Dear Narsil:

Reads to me that the fantasy you built regarding this relationship (“every moment spent together was so  perfect, our bond so strong.. we were absolutely perfect, nothing could ever go wrong with us”) was about experiencing the opposite of your childhood experience.

The more distressing a child’s reality, the more fantastic is her imaginings of a future reality.

Your intrusive thoughts: “what if I don’t love him anymore”, imagine a child wondering: what if my mother doesn’t love me, and this is why she is saying these hurtful things to me, or maybe she doesn’t love me and that is why she is nice to those other people, but not to me. Scary thoughts. What if what is happening with you now is a reactivation of such thoughts with a twist: what if I don’t love him?

When you finally moved in with him after a mostly long distance relationship, your reaction was: “I had the worst panic attack I had ever experienced in my life.. everything was a lie.. I started vomiting, trembling, hyperventilating for hours”- maybe it is an activation of your experience as a child, the fear of being stuck in a home where everything was indeed a lie.

Your therapist suggested that “the source of these thoughts.. are linked to a feeling of disappointment (reality vs. fantasy)”, reads to me that the source of these thoughts and anxiety is fear, not disappointment, a re-activation of a fear-filled childhood experience.

When we look back as adults at our childhood, and we don’t remember extreme abuse of the horror movies kind or something to match abuse stories we heard others have experienced, we don’t think that we were really afraid. But it doesn’t take that much to scare a child. For a child, to be alone is very scary, to feel scared for any reason but not have anyone to hold the child and comfort her, that is very scary. For a child, to be alone, unseen or unheard, day after day, month after month, year after year, that is enough to cause chronic anxiety.

I wonder if you discussed your childhood with your therapist?

anita

Beautifully written, Narsil. So much of what you describe is me, halfway around the world. Realize that everything I’ve written below might possibly be the blind leading the blind, so take it with a grain of salt k?

To me, what you’re describing doesn’t automatically translate to “leave Rome and boyfriend.”

First thought was that some of your conflict with your boyfriend might be differences in personality. I was inspired to suggest you search “Frank James INFJ” on YouTube. His videos have  been super helpful doses of reality/objectivity for me. Maybe you’re an INFJ type? In case you’re not already waaay past this, you can take a personality test online. I’ve been reading a ton too, mainly about Myers-Briggs functions (Ni, Fe, Ti, Se) and it’s helping me understand myself and my husband in a whole new light. From what you’ve written, it sounds like you’ve spent years defining yourself based on your ideas around your relationship. This is apparently common for INFJs, I just learned from the FJ videos. He explains why, too. Old habits take time and work to change, but you’re clearly willing to put in the work. I also learned a lot about compassionate boundary-setting from a Canadian child & family therapist named Jennifer Kolari.

A potential plan of action follows. Not prescriptive…just bouncing ideas. You’ll know if anything is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ for you:

(1) As soon as possible, get out of your head and start trying things in the Real World. What can you do that will make you feel helpful, valuable and worthwhile in a way that lights you up? Volunteering a couple hours a week. Or find a career where the organization’s goal is meaningful, you like who you work with, and you’re making enough money to live the way you want. (2) Do more things that get you out of your head and into your body: meditation, sports, hiking, horseback riding, working out, yoga, etc. (3) Give it time to build a new you. If you have the resources and think it would be helpful, get your own place or move into a separate room that’s 100% yours—if you need alone time, hopefully he’ll understand that creating a new pattern is easier with a supportive environment. It’s not punishment, it’s to help you find wholeness. One of my close friends says separate bedrooms saved her marriage. (4) Identify and set your boundaries: enough alone time, enough quality time together, family members, kids, sleep, gifts, etc. Define what you absolutely must have, then enforce your boundaries with compassion. (5) Okay, he can’t live in London, but can he do couples counseling? It sounds like he wants to learn how to be supportive and do things that light you up, but he might need an actionable, reality-based blueprint, e.g., “when I [you] do X for you [him], it would mean a lot to me to receive Y.” (Fill in examples of your and his love languages.) Especially because of his career, he’s capable of sharing in the emotional labor of communication; it’s not all on you. Bring him into the process now that you’re more aware of what you’ve been bringing to the table. (PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK WOMAN, BECAUSE THAT’S HUGE!!! More than most! You make the world a better place by owning your stuff and addressing it, and I love and appreciate you for it.) (6) You’ve tried 1–5 with unsatisfying results: follow Inky’s advice.

Hope that helps. I know you are amazing, and so is your boyfriend!

This is all new awareness and ideas. Would love to hear feedback if anything doesn’t make sense to you, because it might help me get a better hold on my situation.

