Posted by splotches on November 1, 2009, 9:36 pm, in reply to "QUESTION: do you feel like your mother "got you" or "didn't get you"?"
1. I was not close with my mother. When I expressed my feelings growing up, I was dismissed. When I do it now, she asks if I've been drinking. Never have I felt that she "got" me.
2. When I first started coming out, I was having a lot of anxiety and had no way of dealing with it in a healthy way because I was so emotionally detached. Therapy helped me stand up for my right to have feelings. I stuffed them down in order to deal with my mom and I stuffed them down in order to deal with my homosexuality that I only realized after I was married. And I stuffed them down so as not to ruffle the feathers of a very immature man with anger issues.
With the help of my therapist, I was able to allow myself to have, feel and acknowledge my feelings. Expressing them is still a challenge for me and sometimes I feel a bit void in my relationship I'm in now.
On one hand, I am incredibly happy, but on the other I feel I need to take it to the next level and I'm not sure if I'm paralyzed out of fear, or I'm just not used to romantic expression. I can reach out and touch, share a glance, a smile, but the words do not come out of my mouth.
3. I don't want my relationship with my mom to relate in any way with the relationship I have with my girlfriend. If I did that it would stop dead in its tracks. If anything, I want the opposite and I find myself being emotionally dead at times...... toooo much like my mother.
--Previous Message--
: hello ladies,
:
: i am having a rather long convo, as in
: on-going for months, w/ a non-AJ LLL lezzie
: friend,
:
: wherein we are talking about emotional
: availability and our fams of origin,
: particularly our relationships w/ our
: respective moms.
:
: specifically:
:
: i kinda always felt like my mom "didn't
: get me".
:
: like we were on dif emotional and for sure
: intellectual planes.
:
: in my teen years, for multiple reasons it
: was tense, to say the least.
:
: i was also very bonded w/ my father. we used
: to have these long ongoing dialogues about
: things. he really got me and all. i tended
: to look up to him and saw him as strong and
: tried to emulate his style.
:
: in this familial configuration, i feel like
: i absorbed his aggressive masculine style.
: you know, the John Wayne/James Bond tuff guy
: approach, stuffing my feelings down and all
: that.
:
: i think i was not feminine in my emotional
: life at all, you know being tuff and not
: crying, learning how to be and attracted to
: all things logical, learning how to predict
: everything.
:
: here on AJ, we have in the past discussed I
: and E (introverts v extroverts), T and F
: (thinkers v feelers) and then recently M/F
: (masculinity and femininity). i think to a
: certain extent these are diagnostic of part
: of what i am trying to discuss.
:
: i am a non-shy introverted masculine-type
: thinker who is trying to be, working hard to
: become over a long time, more of a feminine
: feeler. this becoming more feeling and
: caring is important to me because it is the
: only way i see a relationship working out.
: {i can be as someone here said succinctly, a
: d!ck <-- figuratively.
:
: i am wondering if anyone else can relate?
:
: or maybe you had dissimilar experiences you
: can likewise share?
:
: maybe you all can share:
:
: 1 - self-disclose, esp your experience w/
: your moms. what was your emotional life like
: w/ your mother? are you close w/ your mom?
:
: 2 - and then i am wondering if you have any
: thoughts/insight into your own emotional
: style and how if at all your relationship w/
: your mom has anything to do w/ your ability
: to be, or not be, emotionally available and
: emotionally accessible?
:
: 3 - does your relationship w/ your mom have
: anything to do w/ what you want from a
: relationship partner?
:
