Mother passing as a child cause this impact on later relationships?

[NotMyDress]

I have therapy and in passing I had told my therapist about a new relationship I am in. He is in his late thirties, with no relationship history other than vaguely seeing 2 or 3 people for a matter of weeks here and there. He’s had sex before but only a handful of times from what I can understand. He was very very awkward around me at the start, sort of formulaic with the way he expressed himself.

Things have developed (I like him a lot). We are closer all the time. But he’s often cried for various reasons if we’ve had even a mild confrontation (I mean things that are just general conflict in relationships that most people wouldn’t think twice about), he’s very very sensitive. He seems anxious a lot of the time and has said he is, not about us necessarily but about everything. He often seems stressed.

My therapist went totally off piste in our last session and said I should be careful, him losing his mum age 14 will have had a huge impact and he’s only had his dad and very socially isolated brother to speak to grow up around. She thinks he will always struggle with relationships and that’s why he’s not been in one properly, ever.

Does anyone have and understanding of this and think I should be careful? It’s worried me a bit though I like him so much.

Did your therapist actually go off piste, or were they reflecting back things or concerns you’ve said in previous sessions? Rather than focusing on him and worrying there, I would think about why you came to therapy and what you’ve used the space for that your therapist responded to your mentioning with these thoughts. Next time you see your therapist ask why they said that in response to something you perceived yourself to be saying in passing. This will reveal more, and help you organise your thoughts and hence how to approach this love interest. You may as well consider your therapeutic relationship. Best wishes.

I don't think a parent dying alone would cause this. My dds lost their dad when they were 11 and 13 and we are now an all female household. Yes it's a devastating thing to happen but it hasn't removed their social skills or turned them into nervous wrecks. The younger one in particular has very good social skills and lots of friends of both sexes made at school. The older one has a smaller group of lovely friends. Unless he was homeschooled he'd have had lots of opportunities for mixing and developing social skills at school at least.

I think it's very plausible that the death of his DM at an early age has had severe impact. If his DF did not remarry or enter into another relationship then he may very well have very little influence of what a relationship entails.

Trust your instincts. If you feel l strongly about this one, tread slowly but encouragingly.

@SpeedwellBlue

I don't think a parent dying alone would cause this. My dds lost their dad when they were 11 and 13 and we are now an all female household. Yes it's a devastating thing to happen but it hasn't removed their social skills or turned them into nervous wrecks. The younger one in particular has very good social skills and lots of friends of both sexes made at school. The older one has a smaller group of lovely friends. Unless he was homeschooled he'd have had lots of opportunities for mixing and developing social skills at school at least.

That's great for your DD's but not everyone is like your family.

Two words

Prince Harry

@Newcastleteacake

I think it's very plausible that the death of his DM at an early age has had severe impact. If his DF did not remarry or enter into another relationship then he may very well have very little influence of what a relationship entails.

Trust your instincts. If you feel l strongly about this one, tread slowly but encouragingly.

@Newcastleteacake no his father didn’t re marry and his father and his older brother have always lived together and rarely leave the house (brother only 44).

That's great for your DD's but not everyone is like your family
How kind No it hasn't been great at all. As mentioned it's been devastating.

Bit presumptuous of the therapist.
Were they perhaps referring to your relationship history? Do they think that you may think you can "save him" so were more concerned about you and your boundaries- otherwise its really not their place to decide why his life is like it is, without knowing him.

@SpeedwellBlue

That's great for your DD's but not everyone is like your family How kind No it hasn't been great at all. As mentioned it's been devastating.

Not trying to be unkind at all. I mean it, it's great that your DD's are confident in social situations. It's an incredibly difficult situation. But your implication that there is something wrong with someone that isn't the same is unfair. Not everyone processes grief the same way.

I have read that a man's ability to form relationships with women is based on what sort of relationship he had with his dm - that being his first and primary relationship example... Maybe that's what he meant.

Well, I lost my dad as a teenager and so did dh. Both of us perfectly capable of having healthy, happy adult relationships, and we have had a healthy long marriage and generally well adjusted children. So I think that's a bit of a weird and inappropriate over-generalisation on the part of your therapist. It sounds like he struggles in relationships and possibly in emotional regulation. It's not possible (for you or your therapist) to pinpoint why that is though. It could be he is autistic? It could be he was sexually abused as a child? It could be he has social anxiety that is quite debilitating? It could be anything. Personally, he doesn't sound like someone I'd want to have a relationship with though. Relationships are about being in the same sort of place in life and being mutually compatible. It doesn't sound like you are.

My OH lost his mum at age 18. I agree with your therapist. It can have a massive impact on someone.

I definitely think some of my husbands anxiety's are trauma related. (Hard for me to say how much as I don't know what he'd have been like without the trauma) - his brothers share some of his anxieties so are they nurture rather than anything else?

