During that first week, my mind was going a mile a minute. Thinking about the why's. Analyzing myself. Amazingly, so blind to myself that I didn't see what was right in front of me. Up until this surprising trek down shame's lane, I was an open book. I'd tell you anything about me - even the unattractive stuff - I felt there was a little imperfection in everyone, so what's so bad to hide?
But realizing that I seeked out needy people in my life so that I could feed my self-worth by feeding them was a giant revelation.
My brother and his wife and son came to visit for the first time in 6 years that week. We traveled up to our lakehouse and spent a couple days boating. It didn't occur to me at first, but watching him was like watching myself. I could see how much he catered to his wife and rather than loving appreciation, his efforts were met with belittling. (Though my husband has never been belittling to me. Expectant, entitled and unappreciative for some things, but never mean or belittling.) I saw how both of us just Do, Do , Do........and was clearly able to see the lack of self-worth in him easier than I spotted it at first in me. But I knew there was some connection. Our mother always suffered from a lack of self-esteem, attempting to gain it through the appreciation she received from others through her efforts to please them. Taking on so much responsibility for others, jumping through hoops. To this day, it pains especially my husband and daughter to watch her. She's just *aching* for attention and approval. And then feels such a tremendous amount of guilt when something doesn't work out the way she'd hoped, even if it were out of her control. Like she'd not done enough.
I could see both her children - my brother and I - had learned those lessons well. We were doing the exact same thing.
I began to recognize that I didn't set boundaries with people because, like my mother and brother, I was so gung-ho on helping them to see what a good person I was. How valuable I was to them. Help them to see how much they needed me. Over time, as they learned what I'd taught them and took advantage of what I'd been willing to do for so long, I'd then back up and feel resentment with the unbalanced relationship. And feel cheated. Used.
Yet, I wasn't sure how to draw a line. Worse, how to go back and change the rules when I'd be obviously willing to take on so much for so long. How does one establish what *their* responsibility is and what is mine? Where does love and caring fall into it - wanting to help a friend, a loved one out even though you know it's not your responsibility? What really IS the definition of a good friend/wife/mother? Where does one draw the line as to what you really do want to offer, because feeling good through service is not a bad attribute,...... and what inevitably becomes to feel like obligation? Where do you draw that boundary?
Change.....change in those close relationships started looking very scary to me. I'd let it go on for so long without saying a word. How does one change up the rules? How do you go back and say you want to change the rules and not feel like a failing wife or friend who just can't "cut the mustard". I'd taught them how valuable, how wonderful, how good I was in being able to DO.....how would I now be defined when I said I really couldn't.
My husband was doing nothing other than what I'd taught him. And frankly, what he'd seen. What we'd all grown up with. Both our moms bent over backward caring for their family. Taking on way more than what a mother and wife was supposed to. But it was their job! At least the thinking back before the 90's. Back before women joined the workforce. Where home life had to be a bit more balanced between husband and wife out of necessity. Sure, working women from what I understood were still struggling to make that balance, but as a stay-at-home mother, I had no reason to ask for change. It felt like a failure to me, worse - selfish, given Jim's demanding job to ask for anything different.
Despite my extreme unhappiness, that even *I* couldn't face for fear of the work of change....and how that major piece of change would play out in my relationships, I was more willing to sit in silence. Change me. But no, not to tell my husband. I felt I could never, ever tell him because he'd tie all of this to my supplier. It would be her fault. And he'd have been right all along, he'd say - she was a loser. She was *not* a loser - she and I were the same in so many ways - nor could I give him the satisfaction of being right. He likes to say he's *always* right. No way would I allow her to be shoved under the bus, for him to think he was right, and to not take responsibility for my own decisions.
Dana sent me to her beloved therapist with great anticipation. I went, open with everything, the drug use.....but especially my revelations over the last week. Why.....I'd practically been a shrink to myself in that short week. He should be proud of how far I'd come in such a short time! He should pay ME for doing half his work for him!!
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