Hi Seaturtle

That is a good summary of your understanding about the schemas. I would recommend taking a look at a list of schemas and see if you think there might be any others as well as the ones you have already mentioned. Abuse tends to give you quite a few.

The good thing is that you are very driven when it comes to healing and overcoming your trauma. This part of you, the intuition, the healthy boundaries part of you fought against the schemas and it won! You sought to end a relationship that was unhealthy and which was incompatible with you. You have done really well in taking care of yourself!

I just mentioned schemas because when dating they can create feelings of attraction for people that you aren’t compatible with. It is something to be mindful of in the future. That is not to say that you will only be attracted to people who trigger your schemas. Just being more aware of what you do and don’t want in a relationship and keeping yourself accountable to that can be helpful in navigating these things.

Yes, you really did go through a lot as a child. It is not an easy thing.

I see, as a child you had a pattern of apology and telling your father about something not to do with him that would make him empathise with you to resolve conflict.

And with your ex you had a similar pattern in that when a disagreement was happening, you would ask him to empathise with how he had hurt you. To which he often refused. He would comfort you instead when you had dropped the issue.

That sounds quite manipulative to me, choosing to comfort you when you drop the issue. I’m really sorry that happened. When you describe how he was, he seems very avoidant.

Feeling emotionally unsafe during a disagreement is called an emotional flashback. It seems like you are brought back to emotions and patterns that you experienced during disagreements with your father. Just a more adult version. If that makes sense?

It depends on what helps you. Everyone is different. But yes, the goal is to stay calm during disagreements. One thing that helps me is to remove myself from the situation for a short time. Sometimes turning away and not looking at the person helps me. Sometimes staying silent helps me to control myself.

There are flashbacks that you can make to reassure yourself. If you memorise it or stored it on your phone that could be helpful. So the point is to recollect the past event, show your past self empathy and to separate it from the present, then to reassure yourself.

I’m going to give an example of what mine looks like.

When I was a child my mother was very unsafe. I was terrified when she would get angry at me and hurt me for no reason. I didn’t deserve that, I deserved to be loved and taken care of. These memories make me feel scared during disagreements. It is July 2024, I’m safe at home. I’m an adult and I can protect myself in ways that I could not as a child.

Yes these things are very difficult. It is a delicate balance because at the same time as being vulnerable, validating your partner, being assertive and managing your boundaries are all important. It is a very complicated skill to learn. It doesn’t mean tolerating an abusive situation.

I would agree that the break up was awful and he was intentionally trying to hurt you. Yes, people can act out of character when they are extremely stressed but that is also part of their character if that makes sense? There is a pattern of behaviour during times of stress.

I think that he was manipulative and avoidant and refused to show empathy at times. Not all times, you have shown that he is capable of empathy sometimes. Generally, it seems like his goal was to get you to stop. Not to necessarily hurt you. Though you definitely did get hurt.

You mentioned that earlier in the relationship he was a bit kinder to you?

I think that maybe with your ex, it was a bit of both? There were things that he did wrong which made it harder to trust. But at the same time, the trauma with your father was still present. Remember that your ex reminded you of your father sometimes?

I think not trusting your dad was about his unfair treatment of you.

Whether you have trust issues with everyone during disagreements is only a question that you can answer yourself. Personally, I do experience trust issues with everyone during disagreements, to varying degrees. If someone hurts me intentionally it gets really hard. Swearing, insults, yelling are things trigger me. Keeping difficult conversations very calm is helpful to me. There are some techniques to do that like only one person should speak for 5 minutes and then switch. And setting a 30 minute time limit on disagreements.

Fireworks are awesome! It sounds like you had a really good time. 😊

You’re doing a really good job taking care of everything. If only money grew on trees. Haha.

My son is growing really quickly and crawling already. I’m getting addicted to buying him things. 😂 I’m definitely doing better than I was. Still getting there. Babies are hard work and we don’t have help from family or a sitter so it is non-stop. It is okay, I am used to it by now. The next goal is teaching him to walk.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