Anita – wow thank you so much for your thoughtful response, you are amazing!

I came to the same conclusion – all I can do is keep working at it and know that the work is never really finished.

But you make a good point about the childhood stuff – I do still feel very at a loss about the source. I really appreciate you sharing your personal experience and it sounds really difficult, I’m sorry to hear that you went through that. On the surface my relationship with my mom looks quite different but the more I think about it the more I wonder if there are underlying similarities. My mom is a very anxious person and I’d describe her as codependent (for lack of a better term, I don’t want to paint her in a negative way). She has described her relationship with my dad as him “saving” her. She sought approval from her abusive father despite him rejecting her over and over, literally until the day he died. Often I think this must be part of where my issues come from, but I can’t recall any specific emotional trauma directly in my relationship with either of my parents. I have had this pattern in romantic relationships since high school – my first boyfriend cheated on me after 3 years together, my second boyfriend was a verbally abusive situationship in college, and my third boyfriend was a 6 year relationship where we lived together and he blindsided me with a breakup after his parents’ divorce. These experiences were quite traumatic for me but I have read that usually these unhealthy patterns start with childhood, not with adult relationships. I guess maybe I’m still blocked in figuring this out and I don’t really know the steps to get there.