Letting Go Again

When I was working on my program to deal with my family problem, I remember people saying that "everything they let go of had scratch marks all over it." I was never completely certain of what they meant, and realized recently that they were just saying that they had a hard time letting go, and kept trying to hold onto something.

I did this before (I think of a break up shortly after my marriage with embarrassed regret), but now I find that I have let go, even when it is hard. It may have hurt, but I knew I had to do it. I went back to my books and readings, and relied on friends, and, like one fighting through an addiction, made it. I stopped hanging on; I learned to move on.

What can one say, however, when the other party, the one who said goodbye, needs to, perversely, hang on? Is this a subtle form of torture that I had not been taught about? My latest has first told me that I could contact him whenever I wanted (and, I am thinking, not anytime soon; at least not in this century.) And then, today, he sent me an ecard for Mother's Day. Lovely. I know if I questioned him on it, he would say he was only being nice (I think the word he is looking for here is manipulative.) It took all of my patience to just thank him. Who does this sort of stuff?

In my other post, I mentioned how false people need to make sure that everyone is happy. I am guessing that this explains this behavior, sort of "sorry I totally f*cked up your life, but I don't want you to be mad at me because I can't deal with that, so please accept this card." My response, in kind (in my mind, at least) is "please grow the f*ck up.'

I can move on; I can continue to read and work on myself. Trying to understand why people act this way? That's not so easy.