Dear Meatball:

About her: “At some point shortly around the time she graduates from high school she is out on her own… bouncing around from various men and staying with their families.”, “She (42) and her daughter are now living with me.  I don’t ask for any rent/money… Our second ‘breakup’ – one day out of the blue she tells me she’s not ‘feeling it’ and wants to move out… she leaves and goes back to her ex in-laws. A couple days later again she calls and apologizes and says she didn’t know what she was thinking and comes back… She always lives pay check to pay check, never saving and having bad credit… She rarely plans anything.  She sleeps all the time… Intimacy has been gone for years… This is where we are now, these cycles continue to come with less and less time in between. They are always initiated by her and each time she’s able to verbalize more that she is ‘not in love’ with me.  That she had NO feelings for me.   She’s made me feel like just being in my presence disgusts her… This brings up to about a week ago where again it starts with her not wanting to be around me, not touching me, just disgusted… One big issue right now is that she has little to no money, she has nowhere to go.  No one that will take her in.   She says I’m still her best friend and that she wants me in her life just not as love partners… The last thing I’m going to do is put her out on the street”-

– reads like (1) she is depressed and has been depressed for a long time, consistently or recurringly, (2) she is not well enough to make and save money so to be able to consistently pay rent for an apartment for herself and for her daughter. She has bad credit, and that would make it extra difficult for her to find a place to rent, (3) she relied on men to provide a place for her to live when she was a teenager, maybe since, because she felt unable to provide for herself. In practical terms perhaps, Exchanging Sex for Rent, ES4R, if you will,

(4) she is 42 now, depressed and, I am guessing, feeling less optimistic than before regarding meeting a new man in her life to provide her with a place to stay, (5) from what you shared (in the quote above), she has been feeling disgust in regard to having a physical and sexual interactions with you.. but she needs a place to stay, so she tried to convince you to be non-physical, non-sexual best friends. If you continue to refuse her suggestion, she might have sex with you just so that she and her daughter have a place to live, feeling that she has no other choice, as she doesn’t want to be out on the street, no one wants that!

The compassionate thing to do, for her, is to not have her out on the street, and to not participate in ES4R with her, so to not dishonor her.. or yourself.

About you: “I have the co-dependency as an anxious attachment style… For my childhood, I could see a lack of emotional support.  My mother was smothering and did everything for us, however wasn’t the type to speak about love or supply much in the way of advice.  My father was a high tempered dad that we were scared of.  No physical abuse or mental abuse“-

Very well mind. com: “Emotional abuse, also known as psychological abuse, is a pattern of behavior perpetuated by a parent that causes a child to experience emotional distress, harms their sense of self-worth, and affects their emotional development“- a smothering mother is an abusive mother, and so is a high tempered father who repeatedly expresses his anger in ways that scare his children.

About smothering mothers: The content authority. com: “Are you a mother or a smother? While these two words may sound similar, they have vastly different meanings. Mother is a term of endearment and respect.. while smother refers to someone who is overly protective or suffocating… Smothering can manifest in a variety of ways, including constant monitoring and supervision, overindulging the child’s every whim, and shielding the child from any potential harm or disappointment”.

* A term for “constant monitoring and supervision” parenting is helicopter parenting.

Better help. com: “Psychologists have suggested that overbearing parenting can be detrimental to a child’s health, and the negative effects can follow children well into adulthood.  One of the most common problems associated with helicopter parenting for many can be the formation of an anxiety disorder in childhood or adulthood. Helicopter parenting can also lessen a child’s ability to make their own choices, which can result in a co-dependent relationship between parent and child”- anxiety and codependency that’s passed on from childhood to adult romantic relationships.

The psychological healing center. com: “I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase smother mother. Of course it can apply to fathers as well. Smothering can stunt psychological growth and create anxiety, depression and a lack of self-confidence… The wound of smothering and controlling limits the growth of the individual. At the beginning stages of life it is important to foster healthy dependency in order to help your children become healthy and independent. Smothering and controlling does the opposite”.

anita

Hi Meatball

She isn’t suicidal when she doesn’t deal with her feelings or do therapy. Sadly, therapy for intense issues can destabilise a person. She would be confronting all of the pain of the worst things that ever happened to her. It is a very challenging experience.

Couples counselling may be more useful to you both initially. It isn’t as stressful as individual therapy. It may also give you both an opportunity to work on the problems in your relationship. Perhaps after a good experience with couples counselling she would be more willing to entertain individual therapy?

