Dear Candice:

Re-reading your thread for hours since you returned to your thread yesterday, August 2, 2022 (your last post before yesterday was on September 19, 2021), I  felt embarrassed by my July 2021 confrontational and unempathetic attitude regarding your ptsd diagnosis. I appreciate your assertive yet restrained and gracious replies to my confrontational posts. I apologize for my attitude back then.

Re-reading, I was impressed- yet again- with Tee’s amazing analytical skills, organized presentation and kindness.

I feel uncomfortable about adding yet another post before you answer the posts that were already submitted for you, but I am posting anyway because (1) there is very little new activity on the forums and I am in the habit or responding at this time of the day, (2) my current attitude is non-confrontational and empathetic, and (3) I am motivated by learning: the more I learn about others the more I learn about me, and the other way around, (4) maybe, just maybe the many hours of studying your thread will help just a little.

On July 24, 2021, in your assertive reply to me, you wrote: “I would prefer it if people who replied would address the actual issue here that I’m talking about, the dilemma that I’m in, and not try to dismantle a diagnosis that isn’t so relevant to my dilemma…  my current dilemma is what to do 5 years later, now in a complicated and not fulfilling relationship with M, with my ex S confessing he wishes he could be with me but he is also in a relationship… It’s the pain of not being happy to begin with, and now with this mutual but inaccessible love with S“.

Fast forward a year and 9 days to August 2, 2022, you presented your new dilemma: “I emotionally disengage from (T)...I don’t want to risk losing what I have with T because I can’t get over M… I’m still in love with the non-addict M. He sent me a couple messages this past spring to say he still loves me and has a stable job now, and is working on his sobriety. Mutual friends have confirmed this…  Mutual friends have told me that M is sober (for now), working hard, and asking about me and saying he is still hoping that one day I’ll take him back“.

M is your new S: (1) Like S, M seems to have become a better partner material after the breakup, (2) Like S, following the breakup, M expressed that he cares for you, (3) You were in a new, complicated and non-fulfilling relationship then (with M),  and now (with T), (4) You longed for S then, you long for M now.

* Interestingly, a parallel between M and T and your stepfather: “(M) got angry in a fight shortly after and punched holes in the wall – which triggered my childhood memories of my stepdad filling our house with holes“, “I have experience with my stepdad expressing many of the same views T has, and the childhood I had with him was stifling and terrifying“.

“With M, it has always felt like we were wonderful until his addiction took over…He was always late to everything. I would sit on his doorstep an hour past the time he told me he would be home from work“- M was always late for everything, from the very beginning of the relationship. Yet, looking back, you view the relationship as having been wonderful for months when in reality there was trouble right from the start. Retroactively, looking back at the relationship with S, you view the moment you found out about his cheating as the moment that altered the relationship from wonderful to troubled. Similarly, you view a time when M’s addiction took over as the altering factor: from wonderful to troubled.

I will get straight to my current understanding of what’s been happening: like  mine, your childhood was a terrible experience, a terrible experience brought upon you primarily by your mother. She abused you (“My mom was quite harsh with me, alternating  between showing me love and then neglecting me or punishing me- eating from the floor if I was messy at the table, stabbing my hand with a fork if I reached across the table“, etc.), and she led to your parentification, that is, you took care of her emotionally as if she was your child and you were her parent (“my mother… was abused as a child.. I still feel like I have to parent her… How I parent her now is the same as when I was 16 – talking her through her depression and anxiety, helping her put things into perspective, listening“, etc.).

But your mother repeatedly betrayed your love for her and your best efforts to help her, ex., stabbing your hand, and bringing an abusive man into your life (“I lived exclusively with my mom and my abusive stepdad from the ages 11-17“). When you sought closure with her, she betrayed you yet again (“When I tried bringing up some of the things I mentioned to you, as a way to seek closure, she denied the actions vehemently, yelled at me, told me to ‘write a book’, that I’m not perfect either, and then shut down“).

When S cheated on you with another woman, he betrayed you and  triggered your experience of having been repeatedly betrayed by your mother.

