Dear Anita,

“– he may be taking on the role of a therapist with you, as he has dome with his father (based on his words in regard t his father), but he is a bad “therapist” if he refers to your sincere reasoning as excuses. Can you give me 1-2 examples of what you said that he referred to as an excuses? “

Yes, a therapist in a way of I am very open with him and he listens, but he doesn’t give advice really, he’s just a listening ear that may make him feel dumped on when I truly am trying to explain who I am to him. For example, in the tickling scenario I described before that triggered me from being tickled and pinched by older brothers (uncles close in age). It caused me to back away from cuddling as we watched a tv show, and this “withholding of affection” affected him and he expressed that he did not like that, to which I apologized for, then explained why I pulled away and he thought it was an excuse and negated the apology.

There are other examples that aren’t surfacing my memory right now, but the essence of them is that my trigger response hurts him, and I explain why it happened and sometimes he has empathy for me and is understanding, but other times says they are excuses for my behavior. My behavior is withdrawing, this is not easy for me to say but he has called my trigger responses emotionally abusive to him, because if he doesn’t say the right thing to ease my mind I am cold and blame him. When he told me this it made me take a hard look at myself and definitely made me want to understand why my responses were so intense. This was about 4 months ago, I was also under the influence of alcohol, which I learned from that situation I cannot have if triggered because it exaggerates my coldness, blaming and honestly can bring this sassiness out that he does not like. Basically I would feel and tell him exactly what he could have done to prevent my pain (trigger), at the time I didn’t yet realize where this pain was coming from at all,  and I genuinely thought it was his fault. We have talked alot about this and this is also why I wanted to move out so I would stop taking it out on him. It is harder for me to deal with when the same thing happens again, like I tell him something that bothers me like him being late or not communicating with me, but he will continue to obliviously do it and I would get upset with him and ask why he continues to do it and he just didn’t think what he did deserved that response.

“– the dissociated/ removed-from-awareness feelings in regard to your father need to be brought back to awareness, to one extent or another, so to undo the grasp these feelings have on your boyfriend, so to speak.”

Does this involve confronting my father? I still feel those feelings towards my dad sometimes, but only when I re-play what has happened, would journaling (more) about my experiences with my dad help to release them? Often I feel when I talk or think about them it brings me down, but maybe it is helping, because I do still have strong feelings there under the surface if I tap into them.

“Fast forward in the relationship.. it’s still not like he knows who he was- and still is- late for.”

I could see this being true. Sometimes he reminds me of my dad in the way that it will feel like he does know sometimes, but then other times there’s like a wall and he doesn’t actually know anymore. This is when I feel unseen and I get this weird stranger alert in my brain and suddenly feel he is SO far away from me.

“Teflon mindset”

I love this, it is so accurate I have seen this in many people.

“This is the difference between the two of you: you let things in, you let them stick enough to analyze them, so to understand better.”

Yes exactly, and we don’t understand this about eachother. To me, this is what you need to do to grow and learn. I also appreciate feeling things deeply to which he does not understand the point. He accepts this about me, and tells me that he loves how much of a feeler I am, but when its a negative feeling I am lingering on to think about he gets exhausted and will want to move on so quickly. He lets go of things quite fast, and doesn’t care to think about the why, usually. I love our conversations about the “why,” but he is so focused on work and other stress that he is often unable to go there with me mentally.

“TM does not want to understand itself; any opportunity to understand (himself or you)- if it feels distressing to him- will slide off him like oil slides off Teflon.” -Yup, so true, and this is what reminds me of my dad, but N can go in and out of it, but majorly he is Teflon unfortunately and I hold hope that I can help him increase his tolerance to what he repels…

– your father didn’t see you and (not or) your boyfriend doesn’t see you, not beyond the superficial, like you suspect.

-So than am I wasting my time pursuing a romantic relationship with him?

“after me sharing my trigger response after the ticking he asked me ‘why don’t I have triggers like you do, do I have no trauma?’“- he is blaming you for having triggers, stating that he has trauma too, but he has no triggers (being that they slide off, I say), so there is something wrong (faulty, blameworthy) about you, is the message, isn’t it?

– It could be, in that moment I felt sorry for him that he wasn’t in tune enough to recognize his triggers because everyone has them, but his trigger responses, if he has any is to stay silent, so they are very hard for me to detect. Sometimes he is quiet with 0 thoughts, I think this is a male thing? It is hard to tell why he is silent and IF he is bothered.

“this IS the experience of living with a TM.. unless you are equally a TM yourself. and therefore comfortable with unfamiliarity.. having adjusted well to being UNSEEN”

-This hits me hard because OFTEN, growing up with my dad and now with N I feel this need to be more like a TF. He calls his TF behavior “stoicism.” and he does make TF behavior look more relaxing, like he often just tells me to relax, which sometimes I wonder if that is what I need to do, sometimes it is but other times I do want to talk about the why of something.

“in your shoes, hearing this, I would feel guilty about sharing with him anything that would make him feel badly.”

-It does. But since the beginning of our relationship (because, and what keeps me with him) I felt this feeling that he would be in my life for a while, his presence was soothing and he was so kind to everyone, and a hard worker with good intentions, he gives back to the community and people close to him as much as he can, and since I felt he could possibly be my person I dedicated myself to being transparent. I lived by the idea that if I am my truest and most honest self than the people that stick around are true and the ones who leave were not meant for me. I didn’t want something to come as a surprise later on and quite honestly just desperately wanted to be seen by him, and to make sure I was accepted for exactly who I was.

On your last two paragraphs.

I don’t want a TF for myself. If I was a friend to myself I would tell me that I would thrive with a person who was able to see me. But, I love this TF and he is such a close friend to me and honestly I think we help each other learn a lot about each other, hence where I am now. How do I keep this friend and find a non-TF that I so desperately wish to be seen by. Are all men this way, or do I just find them because, as they say, we date our parents… I will say N seems more aware than by dad though, he feels so sorry for my sisters and brother who he can see not being seen by my dad. Perhaps N isn’t all TF? there are moments he sure does seem to see behind peoples action. It is like I want N to be my person so badly, because I love him and he is my home and safe place right now, and he has so many good qualities, none that overcome not seeing me, but he’s just so pure and the dating world out there scares the hell out of me, so much ingenuity. Can a TF learn to me? Or will he always be alone in that disconnected world? Have I wasted all this time of my youth in this relationship? I would hate to permanently lose him.

Seaturtle