Dear Laelithia:

* Quotes from yesterday will be in regular boldface print and quotes from January 2021 and earlier will be in italicized boldface.

“I believe B has many great qualities (helpful when asked, good-natured/very polite, hard-working on tasks he is passionate about, hands-on with the baby, etc.)” – I hope that these great qualities make him a great dad and easy to work with as a co-parent. These great qualities do not entitle him to live with you and/ or to be financially supported by you.

“He would engage in negative coping mechanisms (denial, delusion, deflection and repression)” – denial, delusion and deflection, when significant, are negative qualities that severely limit the quality of a relationship, hindering problem solving and teamwork that are necessary for a successful partnership to take place.

You shared that in September 2020, you found your dream apartment in the city you wanted to move to. You were not going to tell your parents because you knew that they would discourage you from taking the apartment and moving to the new city, but you became afraid and told them: “I became afraid, and I told my parents“.  As you predicted, “they came up with reasons why I should not take the apartment, and somehow against my better judgment, desires, and instincts, I turned the apartment down

The key words for me here are: “I became afraid“. You orchestrated the situation (telling your parents) so to not do what you were afraid doing, which was to move to the new city. You wrote that by not taking the apartment, you went against your “better judgment, desires and instincts“, but you didn’t go against your Fear, you went along with Fear:  “I became afraid, and I told my parents“.

“G…  was extremely generous, handsome, thoughtful, and most importantly a gentleman… Someone who had their life together, someone who only wanted to be kind to me… ” – this description of a man you dated for a very short time (you didn’t even mention him in your long posts during the time of dating him), is in line with your strong inclination to put a man on a pedestal. Your own words, previously: “Emptiness is not good at evaluating men… it picks and chooses such minute and often superficial details of a person to make a picture that doesn’t exist“.

I don’t know G. He may have been a great option for you, but you didn’t really know him because you dated him only a few times. You knew his mannerism, you knew superficial details about him, such as autobiographical details about his life which were available to anyone reading his dating profile at the time. You didn’t know him long enough to know that he had his life together, etc.

“And for reasons still confusing to me know, I began a relationship with B instead, that felt like obligation, guilt, and beholdenness” – you wrote this about B in March 2022. You forgot that when you met B in December 2020, you did not feel that dating him was like an obligation, guilt, etc., instead you felt elated, excited and eager: “I was elated. In fact, I called my friend after our third or fourth date… and told her I may have met my future husband… I did have a special feeling about him… something about him felt different, right. Also, it was unique that for once the man was reciprocating my excitement/eagerness” (Jan 11, 2021, about Dec 2020).

Your feelings for B changed by January 2021, but it is not that you were excited by G, then met boring B and stayed with B because of obligation and guilt. At first, you were excited by B.

“I have thought about (G) periodically throughout my relationship with B…. Although it has been a year now, I considered messaging an apology” – It is clear to me that a big part of you wants to end the relationship with B. I think that you are lining up the man (G) to take B’s place. I think that you need the euphoria/ elation attached to a new/ old flame so to carry you through the difficult task of separating from B.

“Looking back, I should have taken that apartment in the new city when I had the chance… I truly am very sad that I let my parents talk me out of that apartment, which in turn led me back to my home city where I met and became entangled with B” –

– you didn’t take that apartment in the city because you were afraid, “I became afraid, and I told my parents“- do you remember what you were afraid of???

anita