Dear Dave:

It’s okay to not post your image here, see to it that you are smiling in the photo, a genuine smile, will you?

You mention Tinder and Bumble: I am not familiar with either. Consider Match. com and Plenty of Fish. com (a free service)- they may be more serious/ reputable online dating services which allow a large space for members’ profiles.

You listed in regard to your profile: “Musician & artist. Runner, walker and footballer. Accomplished cook, keen finder of new places to eat and drink. Bookworm and science fanatic. Big film and TV fan, especially Christopher Nolan”- 

– I would place these things at the end of your profile (which would read like a short essay). Start the essay with what you want from a relationship and what you have to offer it. Go straight to the point. Say it in simple, direct language. You are welcome to post this here.

anita

Dear Dave,

good to hear from you! I am glad you’re doing fine, meeting new people, opening up to new experiences, and taking it easy, with no pressure on yourself.

Though sometimes I find I don’t want to pursue hobbies etc in the evening, but also I struggle to relax.

As anita said, there is probably a reason why you can’t relax in the evening and allow yourself to unwind, chill, perhaps watch TV or whatever is your favorite pastime, and simply enjoy yourself… Be at peace with yourself as you’re doing nothing, just chilling, just “being”… Are there thoughts that come up, e.g. the internalized critical voice of your father that you are so clumsy for simply being yourself, or perhaps another thought that stops you from enjoying the moment? If you’d like to explore it more, you are very welcome.

The autumn has come here too, but the weather is still nice and sunny, and still not too cold. So I am enjoying it! 🙂

Dear Dave:

You are welcome. You wrote regarding your mother in June 2021: “I couldn’t bare to upset her.. I felt responsible often for my mother’s happiness as a child“. Today, Nov 2021, you wrote regarding your ex-girlfriend: “I still am in touch with my ex, and feel the guilt of hurting her still. Just like trying to protect my mother“. And then you wrote: “I trust strong and independent women (like my mother), almost instantaneously. I am very happy to work on these things with you on here, absolutely. Please let me know what you think would be best to start with?“-

-you can start with answering these questions, if you want to:  (1) Who hurt your mother and who did you therefore need to protect her from?  (2) If your mother was indeed a strong and independent woman .. how is it that she needed protection from a child.. you? (3) What made your mother so unhappy?

And now, I will answer the same questions I asked you in regard to my own mother: (1) Seems like everyone had hurt my mother, including me, her daughter. So she told me, and I felt very guilty for it,  (2) My mother said that she was strong and independent raising two children on her own, working 3 jobs per day, no financial help from anyone.. taking care of the home herself, without the help of a man, etc., and in these regards she was indeed strong and independent. Otherwise she was weak and dependent, expressing her misery to me on an ongoing basis, telling me what a horrible life she was having and how I added to how difficult it was for her, (3) What made her so unhappy: that people didn’t appreciate her and  hurt her (including me, so she said), that she didn’t have the life she wished she had: one of luxury.

anita

Dear Dave:

Your fear of hurting your mother/ the women in your adult life on one hand (“I could not bare to upset her… My ongoing fears of.. making the caregiving females in my life unhappy or sad”),  and your fear of being alone on the other hand (“the fear of being on my own is definitely a theme for me.. I have struggled with abandonment issues for many years.. My ongoing fears of loneliness…I have never really lived on my own.. some kind of separation anxiety from my mother as a child”) have been quite pronounced since your childhood.

You shared about your experience when you visited your father, that he was: “very distant emotionally and tough on me.. my father just didn’t know how to comfort an upset child… I definitely walked on egg-shells around him so as not to make him angry”- I understand why you felt alone and lonely when you were with your distant father, why you were afraid of your angry father.

But  why did you feel alone and lonely and afraid when with your “very comforting and loving” mother, a woman who showed you “such love and compassion“: why was living with her.. not a good experience either, an experience that led you to fear being abandoned and left alone?

“I have always been so close with my mother“, you wrote. But was she so close with you, I ask myself, and it is clear to me that when she was very hurt, sad and/ or upset– she was emotionally distant from you, withdrawing her precious comfort, love and compassion away from you, separating from you emotionally=> leading to your anxiety about being separated from her.

“I felt trapped between two parents – my mother whom I wanted to make happy and shower with love and prevent from being upset.. I definitely wanted to run away from this“- you wanted to make your mother happy and shower her with love so to.. prevent her from feeling hurt, upset, etc., and in so doing, to prevent her from abandoning you emotionally. In different ways, you were abandoned by both parents, and you felt trapped alone. You wanted to run away from that dreadful experience of feeling so alone.

“(I) was acutely aware how hurt she had been by my father“- the acute part is that when she expressed being hurt by your father, she also withdrew from you emotionally, and you felt.. acutely alone.

“I could not bare to upset her…My ongoing fears of loneliness and making the caregiving females in my life unhappy or sad“- I think that .. again, you couldn’t bare to upset her because when she was upset, you were left terribly alone. You feared her hurt, sadness, unhappiness, upset-ness because these emotions in her meant that you were alone. Fast forward, you as an adult, fear these emotional states in the women in your life.

