Hi Anita,

I can’t thank you enough for your last message. So many things that resonated with me and was clarified. I am at the moment going in between feeling empowered and strong to weak and confused.

I have gone home for the holidays, it’s a challenging period for me for many different reasons but I finding especially hard this time.

I have this strong feeling of being selfish, why can I just not love people unconditional. My whole life have I tried to sacrifice my needs for others and ended feeling resentful. And ashamed. Now I can’t even do that anymore. Because I don’t have the energy and I don’t want to. It’s making feel ashamed. My sister is staying with my parents, which I am visiting. I find it hard to be myself around her as she is highly opniniated, so most things I say is always met by judgement. I feel that I always have to watch what I say. And she has her two children here which she expects being cared for by me, most of the time, and I just don’t have the energy. I feel guilty and that I am bad person. Its like my rejection wound is wide open. And I don’t know how to communicate openly with her.

I don’t feel accepted here, most of the time and I don’t were I live either. But often when I went home I thought at least I have my partner, which accepts me sometimes.

I feel ashamed that I am not able to love unconditionally. I am thinking that if I did then my partner would have stayed and even changed. I blame myself for not being able to so. I blame myself that I can’t happy all the time with my original family, that I making it about me (in secret).

I have such a strong feeling that it is my fault. My partner said that he was often giving me the silent treatment because I have unconscious need to be loved. And of course that is true, which I am aware of and I’ve been working with for the last year. I really tried to become more conscious this last year. Stop taking things so personal, if he went away for days without talking to me. I tried to give him space and let him come to me. I got used to that he didn’t message me as much or showed me affection. Our intimacy decreased. I started to be happy without needing his attention or approval. I’m happy that I started to heal. But somewhere deep inside I thought that my work would make him come closer. I heard that someone said that unconditional love can heal someone else. So I tried to open for unconditional love within myself. But here I am now, feeling a lack of love within myself (although I felt much stronger last week, it goes up and down) and feel bad for not being able to love others as they are. My inner child does not feel safe at the moment and I guess she didn’t feel safe with my partner either.

It made so much sense when you said that I am looking for my unmet needs in him and that I am attached to a image/ fantasy of him. He must have felt this too. I tried to be open about me shortcomings but he never seemed to respond. I wanted to grow and learn about each others attachments or wonded parts. I was so open that I finally even saw my own attachment issue, I wanted him love approve of me. When I saw that I also saw much love beneath that. A person that actually would like to love some with less attachment.

I guess I was waiting for him to accept and recognise his behaviour, and that we could grow together. So I subtly asked him to change. I that’s probably why he resisted. I wish I could just be a woman that have boundaries and could love him despite all of this.

I am fearful that he will meet that woman and that he will pretend I never existed. And that I will never meet anyone that could remotely like me, because I am sad and defected. And at the same time I’m so ashame of this, because it’s not fair not wishing someone else happiness.

I don’t feel strong at all at the moment but I  know I can manage it. I am much stronger then a few years back and I have grown. I’m ashamed that it taken me so many years to realise much of these things.

I met his mum for lunch before I went home, and she urged me to leave him. That I should be by myself and love myself, and depend on myself. She really loves me and can see herself in me, she wished that she had walked away when she was my age. My partner is not as closed off as his dad though and has spiritual understandinf about life.

People have said that me, that you need to be strong, insinuating that I’m weak. They’ve said that only if you had stronger boundaries then he would have stayed with you. Then he would have changed. Men loved strong women. But I try to explain that I had boundaries when something happened but I guess I trusted him when he said sorry. I trust words more than actions. And some say that you should just pretend to be happy and not need him. But basically they are telling me to be someone I’m not and actually don’t want to be. I would like someone to respect my boundaries the first time I tell them, someone I don’t need to play games with, and be open and communictive.

I even thought that if I boosted his confidence then he would have stayed. But I admired his talents, tried to listen to his pain, was happy for him when things went well, and often said that he was atttactive.

I understand that I need to be by myself now and feel the grief without shame. To practise honouring my feelings and creating boundaries even if it’s uncomfortable. I guess this is all coming up very intensive at the moment because I’m home and that I no longer want to hide behind my defense mechanism of people pleasing.

Thank you for taking the time to read through and for your response.

Kind wishes,

Emma