Wishing you all the best! 🙏❤️

Hi Pandinha

I have a quick question. How long have you been in contact with the guy since your holiday?

I think this might determine if things were moving too quickly or moving too quickly for you, someone who doesn’t like dating.

Have you heard of the term Asexual before? Someone who is asexual might enjoy the companionship of having a partner but might not be interested in the sexual side of things. You might have some luck “dating” within the Asexual community.

I struggled with not being attracted to people for a long time. I found that I tend to be attracted to people very rarely on an intellectual basis. There are all kinds of styles of relationships, attraction and dating out there it doesn’t mean that you are broken or that you have to conform to social norms in regards to dating.

I can understand feeling a certain way when he said that he only helped you to stay in contact. It would make me feel like he didn’t care about me as a person and he was just trying to use me for his own interests. Did you feel this way?

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏

Dear Meatball:

You are welcome. “she texted saying that she ‘is all in and wants to do the work’“-

– On your first temporary breakup almost 9 years ago, she ghosted you for a few days and then reached out to you and told you that she missed you, that she was sorry, and that “she didn’t know why she fell into this feeling“- ask her now, 9 years later, if she knows why she fell into this feeling back then and repeatedly since. If she has no idea why, or is very vague about it, it’d mean, to me, that she never bothered to figure it out in 9 years, and therefore, she is not at all, all in and wants to do the work.

Like I suggested in my last post to you, since (you stated that) she has no money,  no credit to rent a place for herself, and since she has nowhere to go, it may be that she wants to stay living with you rent/ expense free. This may be her primary motivation. Are you okay with this possibility, or probability?

“She’s been texting/ calling the entire weekend and wants to make things work.  I just don’t know what to do.“- you can tell her that you are willing to try and make things work after she moves out. See her response..?

I understand that your feelings are strong, that you are, as you stated, codependent, that in previous relationships, you “initiated the break-ups normally after meeting someone else“, and in your current relationship you haven’t met someone else yet; and I feel badly for her for not being able to live on her own. The question is, are you strong enough to do what’s right for all parties involved?

I believe that the right thing to do for all parties involved would be (1) to not have a physical-sexual relationship with her unless her motivation is not to exchange sex for a rent-free/ expenses-free living arrangement, (2) if she is willing, try and work on the relationship while not living together, first as friends only, (3) to work with her and with social services on finding a living arrangement for her and her daughter elsewhere (not in your house).

anita

Hi Anita – I am doing OK.  She is staying for now.  We started with working on a list of things that could help her/us to possibly be able to make this work.  She is getting her therapy now and started EMDR.  We have started therapy together weekly as well and just last night had a great session with a therapist that really seems to understand the trauma she has been through and basically told her that ‘IF” she’s willing to do the work it will take years of therapy to help her.

I’m cautiously optimistic!

Meatball

Hi Meatball

Wow, that’s a brave step for her to start EMDR! Well done to her! And for you for helping to arrange all of this. If your partner ever has difficulties with her therapy or her therapist, it can be really helpful to discuss it with the therapist. They are there for her to help her. Hearing her concerns is a really important part of therapy. It is very common for people who are new to their therapist to want to quit when concerns arise. She may need your encouragement to broach her concerns with her therapist if and when they occur.

The therapist sounds really great and EMDR is an excellent choice of therapy for her significant trauma. Good luck to her with her individual therapy! And good luck to you both with your couples therapy!

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏

Dear Meatball:

You are welcome.

“Each day I don’t know which person I’ll be dealing with“- this is a bad thing for your mental health. You too need the following (from the online quotes I added to my previous reply to you: “Safety first…  a physically and emotionally secure environment… Trustworthiness and transparency… honesty, reliability, and clear communication… providing choices“-

– You need emotional safety in your own home; you need an emotionally secure home, where the person living with you is the same person every day, within certain perimeters, and not a person who changes from one end to the other.

For your emotional safety, you need the person living with you to be trustworthy and transparent, honest and reliable, one who clearly communicates, and who does not damage your ability to choose to live with her, or not live with her (by let’s way, guilt tripping you into having her live with you).

Please take care of your valid need for emotional safety in your own home.

anita

Dear Meatball:

“I’ve asked her to be out by the time I get back“- this is the best part of your latest post. I hope that she will be out by the time you are back from vacation! I’ll write more Mon morning (it’s Sun evening here)

anita