You’re Not Healing — You’re Emotionally Cheating and Calling It Growth

If you’re using psychological terminology to excuse sneaking around, attempting to undermine other people’s relationships, and deceiving those who care about you — and then you ask for some “tough love” — brace yourself. If you must contort your rationale to justify hurting and exploiting others to meet your so-called needs, you don’t need me to confront you: life will likely deliver its own harsh lesson. That said, if your aim is to avoid inflicting pain on everyone involved, I’ll be blunt and direct. Today’s letter comes from a man who calls himself Mason. He writes, “Hi, Anna. Do genuinely happy families exist? If they do, would it make sense for me to look for a partner from such a family so that my future children might have at least one emotionally healthy parent?” Before I dive in, I’ve got my proverbial pen ready to mark the passages I’ll return to, but first let’s recap Mason’s situation.
I have a fiancée. We’re both in our mid-30s, have solid careers, lots of friends, and active lives. Still, I suspect I carry unresolved wounds from childhood emotional neglect. When my mother was upset, she would sometimes stop speaking to me for weeks, often without an explanation I could understand. That silent treatment still affects parts of my life. My fiancée grew up with very strict but educated and, by her account, supportive parents; today she has a fairly decent relationship with them. She is warm and light-hearted. Because of work we live semi-independently in a kind of long-distance arrangement between two large cities and typically see each other about three days a week.
Three years ago my father was diagnosed with cancer. I mentioned this to a female colleague who was a few years younger; she told me her partner had also lost his father to cancer and offered to be available to talk. We began meeting for coffee breaks once or twice weekly and lengthened them into hour-long conversations. Over the last six months I’ve become entangled in an intense infatuation with her. Three months ago my father died—but oddly, I didn’t feel the pain I expected; rather there was a sense of relief. The grief had been dragging on for the three years of his illness, and after his death I began to mourn the relationship I never had with my mother. My siblings and I scarcely speak, and during all this there was very little emotional support from my family.
My colleague, by contrast, seemed grounded and kind. She came from what looked like an ideal small-town life: daily phone calls with her parents, rigid routines, and a boyfriend she manages in a parent-like way. She enforces the same household rules she grew up with — when and how much candy he’s allowed, when he should get up on weekends. He resents that she tells her parents everything about their relationship and his struggles, but he eventually capitulated. He has lived in her apartment for two years, she tidies up after him, and sometimes he calls her because he can’t find his belongings. My colleague and I started meeting outside work: hiking, swimming, talking about relationships. She once asked how my relationship was going, and I began to fool myself into thinking she might have feelings for me. But then she would forget things I’d already told her — my age, my views on having children. She never flirted, and she forgot signifi cant details. I had to admit she didn’t reciprocate my feelings. Yet I remained obsessed — not because I loved her, but because I envied her. I envied her closeness with her family and, especially, the way her boyfriend had a place in that family. I didn’t want to be loved by her as a romantic partner; I wanted to be taken in and cared for like a lost son. Now I’m starting to recognize what this is: not love, but emotional regression. I don’t need to be adopted; I’m an adult and want to continue growing.
What haunts me is this: almost everyone I’ve met has at some point revealed personal struggles, family troubles, insecurities, or past pain — and that vulnerability made them feel human to me. This woman, however, never did. It’s as if she inhabits a faultless world, and that drives me mad. So my question is: do truly happy families like hers exist — families where children grow up feeling safe and fully loved? If they do, is it reasonable for me to seek a partner from such a background so at least my future children would have one mentally healthy parent? I know I shouldn’t long for a partner who dictates candy rations or weekend wake-up times, but what should I do now? I understand that going no-contact could break a limerence, but how would cutting contact with her actually help heal my inner wounds? From my point of view it would only remove a mirror where I can see my unmet needs clearly. Wouldn’t true healing involve transforming this obsession into a genuine friendship, allowing me to see her and her family realistically rather than severing ties and keeping the illusion that perfect people and perfect families exist and I don’t belong to them? Best, Mason.”
All right, Mason. You asked for tough love, so here comes the hard truth. You have a fiancée — what are you doing spending time with this other woman, obsessing over her for six months, going on hikes and swims? This is wildly unfair and dishonest. At the most basic level you must make a choice: either commit fully to the relationship you’re engaged to marry, or end it. From what you describe, there is little evidence of real commitment now. Even a therapist reading your letter without more information would likely conclude you’re offering yourself many rationales to avoid taking responsibility. You’re constructing a psychological case that makes continuing this fixation feel justified — but that doesn’t make it right. You are also harming someone else’s relationship in the process.
I’ll address the childhood stuff in a moment. First: your mom’s behavior was painful and wrong. If she routinely gave you the silent treatment as a child, that is a form of emotional abuse and it absolutely can leave long shadows. What you describe — withdrawal without explanation — would be confusing and damaging to a child. Trauma like that exists, and it matters. But what hasn’t helped anyone, including myself and many others, is using that trauma as permission to mistreat other people. Real healing is an inside job; it doesn’t magically come from side relationships or clandestine attachments. Seeking solace in another person’s life, especially secretly, is not a substitute for doing the work.
I want to be direct about something else: a lot of the language you’re using — unmet needs, mirror, idealized partner — sounds like therapeutic or new-age jargon used to rationalize what you’re doing. I don’t think your true question is whether happy families exist. The way you tell the story makes it clear you’re asking whether you should pursue this woman or what to do about this fixation. Much of your letter energy is directed at that, not at a philosophical inquiry about family systems. Have there ever been truly perfect families? Probably not. There are functional families and families that appear very well organized and supportive, but even seemingly perfect families have faults: controlling tendencies, weak boundaries, work addictions, whatever. No family is flawless. Wanting to obtain a parental role from a partner is a doomed strategy, because a romantic partner is not a substitute for a parent.
