I’m Really Mixed Up

Question:

Hi again Phyllis. I’m the one who wrote you yesterday about my first break up. Thanks for you advice, it made me feel a lot better. It’s just that right now I’m really mixed up. My mom is not being helpful at all. In order to get my mind off of —–, I’ve recently called a couple of my good friends that I haven’t talked to in a while and am hanging out with them to sort of relax my mind and forget about the break up. I told my mom I was going to hang out with one of my old friends, and she’s like “I know you’re only calling up these other girls so you’ll have more people to complain to. You need to stop broadcasting your problems to every single friend of yours and move on.” That’s not true at all! I just want to see some old friends so I can get OVER the break up and forget about it for a while. And my mom keeps saying that I just need to get over it, and she was all, “You think your situation is bad? When I was in high school, my first real boyfriend and I were together for almost a year and then I caught him making out with another girl. Imagine how I felt, and you’re crying over a situation that isn’t even bad.” It’s hard enough losing my first real boyfriend, and now my mom’s making me feel guilty about feeling sad. And she keeps telling me to stop acting desperate. It’s making this whole thing worse. But I do understand what you mean about his mom, and he and I actually did have sex. I had lost my virginity long before him, but his first time was with me. But we were always very careful and always used condoms and BC pills to ensure that pregnancy wouldn’t be a problem, and it wasn’t. My friend says that the break up might be even harder on him since he lost his virginity to me. But this whole thing is just a mess and I’m very confused and now my mom’s just adding more guilt to the whole thing, as if it isn’t hard enough.

Phyllis replied:

It may not be the mess you feel it to be. The whole thing seems perfectly natural to me. Feelings are complicated, that’s for sure, and your mom’s not helping any. Perhaps she feels that if you can’t “get over this and move on” when the break-up was more or less mutual, will you be strong enough to stand it when you face a situation like she faced when she was young? Accept the fact that for whatever reason, she can’t seem to empathize with you right now, so don’t put her in that position. But I’m a strong believer in sharing one’s problems, and if your girlfriends will listen and offer comfort, that’s great. Meanwhile, you’re doing things with them, going places, and that helps you gently back into the wider world. Who knows if the breakup is harder on him than on you, but having his first sexual experience with you may or may not affect that. Don’t add that to your mix of worries. Stick with your plan of sending him a friendly email in a month or so. When your mom sees that you are getting involved in activities with your girlfriends, maybe she’ll get off your case.

Posted on: May 31, 2009