Dear Dave:

You are welcome. You wrote regarding your mother in June 2021: “I couldn’t bare to upset her.. I felt responsible often for my mother’s happiness as a child“. Today, Nov 2021, you wrote regarding your ex-girlfriend: “I still am in touch with my ex, and feel the guilt of hurting her still. Just like trying to protect my mother“. And then you wrote: “I trust strong and independent women (like my mother), almost instantaneously. I am very happy to work on these things with you on here, absolutely. Please let me know what you think would be best to start with?“-

-you can start with answering these questions, if you want to:  (1) Who hurt your mother and who did you therefore need to protect her from?  (2) If your mother was indeed a strong and independent woman .. how is it that she needed protection from a child.. you? (3) What made your mother so unhappy?

And now, I will answer the same questions I asked you in regard to my own mother: (1) Seems like everyone had hurt my mother, including me, her daughter. So she told me, and I felt very guilty for it,  (2) My mother said that she was strong and independent raising two children on her own, working 3 jobs per day, no financial help from anyone.. taking care of the home herself, without the help of a man, etc., and in these regards she was indeed strong and independent. Otherwise she was weak and dependent, expressing her misery to me on an ongoing basis, telling me what a horrible life she was having and how I added to how difficult it was for her, (3) What made her so unhappy: that people didn’t appreciate her and  hurt her (including me, so she said), that she didn’t have the life she wished she had: one of luxury.

anita