Dear Ashmitha:

Yesterday, June 20 2021, you wrote: “I think I’m starting not to trust men as easily now, which is good… I’m curious to hear what you think”-

– I think that the big picture is complex, here it is as I see it today:

(1) About Trust: I don’t believe it to be true that as a young woman, you ever trusted men easily, in the context of a romantic relationship. The truth is here: “I think I have a hard time fully trusting people and letting them in because I’m scared they will disappoint me, like my dad did. I’m sure it was confusing for me as a child to have a close relationship with someone (my dad) who showed me 2 very different personalities (drunk vs sober). I think I truly only trust myself” (April 21 2021).

(2) About Marriage: you want to get married only in theory. Emotionally: on one hand, you have a natural need for a romantic male companion, but on the other hand, you are afraid of being in a marriage because your experience with the first marriage you’ve known intimately was bad, and that marriage was your parents’: “I think the reason I’ve had several short-term relationships is because, subconsciously, I am looking for something ‘wrong’ as you said Anita. It probably does stem from my fear of having a marriage like my parents’. I have always wondered why my friends have been in 4 year relationships, and despite having problems, will always want to get back together, whereas I am fine with leaving a relationship if something isn’t working”, earlier 2021.

(3) About the Fear of getting married and being stuck in a bad marriage: this fear is powerful enough to motivate you to easily leave a relationship if something isn’t working (the quote above), to bring a promising relationship to an end so to avoid the danger of getting married, and to stay for a long time in a relationship that is not promising, so.. avoid the danger of getting married: “It’s funny because in my last relationship, my emotional needs were very much met and I felt like I learned how a healthy relationship should be… He wanted to meet my friends and did so often. My friends commented on how nice our relationship seemed; he took me on adventurous dates, posted me on social media and told his family about me. Yet, I reverted and settled for this type of treatment which I have received in the past. I’m not sure what my problem is- do I choose wrong men? Am I not ready for a relationship myself?”-

The problem is that you are too afraid of a relationship that will lead to marriage, so I would say Yes to your second question above: you are not ready for a serious relationship that will lead to marriage.

(4) About the Pattern: the peace you felt following the recent breakup is about feeling free from the distress you experienced during the very unsatisfactory relationship with G, and it is about feeling safe in being single- safe from the possibility of getting stuck in marriage: “I feel at peace… The thought of dating again does not seem appealing to me at all now. I feel no urge to be in a relationship. I think this is good because I am finally starting to be okay with being alone. In my past, I always rushed into new relationships after breakups, a few months later”.

“I do feel the pain of breakups and take a few months to grieve but it’s usually been about 3-6 months in between relationships, which seems kind of short. Getting into a new relationship does help me get over the previous one” (April 23)

According to the pattern you described above, after the initial peace, and after the pain of a breakup (because although you are quite detached, you still feel some safety in a boyfriend’s presence and therefore you get emotionally attached to him), you will again feel your natural need for a romantic male companionship, rush into a new relationship, and then, if the man is serious- you’ll drive the relationship to an end, and if the man is not serious, you will stay in the relationship for a long time.

(5) About being Deceived: on April 21 2021 you wrote the following about your now ex once-a-week-“go out to eat, talk and then are intimate”-boyfriend who used you, lied to you, and dishonestly manipulated you: “I 100% think he is a good person”.

Yesterday, you considered that maybe he is not a 100% good person, that maybe he indeed deceived you for at least 14 months: “One interesting thing I noticed is that we broke up in April of 2020 because ‘he was not ready for a relationship.’ Now in June of 2021, we are breaking up for the same reason. Does this mean he was never ready but asked me to be his girlfriend in June of 2020 anyway? This is problematic to me and suggests deception. It does seem like he wanted a casual relationship that involved sex for minimal effort”.

But still, on the same day, you doubted his deception by thinking of him as immature, like a child who is not responsible for his actions (and therefore cannot be deceptive): “I think the real reason was he was too immature for a relationship”.

You also wrote yesterday: “I am a highly analytical person and I can read people around me quite well, but with relationships I feel I trust that they are good people and care for me, too easily”-

– this inclination to close your eyes to G’s deception and to see him as a “100%..  good person” (a clearly untrue evaluation of him), is a result of your experience with your father:

“My dad and I are close as well and I still love him despite what he put us through. When he is sober, I enjoy being around him. But when he is drunk, I hate him (harsh, but it is how I feel in the moment). I try to blame his alcohol addiction instead of him because I would never not want to have a relationship with him. I would still do anything for him…He would threaten my mom a lot, and hold knives to scare her. This did not scare me lol. I would go to the kitchen, get my own knife, and stand up to him and ask him what his problem was. I just remember protecting my mom a lot as a child”-

– if as a child you walked with your mother in the street and a strange man pointed a knife at your mother, and she screamed, and somehow fought the man and he ran away, and then you and your mother returned home safely, you would be leaving the danger/ the bad man behind you, in the streets. You may be afraid to go out again but you would have the safety of home, protected by your parents.

But when the danger/ the bad man is your father who is living with you.. you don’t get the privilege of leaving the danger behind.

“I can’t see him as an evil person”, you wrote about G. I suggested to you yesterday that “him” may be another man, and asked you: “Can you think who that might be?”. Your answer: “My father. Wow. Please expand when you have time. I think you are most definitely onto something”-

– expanding: when the danger is at home, when the man with the knife is a child’s father, the child’s brain adjusts to living with danger: she emotionally detaches best she can, she closes her eyes to danger best she can, pretending it is not happening, or pretending it’s not that bad, and seeing her father not as a bad man, but as a good man who will never hurt anyone, a good man with a bad alcohol problem, etc.

The child cannot leave her dangerous home/ a bad parent, so she pretends best she can that her home is not dangerous and that her bad parent.. is a good parent. The child makes excuses for the bad parent, the child believes the parent’s lies if those lies are comforting.

The child deceives herself so to lower her fear.

You wrote about G earlier: “I don’t think he is using me. I brought that up and he seemed hurt that I thought he was stringing me along”- you easily abandoned the idea that he was using you because he seemed hurt. I imagine that whenever you saw hurt on your father’s face, you thought something like  this: he cannot be a bad person because he is hurt.

A child thinks in a black and white way: a bad person never looks hurt, a bad person always has this evil smile (like in cartoons and some movies), so when the bad parent seems hurt, the child thinks: this is proof that he is a good person.

The child magnifies anything nice that her bad parent does so to feel safer with him. If he gives her a cookie, that’s proof that he is a good person, even if the parent hit the child harshly an hour later.

You wrote regarding G: “We live far apart and he drives up to 1 hour to see me without ever complaining almost every time we hang out, which I appreciate… He always tries to pay for me when we go out (I don’t always let him), but it is a nice gesture”- you magnified the little that he did so to feel better about him, giving him way more credit than he deserved for being willing to drive for up to an hour so to have sex.

“I’m also curious if you have advice on selecting a partner. I think my selection process is wrong. I get interest from men but I don’t think I choose the right ones or I prioritize the wrong things when choosing”- maybe you can answer this later, after taking your time to process my post and get back to me.

anita