Dear antarkala:

I decided to post this evening (here). I hope that the above post about ROCD will be of some help to you. This evening I reread your posts as a preparation for my current reply. I tried to locate the core issues, to understand better. The following may be disturbing to read. I am sorry.

“I did tell my mother about my boyfriend and she told me he is not good enough for you“- I think that when she told you that he is not good enough for you, she delivered the almost certain kiss of death to the relationship.

“my boyfriend not being very social.. He is a monotonous person… he is not spiritual…  I did get thoughts like ‘maybe he is not strong enough’, ‘maybe is not qualified enough’, ‘I don’t think he is manly enough’… “Am I settling for less?‘”- your mother’s message he is not good enough for you! was and is very powerful.

“She told me her instinct says he isn’t right and that she (suspected) that we planned to come to the USA because there was something going on – while in reality, there was nothing!… She said she suspected my boyfriend was trying to get me since in India… It took me a while to trust him after all that my mother said“- in addition to sending you the powerful message above, she also expressed inappropriate possessiveness of you, a sort of competition with your boyfriend, competition for your focus in life.

“My father was not a great husband… yes! I am that friend/ confidant of her. She shares everything with me. I started supporting her as I grew up and pushing her to stand up for herself and even stood up against my dad and my grandparents demanding she should be treated better for everything she does for the family. She gradually started doing that my dad keeps joking she gets courage in my presence and never listens to him“-in some significant ways, you took on the role of a man, a man fighting for your mother. In the context of daughter and mother, she was weak, you were strong; she was the woman, you were the man.

So much so, that your manly role extended to other contexts, you felt like a man, walked like a man and took on a lady don persona: “My school teacher once described me as a lady don to my dad and I once remember one of my teachers telling me my walk is too manly.. could never relate to girls having crushes.. The concept of having kids never appealed to me”.

A daughter’ relationship with her mother, when inappropriate (I mean emotionally inappropriate, not sexually inappropriate), can have lasting implications on the daughter’s gender identity and (dys)function within romantic relationships. This has been true in my case.

You wrote yesterday: “I’m still unable to decide and sometimes feel like something is missing, especially attraction. Is this just a very close friendship?… I’m tired of going in circles and feeling anxious from time to time that I feel like breaking up unable to take it anymore, but I know that I want to breakup with this anxiety and uncertainty more than the person.“- your mother is winning the competition with your boyfriend. Her powerful message is winning. Please arrange to see a competent psychotherapist who is willing to explore the idea that a relationship between a mother and her daughter (through no fault of the daughter) can be inappropriate. I think that you need clarity about your relationship with your mother before you can have clarity about your relationship with (any) boyfriend.

Things can get better, antarkala, it’s just that we have to be tough and go through what we need to get through .. so to get clarity, understanding and calm, best we can.

anita