Dear Cheryl:

I just re-read all your posts in your first thread where you asked how to let go. Obviously you haven’t yet. If you think that further insight into the relationship you had with him may help you to let go, to come to peace about it (and to determine the nature of present and future communication with him, if any)- I may be able to help you with it. If you are willing, will you consider answering the following:

1. You wrote above: “He was besotted with me to the point I felt smothered sometimes”- how was he bestowed and how did he pressure you into marriage (from the previous thread/ posts)?

2. You wrote before that the relationship with him became destructive. How?

3. You wrote that he told you that he wished you were more simple, as if (you wrote) he suggested that you were too complicated. What does too-complicated mean and what would simple mean?

anita

Dear Cheryl:

I need to know more in effort to understand better. When you became very anxious (relating to your daughter leaving home), experiencing mood swings: can you give me examples (with some detail) of how that looked like, how that anxiety and mood swings were communicated to him?

anita

Dear Cheryl:

The reason I asked for details in my last post is that there is great significance in detail. For example, you wrote above that you became irritable with him and with your children. Here is where details make a big difference:

if “irritable” means your face registered irritation and that is all, it is one thing. If “irritable” means you kept criticizing him all day long, micro-managing him: you shouldn’t have done this! You should have done that! How could you?! You left soap on the dishes; how many times did I ask you to rinse them well? And so on and on, much of the day-

well, that would be different than just an irritable expression on your face.

anita

I cannot speak to your past relationship and why it didn’t progress as you hoped and dreamed.

I feel that there is a time to work out what happened in past relationships however there is a danger if the focus gets stuck on who did what to who and maybe if only I did this or didn’t do that.

This type of focus tends to keep us stuck in the past of pain, blame, negative self talk and hurt.

I do not mean to downplay the hurt and betrayal you have experienced, however if I’m reading your story correctly the marriage relationship is over and so what matters now is you and who you are and who you hope to become.

When the time is right and perhaps some distance created so that you might better be able to see an honest evaluation of your past experiences and how they impacted you will help you move forward… just be careful of getting suck replaying the past.

When the Past Is Present; Healing the Emotional Wounds That Sabotage Our Relationships – David Richo

A touching fact about us is that we seem hard-wired to replay the past, especially when it includes emotional pain or disappointment. We tend to go through life simply casting new people in the roles of key people, such as our parents or past partners with whom there is still unfinished business. This phenomenon, called transference, is unconscious. What we transfer are feelings, needs, expectations, defenses, fantasies, beliefs, and attitudes. Transference can be our way of telling the untold story inside us. We can learn to notice clues about how our past is still very much alive in our present relationships. In this book, we also find practices to help us clear up our old business and form healthy relationships that no longer have to replicate the past. Then authentic intimacy can bloom.