345 - Die Schwierigkeit des Hier und Jetzt

·55 min·4 clips

Paula states plainly: 'Nine years of on-off is not a real relationship — it's a performance of a relationship, and a mutual constant re-traumatization.'

1. Paula Lieben Lernen host Paula interviews guest Anne on the question of whether it is possible to have a relationship with someone who has no relationship with themselves. 2. Anne is a single mother of two children — a 17-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter with Type 1 diabetes — who recently ended a nine-year on-off relationship for the fourth and final time. 3. The episode's central thesis, delivered by Paula, is that a nine-year on-off dynamic is not a real relationship but a performance of one — 'ein Schauspiel von Beziehungen' — and constitutes mutual constant re-traumatization. 4. Anne describes meeting her future partner at work when both were married; she left her husband immediately and openly, while her partner's wife discovered the affair when she found a hotel receipt in his jacket while doing laundry. 5. Anne has two children with her former husband, who were eight and three years old at the time of the separation; she says she has never regretted the decision to leave, though she carries guilt about the impact on her children. 6. The relationship's recurring breakdown points centered on her partner's alcohol problem: Anne describes never living together, which gave him the space to drink without her noticing, and learning to identify from the tone of his WhatsApp messages whether he had been drinking. 7. When she confronted him about drinking and he denied it, Anne told him explicitly: 'When you tell me you haven't been drinking while my gut says otherwise, you are gaslighting me.' 8. During a one-year separation, Anne had a brief relationship with another man and also maintained contact with her partner; she describes this dynamic as both parties using avoidance strategies — his alcohol, her contact with the ex — to keep from having to fully commit. 9. A planned commitment-ring shopping trip to a city ended with both of them walking past every jeweler without either making a move; Paula notes that placing the responsibility for a commitment on the other person is often evidence that you don't actually want it to happen. 10. After another separation, Anne's partner disclosed at a breakfast meeting that he had written a farewell letter during his worst alcohol episode; because Anne's father had died by suicide in 2017, this triggered overwhelming protective instincts in her. 11. Her father divorced her mother when Anne was six, showed her brother preferential treatment during their visits, and died by suicide in 2017 having organized everything a year in advance — insurance documents, prepared letters — leaving only the death date for her brother to fill in. 12. Anne's initial emotional response to her father's suicide was anger rather than grief: she felt the energy he invested in planning his death could have been spent seeking help. 13. After the final reunion, her partner went to therapy and stopped drinking — but a year later told Anne that therapy and abstinence were bringing him nothing because he was doing them for her rather than for himself. 14. Anne names the belief pattern at the core of her story: 'the men in my life leave me' — her father's emotional absence, his suicide, and now her fear about her 17-year-old son, who has been absent from school for a year and stopped attending an apprenticeship without telling her. 15. Paula diagnoses the nine-year relationship as a logical outcome of Anne's childhood: she chose someone who would fulfill her fear of abandonment, and the on-off structure replicated rather than resolved that wound. 16. Anne's son situation: he stopped attending his apprenticeship, didn't tell Anne, who discovered it two weeks later when the company wrote to her; he now stays home, has no clear perspective, and Anne feels constant anxiety about him. 17. Paula suggests a month-long road trip with the son — no phones, reizarme Umgebung (low-stimulus environment) — to rebuild connection and give him the experience of being truly seen, arguing that most children who 'fall off the wall' are seeking connection and visibility. 18. The tone shifts throughout between confessional and coaching: Anne brings raw material, Paula responds with direct interpretations ('you are probably a monster-hen with your daughter'), and both laugh at points of recognition. 19. This episode suits adults — particularly women — working through patterns of choosing emotionally unavailable partners or managing the aftermath of a difficult parental relationship. 20. Listeners who prefer lighter content, practical dating advice, or have no interest in deep family-of-origin material are unlikely to find this episode useful.

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