I would think very carefully about what you are doing. Think about why you are in therapy - will this relationship add value to your life. Your BF may never change and may get worse - can you deal with that? He may also come to manage some of his feelings - but he may not.

LadyMinerva Surely it's possible to put forward your opinion to the op, whatever that may be, without making snippy comments to people sharing their own experience of bereavement. Have a bit of sensitivity maybe?

I lost my parents at 12. It hasn’t had an impact on my relationships, other than that I’m quite independent.

I have a friend who is in his early twenties, his Mum died when he was 15, we met through a shared hobby and my own DS is only a couple of years younger. He is in a successful relationship of 3 years now. But he admits he needs lots of time alone and he can be quite cool about things and was the opposite to the Guy your dating.

A few of us were on our way to an exhibition a couple of years ago. My playlist is very 80’s and they were all much younger than me. I went to change it but he loved it as it was stuff he used to sing with his Mum and she loved singing apparently. We sang along and he talked about his Mum after this time. He really seemed to relax more after this time. He started to talk about her in a happy memory way after this incident. I know his Dad has been in a long term relationship.

Regardless of the sad death of his Mum the whole family sound a bit socially anxious.

I would be wary about the therapist saying stuff like this when the evidence says it’s children under 11 who get these types of problems after losing a mum.

@SpeedwellBlue

LadyMinerva Surely it's possible to put forward your opinion to the op, whatever that may be, without making snippy comments to people sharing their own experience of bereavement. Have a bit of sensitivity maybe?

No offence was intended. Merely tried to highlight that all experiences are different. If you and your girls are doing well that is truly wonderful.

We could all do with a bit of empathy, yes?

Raise it again with your therapist and ask for a further response.

Relationships with parents and siblings are the blueprint for how people go on to form their own, but there are many other factors too.

That he suffered a huge loss might mean he would benefit from support himself and he may or may not try and seek that out through your relationship.

and his father and his older brother have always lived together and rarely leave the house (brother only 44)

I think that that is probably more the reason that he is very sensitive and stressed op. Whether it's how the family have handled their grief; eg turning inwards or whether they were like that before, he hasn't had enough experience in in the world on his own as yet and is part of a very enmeshed inter-dependant family. Be careful that you don't end up looking after him, or he becomes dependent on you. Maybe that's what your therapist meant but they don't usually express opinions so directly.

@LadyMinerva I don’t know whether you’re being deliberately obtuse or whether you’re just a bit thick. People are trying to explain to you why your comment was nasty. You don’t reply to someone stating that their children have lost their dad with ‘that’s great’.

Have you come across the 'Dear Sugar' column? A number of the responses were written by someone who published these afterwards in a volume called 'Tiny Beautiful Things'. I would not be without them. They are, in a way, the antitherapist. They are a lightning bolt and a velvet glove at the same time. But hell, they give an empathy shot in the arm like nothing else.

This one has a similar scenario to the circumstances you describe - not quite the same, but identifiable.
therumpus.net/2011/03/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-67-the-black-arc-of-it/

"There isn’t one good thing that has happened to either of us that we haven’t experienced through the lens of our grief [at losing a mother young]. I’m not talking about weeping and wailing every day... I’m talking about what goes on inside, the words unspoken, the shaky quake at the body’s core. There was no mother at our college graduations. There was no mother at our weddings. There was no mother when we sold our first books. There was no mother when our children were born. There was no mother, ever, at any turn for either one of us in our entire adult lives and there never will be.
...But compassion isn’t about solutions. It’s about giving all the love that you’ve got."

There is also a paragraph on 'advice to the 22 year old self' that is a similar jigsaw piece.

[quote Mydarlingmyhamburger]@LadyMinerva I don’t know whether you’re being deliberately obtuse or whether you’re just a bit thick. People are trying to explain to you why your comment was nasty. You don’t reply to someone stating that their children have lost their dad with ‘that’s great’.[/quote]
Hmm, nope never said 'it's great' that anyone had lost anyone? Just pointing out that comparing apples with oranges gets nowhere.

He sounds like hard work for someone who is in therapy themselves to deal with!

As someone else said, I think the response to this will depend on why you are in therapy.

Some being sensitive or not having had many relationships in itself might not be an issue. However relationship can have very complicated dynamics and maybe the therapist is worried that your bfs personality and history might not be particularly health for you.

Maybe just raise the question with your therapist next week. Say you’ve been thinking about it and want to talk about it more. Isn’t that the point of counselling.

Personally I would be worried about getting into a relationship with someone who is easily stressed and cries over small disagreements because I’d want to be able to be direct when I’m unhappy and wouldn’t want to be with someone else easily stressed when I am easily stressed too: