member replying to you, maybe not as overtly callous and rude, but similar in black and white thinking, and in being judgmental (you did describe his mother as cold). What does it do to a boy?

You answered this question in your recent post: “I think the hardest part about judgement from others is that you start to lose sight of what you see as true, you start to question your own sanity. It’s hard believe your own intuition.. Your mind wants to protect itself from any kind of damage”- this is what happened to him, as I understand it.

Because of his mother’s coldness and judgement, he too lost touch with his intuition (but he is gradually connecting to it): “He keeps saying that (he) loves me, in a way, but I am not his one and only. He says it so robotically that I don’t know how to believe it”- he said it robotically- robots do not have intuition.

His brain protected him from damage by focusing and adhering to a black-and-white/ all-or-nothing, overly simplified and distorted view of people and life. In his mind, a person has to be Perfect/ Ideal (same thing: perfect=ideal), perfect all the way, no exceptions, never less than perfect.

He repeated to you in the past that you are not his Ideal woman because he noticed that you were not Perfect and figured that therefore, you are not his Ideal. You didn’t finish all the food on your plate, so in his mind, a light bulb came on: Imperfect! Not ideal! You listened to music he thought was lacking- a light bulb: Imperfect! Not ideal! You didn’t get a reference he made- same thing, etc.

“His OCD seems to surround cleanliness, order and symmetry… When we go on day trips he packs the trunk with a very specific order and he will not tolerate food in his car. Mostly his life is orderly”- things and people have to be Perfect, in his black-and-white/ all-or-nothing thinking.

“When he first came over to my house he stayed over and remarked that my kettle had disgusting limescale buildup… He found many other disgusting things wrong with my housekeeping skills”= Imperfect. For some men who care a about cleanliness, such observations may be mildly distressing, but for him, with his all-or-nothing thinking, these observations are too distressing, a deal breaker, because nothing less than perfect is acceptable.

His all-or-nothing distorted thinking extends to himself: “He started to walk away to go back inside and said sarcastically ‘yeah, if you’d want t see me… I asked what he meant by that. He said ‘well you want to move on, if I can’t do things the way you want, then you don’t want any of this at all“- he said basically, that if he can’t do everything perfectly, then you will not want any of him.

“we slowly ended up back in our relationship.. He got upset over something small but ended up getting frustrated and questioned my desire to spend time with him” (November)- here it is again: he got frustrated, figured that getting frustrated is evidence of his Imperfection and concluded that you will reject all of him because he is Imperfect.

In your recent post: “he has been as equally pursuant of me.. There has never been a man who has SHOWN me with actions how much he wants me in his life… spend(s) all of his time with me. He comes to see me more than I go to see him.. ask(ed) me to spend he holidays with him.. make plans with me to go places in the new year… My current relationship feels like a sheep dressed in a wolf’s clothing”-

– I agree with you, he is a sheep (intuitively and in actions: he loves you, you are The One for him) in wolf clothing (the wolf is a black-and-white, Perfect and threatening Fictional character, taking after his mother, I suspect).

anita