Dear Zenith:

“I want to cut this off. I  want to stop asking them when we go out. I want go out and make new friends“- this is a good plan. As I suggested before, you can have your husband take your daughter to her house sometimes, you don’t have to go there yourself.

“But I am unable to move on as I am scared she would blame me if i move on. She already blamed me for not texting. I am scared she would blame if I stop asking her or texting her…I am here scared like a little kid worried about her feelings.“- and what if she blames you.. what damage can her blaming/ her feelings cause you in real-life, objective terms (beyond how you feel about it)?

anita

Dear Helcat:

You are welcome and thank you for reassuring me that my questions are fair. I’ve been trying to understand because I was thinking that if I  understanding better, I can help you understand better: being IN a situation sometimes makes it difficult to see what someone who’s not in the situation can see.

“Because of his beliefs in Traditional Chinese Medicine, he took on this idea that he was not allowed to argue with me or it could affect the nature of the baby. He resented not discussing his feelings during the pregnancy”- why does discussing feelings necessitates arguing, I don’t understand.

“We argued about general stuff like sleep, childcare and housework responsibilities”- again, I don’t understand why there’s arguing instead of discussing.

“Life has been hard for a while and the arguing makes things even harder“- my point.. arguing is a negative, harmful dynamic within a relationship that’s supposed to be intimate.

“He misses his family a lot. Even more so, now he has a child. He wishes that they could help. He wishes that they could have more of a relationship with his son. He misses his friends“- you are his family, you are his friend!

How complex we human beings are, how simpler I wish life was. This is why many people prefer pets over humans: simplicity, much simpler modes of communication, no vast vocabulary with many thousand of words and combination of words which complicate things, leading to so many misunderstandings.

Here’s a thought: what if you and your husband, instead of addressing problems since the pregnancy, what if you start from the beginning, have a Beginner’s Mind (a Western-Buddhist concept): re-start the beginning, when Helcat met the man she was to marry, go back there, to the beginning, and start over.

You went through a lot of very difficult times as a child, and difficult times recently. It’s amazing how strong you are, Helcat: a strong woman/ a strong person! Trust your personal, inspirational (in my mind) strength, express it, and may your husband find refuge in it.

anita

Dear Jakub:

You shared that you (29) were born and raised in Eastern Europe. There, you were abused by close family members, and your mother was- is an alcoholic, “Classic parent-child reversal situation… used to look for her around pubs as a kid, to beg she comes home“. You moved to a country that’s not part of E. Europe at 15, with your parents, did well in school, and finished law school, living independently at 22. In the last few years, you quit a job you were dissatisfied with, went back to school, and joined one of the biggest law firms in the world. A week from now, you will be moving to a house where you will be living alone for the first time in your life, with plenty of living- space you didn’t have before, something you are looking forward to.

Since you quit your job, etc.: “I have felt like a scared child. The same innate, overwhelming fear I had of my abuser as a child, I now experience almost constantly in life… each day is marked by an impending feeling of doom“- the challenges of quitting a job, going back to school and working in a very challenging environment awakened or intensified the fear you had as a child, fear of your abuser or abusers with whom you were stuck for too long.

“I haven’t failed at anything and yet each day is marked by an impending feeling of doom“- you had zero chances of success, as a child, to stop the abuse, to get your parents to protect you, and to take care of your mother (“parent- child reversal situation“), so that she will finally take care of you. You failed at tasks that are impossible for a child.

“My whole life I’ve felt like the thoughts in my brain are somehow naughty or wrong, like somehow there’s something innately evil within me and it makes me second guess everything…“- you took responsibility for the evil that was perpetrated against you, as children naturally do, believing that the abusers were not acting on their evil intents, but reacting to the evil or wrongness within you.

“I can’t put energy into a relationship. But I need to somehow figure out how to give myself a sense of security that will help me keep going through tough times in life (such as this job right now)… .. How do I stop feeling like an abused little child that I’m not anymore, how do I become able to put more energy into the difficult job I’m trying to succeed at, and how do I become comfortable with being single for so long that perversely I find someone good to be with?! Everything seems so convoluted.“-

– Simplify the Complicated, Clarify the Confusion, Re-label yourself Good. A sense of security requires that you believe that there is a good person, a good child within you, so that you will finally take his side and give the wrongness back to where it belongs: with the abusers.

I imagine that you made some bad choices as an adult and that you had and have thoughts and feelings that you disapprove of, thinking that these are evidence that you are a bad person and have been a bad person from the start. But such choices can be learned from and corrected, and.. perverse or convoluted  thoughts and feelings are reactions to abuse, or just.. normal thoughts and feelings that you view negatively.

There are no good or bad thoughts and feelings because we don’t choose them and they do not help or harm others. Only behaviors (words we communicate and acts we perform) can help or harm, and therefore, be good or bad.

