Dear Lara:

From my personal experience growing up with a hostile, aggressive parent, the result was that as an adult, I was overly sensitive to other people not paying attention to me. If people were not perfectly attentive to me, perfectly kind- I felt offended, hurt, rejected. It is only after enough healing that I can see that sometimes people don’t pay attention to me because they don’t feel well, or they are preoccupied with their thoughts etc., and I don’t get offended.

In addition to that I didn’t want to be “too good” to other people because I was afraid they will take advantage of me, that being good meant being weak, and not caring about people meant being strong. I was indeed confused because of my hostile home experience.

So, I am guessing you  are overly sensitive as well, maybe having an unrealistic expectation that people will be the exact opposite of your parents at all times, while a realistic expectation from people would be: respect at all times, but attention and affection- some of the time, not all the time.

Having said all that, it still is possible that the man we are talking about, like I wrote to you three days ago, is not naturally inclined to be attentive and affectionate, that his tendency is to withdraw and be cold and distant, that he can be attentive and affectionate only for short periods of time (like during the week before you left N. America) but not for long.

What do you think?

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by .

Dear Lara:

You made a powerful, assertive statement: “I’ve spent the first 30 years of my  life without hearing any loving words and I’m not willing to put up with the same kind of silent relationship”-

– listen, really listen to this statement, that you made; honor it, respect it.

Your parents are not silent, but the noise that they make is unloving and distressing (criticising, complaining). You don’t want that kind of noise. You want audible honesty and caring in a relationship with a man, and he did not give you that consistently. Sometimes, (“him blowing hot and cold”)- you can’t enjoy the hot when you expect cold to follow. Better experience a reliable warm, so that you can depend on it and relax into it.

“When he is cold and unattentive, it really makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know why. It feels like I’ve done something wrong when he is actually just tired or not willing to make efforts (so is he faking it?)”-

– maybe he is affectionate (the hot of the “hot and cold”) when he is not angry at you, and silent (the cold of the “hot and cold”) when he is angry at you, trying to punish you with his silence, aka the silent treatment- it is very common. Do you think this might be the case?

anita

Dear Lara:

You are welcome. You wrote that you don’t see why he would be angry with you (and therefore punish you with silence) because you were “always happy to see him, easy going, light and smiling, showering him with affection and attention”- it could be then that he didn’t feel that he has to pretend and be nice so to get your positive attention to him. It is only when you threatened to stop that positive attention, that he changed overwhelmingly.. for a while.

Similar to him being rude to waiters and cashiers, he figures they are going to serve him anyway, so why bother pretending to be nice. I am getting a feeling that my current understanding is accurate (?)

The reason I used the verb pretend is that it is not natural for him to be nice and affectionate and attentive, not with service people (waiters etc.) and not with the woman in his life. When he is nice and attentive it is when he puts much effort in it, effort against his natural tendency. What do you think?

anita

Dear Lara:

“That’s confusing”- to think further, you will need to be calm and rested, that’s the only way to understand better. Stress and exhaustion create a fog that doesn’t allow  us to resolve confusion. So if you need time and distraction before we continue, please do take that time.

You wrote that you were nice and pleasant to him because you were always so happy to be with him, and you asked: “does that mean that all the time he was being nice and attentive and affectionate he was faking it then?”

My suggested answer has to do with what you shared about him on page 1: “he works super hard to earn enough money to help people he loves (he is really generous).. his job is really difficult and not really rewarding for him.. has been helping (one of his friends) for years and I never understood why he was going so far because in my opinion the friend was just taking advantage of his kindness and generosity“-

– I think that he may be operating driven by a false sense of responsibility aka guilt, not by love, generosity or kindness. I don’t think he is having much fun in his life because he is working hard in a job he doesn’t like, so to pay off some imagined debt that is burdening him.

When I did for others, and gave to others all that I did, being motivated by guild, I did not experience fun, neither did I feel generous or kind: I felt like a slave giving and giving so to pay the high price of being free from guilt sometime in the future, once I paid enough for my freedom.

If he operates from a state of mind of guilt and being enslaved, then he is not genuinely happy alone or being with you, no matter where he is, and with whom.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by .