Bună Tee,

I wish I could tell you I am feeling better, but I am not unfortunately… I’ll let you know if there’s some progress finally…

Okay Thanks. My well wishes 🙏🏽

Okay… if you share about your own childhood and your own experience, that might have some weight and she might consider it. Also, you can say that nowadays children spend too much time on the internet, and it’s not good for their health, so actually nowadays parents should encourage their children to go play outside and not try to keep them indoors.

This occurred to me because I’ve recently seen a cartoon about old and new trends. One of the illustrations shows the Old trend: mother pulling her son back to the house because he’s been playing too much outside, and New trend: mother pulling her son out of the house, while he is glued to his smart phone

You always give great examples. Thanks! I’ll talk to her that way since I also think it’s the same matter as you said. I do have problem for explaining things properly sometimes (More than I want to admit) So this would be helpful.

Well, if in the past she got worried about you for even as little as headache – that’s a lot of worrying. Remember, what matters is what happened in your childhood – that’s the imprint you’re living with – even if now she’s not worrying that much. What did you do when she’d get worried about your headache, do you remember?

Well yeah past is lot of years so the imprint… I don’t actually remember properly but what I do remember is that I just asked for written prescription to my sister (She’s nurse) and then she’d be worried less since she is sure that I’ll be taking the medications.

Sure, that amount of worry is understandable, and since you were doing some really wild stuff, it’s sort of obvious why you didn’t want to tell her… But you also mentioned that she was worried when you wanted to learn how to swim, in a swimming pool with an instructor (if I remember well?). That’s a bit of an excessive worry, in my opinion. How old were you then?

It was actually just recently few months ago. I started the swimming classis and after that I told them. So my parents wouldn’t argue with me. Heck they’re even worried that I’m letting a stray cat inside my place. They be like she might have diseases and blah blah blah.. I’m like I’ll go to the vet and give her vaccination. So, you don’t have to worry about that. Literally no one in my family grown up with a pet. So I did see that coming.
Thing about them as they are scared of the things that they don’t know or experienced before. And I’m the opposite if I didn’t experience that thing, I’d get curious and explore it let alone the outcomes. That’s why my family thinks that I’m a rebel 😂

So I was thinking about emotional enmeshment, which I suggested as a possibility last time, but based on everything we’ve talked about so far, and how you behave in relationships, I don’t think this is the case with you after all.

Hmm yeah I don’t think so…

You’ve talked about this before – that you get “overprotective” i.e. controlling when you try telling your girlfriend that she should eat healthier, or have better sleeping habits. From what I’ve understood, you don’t just tell her “you should get more sleep, staying late is bad for your health”, and then sort of let it go, but you turn into this drill sergeant who is pushing her to eat healthier, sleep healthier, etc. That’s the same drill sergeant who sometimes turns on you (in the form of the inner critic), and sometimes on the people close to you (in the form of the outer critic).

So it seems to me that the “care” you show towards your partner has this overlay of criticism. And so you turn into this overprotective, critical father, who is watching his “daughter’s” every step, trying to “improve” her. You get so focused on her and her problems, that it consumes you completely and you can’t focus on your own life.

I think this type of dynamic is not emotional enmeshment, but more like that you’re focusing too much on her and her “wellbeing” (but in a bad sense, like an overbearing parent), and then you’re frustrated when she doesn’t want to take your advice. This then is frustrating to you and you rather give up, i.e. leave the relationship.

What do you think? Does this sound plausible?

Hmm I think it’s plausible, it does have a connection. And I believe it’s been weeks I haven’t awaken the drill sergeant.

But it’s right I did act like an overprotective, critical father! Not all the time but still…

And after that I get exhausted and give up on the relationship.

Striving towards Perfection (specially with Humans) isn’t a wise thing to do I guess… and I tried to make them “perfect” the way I wanted even though at that time I just saw it as a care and concerned about their health.

Or is it just like my parent thinks they still have to care about me like even though I’m not a kid anymore…

Yes, it was! But you know you don’t need to accept her marriage proposal, right?

Exactly! No rush… If she wants to rush things, please know that you have the right to say No. Even if she doesn’t like that…

Right haha! No I don’t need to accept her marriage proposal. I’ll still try to communicate clearly as possible.

The other day I was thinking about why I feel the way I feel and I think… Like why I don’t have high expectations or even good expectations from the dating. And I could think of the possible reasons

1. I’m emotionally exhausted from this
2. External environment could be the big reason as well not just my friends but like everywhere I see it just that all be like it’s lot of mind games and complex – not like clear communication as it should be. So yeah it’s like a confirmation bias

• The way I perceive my past relationships. Like Did I even had a healthy relationship before that I’m longing for it again?

So because of these reasons, I just feel more hopeless and I just feel not excited for dating. Not more than Maybe just some time spending and physical pleasure.

And yeah what about you? Did you celebrate valentine week?