Dear Jess:

1) The Ex: He grew up without his mother for the majority of his childhood and didn’t have “that loving mother figure” as he grew up. “He isn’t a physical person“, and he and his mother identify themself as “not huggers“. At first, when living with you, he was excited, passionate, I’ll call it, sparked. After a few months, he lost his spark. You told him what you needed from him, but he “was always angry at life” and he neglected the connection with you. At times you went to bed “crying facing he wall” because he didn’t want to cuddle/ touch you. He drank frequently and he still does. He told you that drinking alcohol gives him the confidence to be physical, and that without alcohol, he “doesn’t know how to transition into hanging out and being a loving/ intimate partner“.

He is a hard worker. He was very good at his first job but was bothered by other employees because they didn’t work hard, and he ended up doing their share of the work and being paid poorly. He didn’t look for a different job because “he was comfortable doing the same thing every day“. He used to come home after a frustrating day at work, and “not even say ‘hi babe’, and just be angry about the day and situations at work, and be pissed off until we go to bed, along with drinking which would increase his anger. He would play video games and get angry (slamming his fist on the table), I would get annoyed and say please stop doing that! But he would get even more mad that I said something which would turn into an argument“.

He then “switched jobs thinking he would be happier, and he told me things would change. But he would still come home pissed off because of certain people not doing their job“.

You broke up in Nov 2021 and started hanging out. It felt “like the beginning of the relationship“, he seemed “more happy around me… more physical“, you wrote. He was sparked again, I figure. He then told you that he “regrets getting mad over little things“, saying that he changed and that he “should’ve been a more loving boyfriend, more intimate and able to have a stronger connection“. You wrote: “His anger might be resolved now because he quit his original job and is looking for a more stable one with health benefits because he’s never had a job like that. But he is irritated because they’re paying him $15 an hour“.

2) The New Guy: you met him in Nov 2021, hitting it off, having the “same interests, mentality, hobbies” and the two of you connect physically very well and he’s “very affectionate“, physically affectionate, if I understand correctly. You feel that he is able to satisfy your needs and wants (“I feel like he satisfies my needs and wants which my ex couldn’t“). He is willing to get out of his comfort zone and “experience new things within himself” and with you. He grew up with sisters, he is very friendly with your friends, mostly young women, and he told you that “it’s not hard for him to connect to his feminine side“, and that “his dream is to perform live music and make people happy and inspired“.

He “just wants to get to the point, no beating around the bush“, sometimes he rushes, like when he rushed up to the top of a hiking trail, leaving you and your friends behind him. At another time, he was irritated about having to wait for your friends before having coffee. At another time he was irritated about you taking your time dipping cauliflower in sauce.

In a past relationship, “he lost a lot of hair and wasn’t happy” because of “drama with her and his family and her cheating on him for a few months during their relationship“. He told you that “his goals in life are to buy a house and have kids“.

3) About Jess: the ex was your “first love“. You feel guilty for breaking up with him following meeting a new guy (“I definitely feel like a shitty person because how I hurt my ex with this a new guy which no one wants to happen to them“), and you feel guilty, as I understand it, about the facts that he still loves you, is trying, and wants to marry only you, still seeing you as his forever-relationship (“he is trying and he truly loves me… he said he doesn’t want to marry anyone else besides me“), while you like a new guy, and no longer think of your ex as your forever relationship (“I always thought I would be with my ex forever because we got a long and he was my first love“).  You are conscientious, caring, you know what you need and what you want, you get along with people (easy to get along with, is my feeling), you don’t want to hurt the ex, you are loyal (“I didn’t want to just leave when it got hard“).

You are also open-minded and willing to look into yourself and consider possibilities, ex.: that you may have been “making exaggerated assumptions“. You are patient and insightful, and you care about: “that spark of energy to be passionate and want to live for more is what’s important to me along with the affection, intimacy and words of affirmation“.

And now, my closing thoughts: the ex reads like a good guy at heart, but angry and troubled. The fact that he didn’t have a mother, nor did he have a loving mother figure growing up, was very tough on him, as it would be on any boy. Seems to me that because adequate affection was not available to him as a child, for so very long, he naturally buried within him/ inhibited his need for affection, best he could. No Need= No Pain, is the instinctive reasoning behind such inhibition.

When he drinks alcohol, which lowers inhibitions, his inhibited need for affection gets disinhibited and he is able to participate in and enjoy affectionate interactions.

But alcohol also lowers other inhibitions as well, such as his efforts to control his anger, anger which he feels intensely at times. I imagine that he felt intense hurt and anger about not being loved as a child. Fast forward, you expressed love for him, lots of affection, but alas, he projects his unloving mother (and/or other unloving person or people in his childhood) => into you, and feels angry… at you. It is very common for adult-children who experienced tough childhoods, to project an unloving/ rejecting parent into a romantic partner.

It is his anger projected at you that’s behind his refusal to cuddle with you when you were crying, facing the wall, his anger was behind his refusal to tickle your leg when you asked him to do that, etc. After you moved out and were no longer in his physical presence much, his projection eased and so did his anger, and so, the spark is back for him, and his patience is back, and his love.

If you go back to living with him, naturally, he will again project his mother into you and struggle yet again with anger toward you. This is not his intention, it’s the way the hurt, angry human mind works. He will need to work hard in the context of psychotherapy to change this.

“His anger might be resolved now because he quit his original job and is looking for a more stable one” – I wish it would be that easy, but changing jobs, changing locations, going on a vacation, buying a new car, etc., etc., do not resolve deep seated hurt and anger born in childhood. In a child’s mind and heart, a bad day feels like forever, and a year of lack of love feels like eternity. Such eternity of LACK cannot be resolved by getting a better job.

You wrote regarding your ex: “I feel like because we are so close in age we could possibly grow together and start a family” – I think that the closeness of age is a non-factor compared to the issue I pointed to right above. If the ex and the new guy experienced a comparable mental/ emotional health, then the age would be a factor, but this is not the situation.

The new guy is emotionally healthier than the ex, at least this is how it looks like so far. His impatience and irritation, in the context of the incidents you described, are not alarming to me; the two of you can work around it. He rushed to the top of the hiking trail, that’s okay: you were hiking behind with friends. He didn’t leave you behind alone, with a mountain lion lurking around. In the morning, he really, really wanted that coffee. I understand that.

With the ex, your life is likely to be like it was before, and “that spark of energy to be passionate and want to live for more” will be extinguished. With the new guy, that spark has a reasonable chance to survive.

If you go back with the ex, at first, he will be very happy, and then- he will no longer be happy. I am guessing that he will be surprised, not understanding why and how it happened, he may try hard to not show his confusion and spark-reversal, but it will show and again, you will be facing the wall, crying. This situation will be bad for you… and for him.

“I’m detailed oriented, and I just want to make sure everything is right” – please let me know if I can try to help you further with the details, and with making the best choice for yourself.

anita

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