Alright mate.

My mother died when I was a teenager.

Pancreatic cancer. Six weeks from diagnosis to funeral. She was 46.

And in a family full of alcoholics, gangsters, addicts and deeply wounded people, there was nobody to be there for me.

So I did what boys do.

I carried on like nothing had happened.

For the next ten years, to the outside I seemed fine.

Girlfriends, mates, work. I got on with it.

Then at 23, my girlfriend left me.

And I fell apart in a way that made no sense for the size of the loss.

I stopped eating properly. Stopped sleeping.

I'd sit on the edge of my bed at 3am with the lights off, and for the first time in my life I understood why people decide not to be here anymore.

A breakup.

A normal, adult breakup that happens to millions of people every day.

It took me years to understand what I'd actually been grieving.

She hadn't just been my girlfriend.

Without either of us knowing, she'd become the mother the 14 year old boy in me still needed.

When she walked out, I wasn't losing her.

I was losing my mother again.

And over the 10 years since, I’ve learned that when my relationships with women weren’t a mystery.

They were painfully predictable outcomes of one unhealed wound.

The mother wound.

After working with men for several years now, I can tell you it's common.

And it doesn't only come from losing your mother outright.

Sometimes it's the pain a boy absorbs from his mother's hidden sadness, her worries, her unlived life.

It's worse if she was narcissistic, immature, or emotionally chaotic.

Whatever the origin, it casts a shadow over how a man relates to women.

Here's how it showed up for me.

See if any of it is familiar.

1. I became a child around women

Around women I was attracted to, I'd turn into this needy, insecure version of myself I didn't recognise.

Something took over and I was powerless to stop it.

And once I was in a relationship, she'd become my surrogate mother as I gave up my goals, habits and anything that was mine.

2. I was afraid of real intimacy

I spent a decade chasing girls. Because boys chase girls, and I was still psychologically a boy.

That meant pursuing women who couldn't challenge me, make demands on my freedom, or hold a mirror up to my inadequacies.

I was circling intimacy but too afraid to let it in.

The idea of an equal partner scared me to my core.

3. Rejection felt like death

You've read the big version above.

But even small rejections triggered a flicker of that same feeling in my body.

Because every woman was, in my mind, a hologram of my mum.

4. I was searching for the perfect woman

Part of growing up is seeing your mother as a fallible, imperfect, real human being.

I never got to see that play out.

So she stayed frozen in my mind as the flawless creature little boys think their mothers are.

And as an adult I projected that standard onto every woman I met.

The moment one fell short, I moved on.

Completely unaware it was the wounded boy in me, still waiting for the perfect mother to come back.

Now, you're probably thinking the next logical thought, which is, "How do I fix this if this applies to me?"

And to that, I have a two-part suggestion.

Part one…

Finish these sentences.

And part two…

The mother wound thrives on a man's silence.

It cannot survive being brought into the light.

So if you want to take a step further, share your answers with me as a reply to this email.

Feel free to tell me a little bit more about your story.

I can't promise I'll reply to every email but I absolutely read every one.

Take care brother.

Stay courageous.

Oliver