Dear Seaturtle:

“I asked him if we could go on a walk, hoping to feel connected to him and for it to remind me of why I am doing this, because I love him. We go on a walk and he begins exploring the outdoors and starts leading me down this very torn up valley of dead trees, hard to walk through and calls me a baby for complaining about the mud and the ‘trail’…  I kept having to remind him not to keep walking so far in front of me as I stumbled...  I truly don’t like his parents relationship, they are so passive aggressive and constantly hurting each other…  pretty much live separate lives… I have felt disconnected with him ever since we got here and I want to understand why and find out how to ease this anxiety”-

– Continuing the inner-child theme (“N” is your boyfriend the adult, “n” is the child that he was/ his current inner child), what probably happened is that once he spent enough time in the company of his parents, in their home, his childhood experience was triggered/ became alive in his mind and heart, and N became n: a hurt, sad, angry boy, very distressed by his parents hurting each other passive-aggressively and living separate lives. Very distressed, he led you to a scene that resembles his childhood experience, “down this very torn up valley of dead trees, hard to walk through.. (no) ‘trail‘”.

In his childhood, there was no trail/ no guidance for n. He felt down and dead and torn up as he witnessed his parents fighting. it was hard for him to walk through his lonely childhood, from one hour/ one day to the next. He felt disconnected from everyone.  Walking with you down the valley, n (for whom there is no Past vs Present) felt angry at you and disconnected from you, and consequently,  you felt disconnected from him.

It’s like he took you for a walk down the valley of his childhood, showing you how it was for him, how he stumbled with no one in front of him to guide him, with no clear path ahead.

anita