I’ve been married to a kind, intelligent, playful man for 15 years. I’d describe myself as a multi-talented people pleaser (in recovery). I have slowly melted my identity into his, even including my job…a supportive role in our 2-person business. For his well-intentioned reasons, I also allowed our current lifestyle—basically his dream life and the opposite of how I thrive—because I haven’t been solid on what I need, let alone how to stand up for it. This isn’t my husband’s fault; I’ve been re-creating my parents’ ultra gender-role dynamic instead of changing my environment or how I communicate. I’m in the process of making adjustments. I too am reading exhaustively and working with a therapist. I’m trying my best to stay in an exercise routine. I’m house-sitting for vacationing relatives, solo, for another month or so. He and I are talking. It’s kind of a mess, but also I’m excited for what will sprout from all this sh^t. 😉

Dear Narsil:

You described making healthy changes in how you function within the relationship with your boyfriend, such as no longer automatically assuming he is right and apologizing, “But all this makes me feel uneasy”- it is natural to feel uneasy when we change our behavior, even when the changes are healthy. It is uncomfortable to stop operating one way and start operating in a different way.

“it’s like my love for him was based on a huge inferiority complex (he was a hero and I was worthless.. ), and now that I am feeling a bit more secure, now he is inferior, he is not worth it.. and often I feel I should just leave”-

-the significant changes that are happening in how you view yourself and others are very unsettling. It is like a storm happening in the brain: what was up is now down, what was down is now up and items are out of place-  we get confused.

If you did suffer a storm, the thing to do is.. to do nothing until the wind stops  and the all the items that moved around in the wind settle down where they settle, and the dust settles too so that you can see what is in front of you, no longer blinded by the dust.

“he is my best friend.. He is so  wise and mature and steady and generous and calm and understanding and patient and just giving” – then ask your best friend to generously give you a break: the time and the place you need to let the dust settle. If you can’t have this break while living with him, then move elsewhere, maybe back to London to have the break that you need.

What do you think?

anita

Dear Narsil:

You wrote in your recent post: “every time he makes me laugh or I feel tenderness or affection towards him.. every time I feel warmth something in my head snaps and I feel like I need to get out”. This is why and how this is happening to you according to my best understanding:

As a child you felt great affection, tenderness and warmth toward your mother, and sometimes she expressed the same to you, but sometimes she hated you and that hate hurt so much because it hit you were you were tender. It is a horrible experience for a child, a most horrific kind of surprise when expecting affection and receiving hate instead.

When your mother yelled at you and tore your homework, those were acts of hate. It is very difficult for a child of any age to think of her mother as hateful. So I will clarify: I am no saying that she was 100% or even 50% hateful. I am saying that the amount of hateful behavior on her part against you, was more than you were able to handle.

When you remember your mother yelling at you, tearing your homework, harassing you to get perfect grades and perform perfectly in extracurricular activities and so on, you probably don’t feel much, the memories feel neutral, not scary, aren’t they?

This is so because children disassociate- they repress and burry the fear best they can so to keep going. It is impossible for a child to be overwhelmed with fear and to perform the tasks in front of her: getting dressed, going to school, etc. So the child removes the majority of her fear from her awareness.

This is how much fear you experienced as a child before you removed that fear from your awareness aka disassociated: “panic… vomiting, trembling, hyperventilating for hours”. This is the fear of your childhood, repressed and then erupting once you moved in with him in Rome, the move in with him being the activating event.

Although you don’t feel the fear to that great extent now, as when you did the day you moved in with him, it still exists and it is significant, leading you to focus on his flaws, question your love for him… take away the feeling of love, and wanting to leave him. This is not about who he is and how he behaves with you (from what you have shared); it is all an activation of your childhood fear.

Back to the quote of what you shared in your most recent post: “every time he makes me laugh or I feel tenderness or affection towards him.. every time I feel warmth something in my head snaps and I feel like I need to get out”-

– as a child you experienced a mixture of warmth and fear, the two were connected. Fast forward, you feel warmth toward your partner, and soon after, if not at the same time, you feel fear too. Sometimes you feel only fear and no warmth.

The two are connected: warmth and fear.

When he makes you laugh, you relax for a moment but then your brain remembers that hate is next, some act of aggression and harassment is next, so the laughter turns to fear.

“something in my head snaps“- the connection is made between warmth and fear, relaxation and danger.

There are other things going on, but what I wrote here is the core of what is happening, according to my best understanding.

anita

Narsil, I have come a long way on my journey since last posting. Here is a website that might be helpful: http://coda.org/index.cfm/meeting-materials1/patterns-and-characteristics-2011/

Also search for a podcast called “Beyond Bitchy: Mastering the Art of Boundaries.”

Love and good wishes, Sister.