Leave it to an adult child to mourn something that they never actually had, leave it to an adult child to take the smallest bit of niceness and blow it out of proportion and leave it to me to be stuck on someone bad for me, confusing for me, that gives me nothing. Of course I’d fall for this type of behavior, this type of person - at a distance, away, keeping me at arm’s length. Of course I would because this sickness is where I feel comfortable, this is how my mother treated me and this is the drama I feel most comfortable in.
Dare I say, this is my manifestation because you bring what you know, you start what you’ve known all along. This is adult child behavior, this is self-manifestation and these are the sad feelings and raw emotions that I sink under like the covers in bed; the things I know so well and that my brain and spirit easily manifest, like a old friend.
Simply, this is the relationship I started with when I was young. My mom hated my father yet they stayed together and instead of getting out and finding a proper relationship, I sort of fell into being her surrogate husband. But I was also her child so obviously I could not give her all the things she needed - I could give a lot like a good listener, a therapist, a friend but was marginalized when she was ready to go look for the other things missing like sex, attention, partying…thus I was constantly stuck in that crazy-making world of “come here honey, no get away” - a constant dance of being pulled in and then pushed away.
Now fast forward to the rest of my life and this pattern of being put in ‘no man’s land’ by the women that I fall in love with keeps happening over and over because it’s what I know and where I feel comfortable, familiar.
And I keep having dreams about this person, frustration dreams that are just vague outlines, shadows and pools of nothingness because she so perfectly fit this life long pattern that I know and manifest at every turn. Let me repeat: we never had anything but friendship and then recently started moving closer but never consummated anything, never crossed the line…
Oh sure, I was led on a bit because this object of my affection has no boundaries or fuzzy ones and both of us kinda let certain things go unsaid but when the dust settles and the all the math is done, we never had anything real, anything you could at least say, ‘well we tried’.
But that’s what my particular case of adult child syndrome entails: find a woman with intimacy issues, get into a friendship realm where you support her and become her confidant and then start to fall in love. This is the pattern, this is the pain and this is the reality that I have manifested for 30 odd years.
The Direct address to this person
Look you, I’m sorry for this manifestation (even thought we are both responsible for this manifestation, I can only assume my personal responsibility), I’m sorry that I threw a monkey wrench into what was a budding friendship and I am really sorry that we are at such different places and different priorities in our lives that intimacy is out of the question.
But you have to admit or at least should admonish that we let it go too far into the direction of closeness and relationship. Neither of us has the greatest boundaries and neither of us really saw this coming like we should have or could have if we weren’t both putting out such mixed signals. I accept that I manifested this and accept my responsibility for this construction. My humble apologies.
Only an adult child could mourn something so deeply that he or she never actually had.