Dear Elizabeth:

I read that you made it a goal for yourself to no longer speak of him on this forum or to anyone again and I respect that. I want to share something with you that is relevant, something that I’ve been thinking about in other contexts. It’s about the connection between parental love and romantic love. To simplify it, I’d say: the connection between a mother’s love (or lack of) for her child- daughter, and the daughter’s experience of romantic love as an adult. When the mother does not really love her daughter, the daughter is intensely thirsty for love and will do anything for her mother to love her, grasping at straws, will literally grab onto anything. Fast forward, she meets a man who appeals to her, feels love for him,  believes he loves her back and the experience is…  MAGIC, that Falling-in-Love magic.. it’s like everything she ever wanted coming true, a long-ago ancient thirst finally being satiated.

When she finds out Reality is not congruent with the magic, her heart breaks, she may walk away from him forever or she will linger,  grasping at straws, literally grabbing onto anything to make believe that he does love her after all, that he will soon notice that he loves her and regret his actions and come back to her (“This was me grasping at straws. I was so broken I literally grabbed onto anything“). I think that the greater the lack of love a child experiences, the greater the Magic/falling-in-love that she experiences with a man, and the greater the Fall from that Magic.

Another result of lack of parental love: the daughter withdraws emotionally to such an extent that as an adult, she avoids romantic relationships altogether.. or ends them quickly, running from one to the next, or spending lots of time alone in between short-term, turbulent relationships.

I hope to read from you again, if not about this man then about any other topic, in a new thread perhaps.. anytime you wish.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by .