“I felt the need to protect her from my fathers hurt.. I felt such empathy for her real struggles, and wanted to protect her from the tough world“- I think that when alone and abandoned by both parents, you felt the need to protect yourself from being alone in the tough world by changing your mother’s mood, showering her with love, changing her hurt, sadness and upset .. into Happy.. so that you are no longer alone.

If you can relate to any part of what I wrote here, please let me know, and we’ll take it from there.

anita

Dear Dave:

You are very welcome.

“she worked a lot so maybe there were elements of me wanting to see her more. I think I struggle to remember if my mother was upset, if she would withdraw from me, I think in reality, she was more likely to come to me for comfort, which might be where I get the feeling that I need to comfort and protect the care giving women in my life from… I still feel that urge now, to run away from being alone“-

– (1) It makes sense that the fact that your mother worked a lot, and you were therefore away from her a lot, alone- by itself  led to your ongoing anxiety when you are alone, (2) It also makes sense that a person who is upset is not in the mood to attend to the emotional needs of another person, and your mother was no different: when she was upset, she wasn’t available to comfort you. Instead, she came to you for comfort, (3) When she was upset and came to you for comfort, she was the Weak One (the one needing comfort) and she expected you to be the Strong One (the one providing comfort), but in reality, you were weak, you needed her comfort and you didn’t get it when she was upset.

“I never felt a lack of love from her, but I felt empathetic for her sorrows and hurt that she had suffered, and it made me anxious to not be around her“- you needed her comfort, that’s why you were anxious when she wasn’t around. And when she was around and upset, sorrowful and hurt- she wasn’t available to comfort you. It seems to me that you suffered from lack of comfort in these 3 situations: (1) when visiting your father, (2) when your mother worked and you were alone, and (3) when your mother was with you, but was too upset and sorrowful to comfort you.

“now I am dating..  I am struggling with self esteem issues… I am struggling to connect with people whom I find physically attractive. It is making me question my own ‘attractiveness’… It seems to trigger something really deep in me, which hurts“- given that whatever your physical characteristics, there are men out there with similar characteristics who feel attractive nonetheless, I am guessing that the something really deep in you that gets triggered when women you find attractive seem to not be attracted to you- is your deep hurt about not being enough for your father and not being enough for your mother: not enough to take away his anger and make him emotionally close and comforting, and not enough to make your mother present at home (not away for work), and not enough to make her happy, emotionally close and comforting.

As to your second post: “I imagine this made you feel so trapped and powerless?“- yes, terribly trapped and powerless. I escaped my trap through massive, extensive daydreaming/ fantasy life. In reality, I tried and failed to convince her that I had NO  INTENT WHATSOEVER to hurt her. Notice I spontaneously typed using big print.. it’s still the frustration of not being believed!

“Do you bring this feeling into your relationships as an adult?“- for the longest time, every time I did something innocently, something small like not doing a good job sweeping the floor, a voice in me accused me, saying: you did it on purpose, you are trying to hurt (someone)! and I had to .. convince myself: no, I didn’t intend to not do a thorough job, it wasn’t on purpose! Every time a person seemed upset, a voice in me accused me: you hurt him, you hurt him  on purpose, you said something wrong on purpose.. you did something wrong or failed to do something.. poor him.. evil you!!!

“Do you find maybe you have overcompensated in areas of your life so as not to seem like you aren’t doing enough, or supporting those close to you now?“- I gave large amounts of my money away countless times so to compensate people for my wrong doing, real and alleged (alleged by my internal accuser= my mother’s voice)

“Do you feel this confusion has carried forward..“- I didn’t quite understand this question. If I didn’t already answer it here, you are welcome to restate it.

“Does this make it difficult for you now to appreciate gifts and shows of self-sacrifice from others?“- when my mother accused me of intending to hurt her and then going about it in a planned way over a long period of time (she fits a Paranoid Personality Disorder, in my understanding), she also went on and on about all the material goods she gave me, how hard she worked to buy me those things.. on and on.. and on. Therefore, I hated receiving any thing from her, felt guilty, didn’t want her to buy me anything, but she insisted.. As an adult and living on another continent, I went to great lengths, living in miserable physical circumstances, so to spend the least amount of money on myself, and give her the greatest amount of money so to pay her back the huge debt I felt that I owed her. Also, any material gifts from others.. I passed to her, whenever possible. P.S., I failed to free myself from my alleged debt to her.

“Do you feel this was the best decision for you? I understand from friends I know that sometimes, the relationship with a parent is unrepairable and, although we would like to reach agreements and understanding with people we care about, sometimes this just isn’t possible“- yes, it was and is the right decision for me. I wish I made that decision by the time I was 20, instead of wasting a lifetime trying to pay that debt, experiencing excruciating guilt, feeling like a very bad person.

As far as the idea of repairing my relationship with her , the idea makes me smile, knowing how impossible it is or would have been by the time I did end contact with her.. I can’t change another person, and I definitely cannot change a person (such as my mother) so drastically and massively. I was never able to make her see me, hear me, or value me. I tried so hard for decades to change her so that she will .. wake up to the possibility that I was there, that I was for her- not against her, that I was not worthless.. and I failed. I finally gave up the efforts, efforts that robbed me of a life worth living, for half a century or so.

anita