You said you’re grieving your mother; that grief is real. But it’s crucial to recognize that the childhood you’re longing for is over. You cannot re-enter childhood and have someone else parent you again in the literal sense. Some people do inner-child work and find value in it; others focus on cultivating self-care, learning how to re-regulate their nervous systems, and developing skills for emotional steadiness. Those approaches help people show up more reliably for others, take responsibility for their impact, and make relationship choices aligned with their values.
What you’re describing — wanting to be mothered by this woman, wanting to be cared for like a child — reads as emotional regression. Frankly, it also looks like a fetish or kink for parental dynamics. If you want a relationship structured that way, that should be openly negotiated with all parties involved, but that does not appear to be the arrangement you currently have. Right now you have a secretive attachment to a woman who is already in a relationship. She has given you signs — forgetting details, not flirting — that she does not reciprocate. Continuing in secret while holding onto fantasies is a recipe for harm: to your fiancée, to her boyfriend, and to yourself.
When people are limerent, one option can be honest disclosure: tell the person how you feel and let them answer. But that has serious consequences when the other party is committed. You already seem to have your answer: she is not interested in you romantically. What concerns me deeply is your idea that keeping her in your life as a “mirror” will help you heal. That sounds like a justification for parasitically taking emotional comfort from someone else’s relationship while lying to your own partner. That rationale is unpersuasive and unethical. If your intent is genuine healing, it has to involve taking responsibility and stopping behaviors that deceive and hurt others.
You mention being unsure how breaking contact would help your internal wounds. Cutting contact is not a magical cure, but limerence thrives on continued exposure to the person and the fantasy of them. Ending contact removes the ongoing stimulus that feeds the obsession and creates space to do the inner work. Healing is slow, manual work: using tools to notice your patterns, practicing new ways of thinking, and relying on trustworthy supports like a therapist, a 12-step sponsor, or an honest friend who will give you reality checks. Membership groups, courses, and mutual-help groups can also provide accountability and structure if you’re truly ready to change.
It also worries me that your letter expresses little concern for your fiancée’s experience. Being engaged means being on a team: caring about the other person’s wellbeing, co-creating a life together. Hiding a major attachment and diverting emotional energy into another person is not “spouse thinking.” If your fiancée discovered what you are doing, she would understandably feel betrayed. Many people would end the relationship. Trust is hard to rebuild after sustained deception. If you value your fiancée and the partnership you claim to be preparing for, you need to prioritize honesty and transparency.
Consider the practical steps: be honest with yourself and at least one trustworthy person who is not invested in your magical thinking — a skilled therapist, a 12-step sponsor, or a mentor who will hold you accountable and challenge your rationalizations. If you truly believe this obsession is driving deceptive behavior, take decisive actions to stop the deception. Whether you tell the women involved and the extent of your disclosure is a nuanced decision a therapist or trusted guide can help you make: sometimes full disclosure causes more harm than good in the short term, so get counsel on how to proceed ethically.
It helps to recognize common self-defeating behaviors that trauma can produce. Dishonesty, fantasy-based thinking, avoidance of intimacy, black-and-white thinking, anger-driven behavior, various addictions (alcohol, drugs, pornography, screens, gambling), and compulsive seeking of dopamine highs are frequent culprits. Fantasy itself is a dopamine high, and limerence operates like an addiction: idealizing someone, pouring your energy into an imagined relationship, and losing touch with reality. Energy invested in fantasy is precious creative energy wasted on a projection that often amounts to a “black hole.” To build a healthy life and relationships, that energy should be redirected toward real, constructive action.
If you want resources, consider checking lists of trauma-affected relationship signs, taking trauma-informed dating courses, or exploring groups like Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous if you feel compelled into compulsive romantic patterns. On many platforms there are video descriptions and links to quizzes or lists that might help you identify patterns and next steps. A structured program or a therapist who is willing to be direct about behavior patterns can be enormously helpful. The goal is to become an integrated person whose intentions, words, and actions line up — a partner who can show up with integrity rather than someone whose life is ruled by secret fantasies.
To answer your specific question about whether no-contact would heal you: removing contact with the object of limerence cuts the feed that maintains the obsession, which makes internal work possible. But healing itself comes from daily, sustained inner work and the support of trustworthy people — not from keeping the other person in your life as an emotional crutch. If you accept that this pattern is a problem driving you to deceive, then take strong, corrective steps. That may include deciding who needs to know what and getting professional guidance on how to disclose or not disclose. Whatever you choose, do it with the aim of stopping harm.
Finally, be candid about what you’re doing to everyone affected. There are three people being hurt by this: your fiancée, the woman you’ve fixated on, and her boyfriend. They have a right to be treated honestly and to consent to whether they want to remain part of the dynamics you’re creating. Clean up your actions, preserve the karmic integrity of your life, and focus on the kind of partnership you actually want to build.
If you want to dig deeper, there are resources — quizzes, lists of self-defeating behaviors, courses, and support groups — that can guide you through recognizing and changing trauma-driven patterns. Do the inner work, be accountable, and stop hiding. Otherwise, this will continue to erode the very relationships you claim to value. In blunt terms: she was addicted to drugs; you were addicted to her. There you are — you became an addict too.