I was abused too as a child. I felt Wrong and Bad as well, and I had to re-label myself Good by going back to my childhood, so to speak, and giving the Bad back to where it belongs. I would like to communicate with you for some time, if you would like that.

anita

Dear Helcat: Just got back home: you are welcome, and thank you for the Always! Be back to you in about 12 hours from now.

anita

Dear Zenith:

“Honestly I don’t want have to the conversation about my past… You get hurt when someone who is close  to you suddenly drifts apart from you once they meet new people… Now I am scared she would cause any drama by telling others I had hurt her because I have had the same thing happen with other friends who would always blame and create the drama.”– time for the Serenity Prayer, asking the following: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

You cannot change what she will tell others, what others will tell her (gossip, drama). You can change or control only what you say to others.

Because people gossip, in the future, don’t tell person A who is in the habit of gossiping what you don’t want person B, C and D to know. When you are talking to Gossiper A, imagine as you speak to her, that Gossiper B, C are also there, hearing you. Also, do not gossip about others (telling person A negative/ judgmental things about person B)

Think before you speak, asking yourself: if I say what I feel like saying now, will it cause drama? Is there a way for me to  say what I want to say in a way that is likely to ease conflict (instead of fueling conflict)?

You cannot change her choices of friends or how she feels about you. Try to make peace with it. I would give up on trying to befriend her, or re-friend her. Think of her as a neighbor and an acquaintance, not as a friend.

anita

Dear Helcat: You are very special, I am, your husband is.. equally very special. We all need to treat each other as very special while we agree and disagree on this or that. Respect first, Love and best wishes, first, always! ❤️

Will reply further Sun morning, dear, precious Helcat.

anita

Dear Helcat:

Thank you for the Always being just for me, it makes me feel special.

Three posts ago, you wrote: “I’m not upset. You haven’t done anything wrong. You have been kind and helpful“- if this was my mother’s message for me, my life would have been something very different: a life spent living, thriving instead of a life spent dying, withering (isolated, depressed, troubled, dysfunctional).

I wanted to understand better the situation between you and your husband, so I went back  and came across something you shared back on to May 25, 2022: “I had an argument with my husband… My pattern is to feel defensive, explain that I’m hurt and how to improve feedback in the future. I seek reassurance from my husband that he didn’t mean to hurt my feelings… I am hyper-vigilant, looking for signs of abuse… Now that I’m aware of the specific trigger I can remind myself that the situation is different. I’m safe, loved and not going to be physically abused because I didn’t do something perfectly“.

Recently, Sept  28, 2024: “My feelings get hurt sometimes and my husband can tell even when I don’t say anything about it. And he wants to talk about it and I don’t and that makes him angry that I don’t want to talk to him about it… I have just been shutting down at the slightest hint of conflict… he is hurt by me withdrawing. And he acts out when he’s hurt“.

Oct 12, 2024: “My husband gave me permission to do what I need to do to regulate my emotions. It’s basically the break situation again. He didn’t want me to do it before because he was afraid I was trying to end the relationship. He’s not taking me putting boundaries in place very well“- as I understand it (another vastly sleepless night significantly slows down my thinking), you needing time for yourself (time-out) when you feel hurt/ triggered is the right thing for you to do: for yourself and for him, for the relationship. Unfortunately, he feels threatened by your healthy coping mechanism (time-out)/healthy  boundary setting, and feeling about-to-be-abandoned, distressed, he acts out (.. how?)

Your trigger has been the thought that he meant to hurt your feelings/ that he may be abusing you, and his trigger is the thought that you may be abandoning him. So, his pattern has been to pursue connection with you just when you need a break from connection (time-out).

And when he pursues a connection with you while you need time-out, he further distresses you.

Psychology today/5 Ways That Fear of Abandonment Threatens Relationships: “Many with fears of abandonment also have an insecure attachment style, where they may become anxious, avoidant, or vacillate between both extremes, especially when their fears surface… Having a fear of being abandoned can wreak havoc on a person’s romantic relationships, where they can come off as ‘clingy’ or become possessive or manipulative as ways of trying to prevent their inevitable fears from surfacing…

“While there are many ways a fear of abandonment may show up in a person’s romantic relationships, five of the most common ones include: 1. Difficulty letting others in. Many who have experienced abandonment in their formative years have built up emotional walls to keep others out…

“What is feared the most is also the antidote for overcoming a fear of abandonment, which is to be comfortable being alone. Many with deep fears of abandonment cannot be alone. Time alone may trigger an inner critic or may spiral a person into self sabotage…  In healing from this pattern, it becomes necessary to face your past and recognize where these kinds of wounds started and how they have affected your life…”

If I understand correctly, that his Fear of Abandonment gets triggered by you shutting down and needing time-out, I wonder if he’s working on this fear in individual therapy.

anita