Dear Seaturtle:

The example you gave: he tickled you=> it triggered your past trauma=> you backed away from cuddling=>he accused you of withholding affection from him=>you apologized to him for withholding affection from him and explained why (the past trauma)=> he told you that your explanation was an excuse, claiming that backing away from cuddling with him was something wrong that you did, an offense, something for which you were guilty, and that your explanation was your attempt to lessen the blame  attaching to (a fault or offense) (online definition of the word excuse).

Questions: (1) How long after the tickling session did the two of you sit down on the couch in front of the TV and him trying to cuddle with you? (2) What happened in between the ticking and his effort to cuddle: did you make it clear to him that you were upset by the tickling, was there a conversation about it? (3) When you backed away from the cuddling, did you feel angry at him, wanting to punish him for the tickling? (4) Do you always cuddle with him, whenever he feels like cuddling, no matter how you feel.. Does he always cuddle with you no matter how he feels?

“Does this involve confronting my father?“- I don’t think so, at least not at this point.

“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“-Best would be to do express and process theses strong feelings in the context of quality professional psychotherapy. I don’t remember if we talked about psychotherapy, but given that your father is financially well-off, it will be very appropriate for him to pay for such.

“He lets go of things quite fast“- there is an advantage to having a TM. I would like to have more Teflon in mine!

“N can go in and out of it, but majorly he is Teflon unfortunately“- I suppose TM is a spectrum thing: everyone has it, some more than others.

“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“- being somewhere in the middle of the TM Spectrum is probably a good idea; to apply Teflon selectively, depending on the topic and circumstances.

“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 yet, you’ve been doubting the relationship and thinking a lot about breaking up with him for a long time:

“Please help me, my mind hasn’t rested in 8 months… I don’t think we are soulmates…  I really have been having this entire debate in my head for a straight 6-8 months now and I don’t want to waste my time, I want to move on or commit. I don’t want to string this lovely man along, but I don’t want to make the wrong decision and make him the one that got away… I am exhausted with this decision and thought the answer would have come to me by now” (July 29)

“Have I wasted all this time of my youth in this relationship? I would hate to permanently lose him…. I can’t shake this pit in my stomach of breaking up with my partner. If he will never truly see me then I need to leave. But I can sense the pain of separating and it scares and pains me deeply. He has become by home” (Oct 19).

I was wondering earlier, before getting to the computer this morning, are you familiar with the term Relationship OCD (R-OCD) and did you ever consider that it may apply to you?

anita