“I’ve had depression since childhood. But as an adult I was able to be truly happy, until the cheating with S.. the cheating brought back childhood feelings of being inferior, not wanted, not worthy, etc… I worry that I won’t be the whole healthy person I was before he cheated… He ruined me.. Ruined meaning my mind was permanently redirected that at any moment, reality could become a nightmare state. Hence the anxiety and panic attacks. The breakup was very life altering… as an adult I was able to be truly happy, until the cheating with S… I was very stable and happy before“-

– although being cheated on by a trusted man is a painful experience for any woman, and although as a child and as an adult, at times, you felt truly happy and experienced stability, you were not a truly happy, very stable and a whole healthy person before S’s cheating. No one can be these things when growing up with a mother like yours (.. or like mine), not before significant healing. Retroactively, looking back in time, you perceive yourself differently. (It is common for memory to be altered in these ways).

It is your childhood experience with your mother that was very life altering,  it is your mother who ruined you and who introduced your mind into a nightmare state, (aka Complex ptsd).

“Both S and M presented themselves as whole and healed people, and it took time for me to realize for myself that they were anything but“- I don’t know to what extent the two of them tried to create an overly positive impression on you, but seems to me that in addition to their efforts to impress you, in the beginning of each relationship (but not for long), you focused on each man’s positives, closed your eyes to his negatives, and viewed the relationship as wonderful (“My ex, S, was a great friend at university… M.. seemed down to earth, sympathetic, calm, and generally wholesome when we first got together… T, my current boyfriend. He is a hard worker, creative, intelligent, and takes life very seriously”, “S and I had a wonderful, respectful adult-adult relationship until his cheating… my relationship with M was of course wonderful”). But months or years after each breakup, you look back at the relationships with S and with M, as if the wonderful part in each lasted much longer than it did (again, it is common for memory to be altered in these ways).

” I’m focused on emotional intelligence and communication, so I ended up having to carry the weight for both relationships in efforts to do my best by them. Despite the suffering it caused me“, ” Now, what is extremely interesting to me is that with M, my current relationship, I have heavily become the mother in our relationship”– I think that in the same way you parented your mother (see emotional parentification), you parented the two men.

Back in July 2021, you sent me a link,  psychology today/blog/ infidelity causes ptsd: it reads: “The trauma of betrayal can also trigger memories of buried or unresolved emotional and spiritual damage from the past... For there to be any chance that the couple undergoing this situation can ever transcend the distress of broken trust, they must deal with two simultaneous challenges: The first is to understand and work through the combination of both current and re-emerging trauma responses of the betrayed partner”-

– the unresolved and re-emerging trauma that S’s cheating triggered years ago, still gets triggered repeatedly sometimes less powerfully, at other times more powerfully, creating the chaos in your life: “Then of course I was stable for some time and now I am back to feeling the chaos, which I suppose is how life goes“, Aug 2, 2022.

I want to quote some of Tee’s July 25, 2021 post: “Do seek someone specialized in childhood trauma, because that’s where the core problem lies.. The child always hopes that the parent would finally understand.. a glimmer of hope that (mother)  would finally understand, and that we could embrace lovingly, that I could embrace her freely without putting up a wall to protect myself from her… With S, you sought the same: that he would finally understand what he did to you…This is a dream come-true for an abused child: to have the ‘parent’ finally admit their mistake and love the child. That’s why your feelings for S are so strong – because your inner child sees him as the perfect parent, a parent who will finally give the little girl that you were all the love and care in the world, and have all of her needs met. For your inner child it’s heaven, it’s everything she has ever wanted”.

I very much agree with the above.

You wrote last year: “We have a better relationship now, but I still feel like I have to parent her“. You posted last year while visiting your mother. I think that this better relationship is bad for you.

Back to the July 2021 quote with which I opened this post with: “I would prefer it if people who replied would address the actual issue here that I’m talking about, the dilemma that I’m in…  what to do…  now in a complicated and not fulfilling relationship with M, with my ex S confessing he wishes he could be with me“- 

– the issue a year and 9 days later is (editing the italicized above): what to do… now in a complicated and not fulfilling relationship with T, with my ex M confessing he is still hoping that one day I’ll take him back.

But the real issue is what to do about an ongoing, complicated and not fulfilling relationship with your mother, and how to stop trying to resolve it by proxy, in the context of romantic relationships with men.

It cannot be resolved by proxy and/ or in the wrong context. This troubled relationship with your mother needs to be resolved directly and in the context of your relationship with her, ending the relationship altogether, perhaps. Resolve this core issue and your life will be so much better for it. I believe that quality therapy is the place to figure this out further.

anita