Jade,

Good for you for having such an awareness.  Logically you know that feeling guilty will do those less fortunate any good or helps you in any way.

You say you already volunteer and find ways to help others which is great.

My only suggestions are:

1. Write down how you are helping others with your volunteer work and other activities (e.g. number of hours volunteered, number of people you have helped, etc.).   This way you can see quantitatively on what you are doing to help.

1a. Try out other activities that directly help others in a substantive way, e.g. do things that you need to interact with the person(s) you are helping.

2. You say you feel guilty about your aunt.  How about sending her some money (with a note of course)?

3. You may want to examine what underlies this sense of guilt, this “not deserving” feeling.  What about your upbringing instilled that in you?

4. And lastly, this may sound harsh, just suck it up.  Continue to work on helping others in various ways and acknowledge that you will have your guilt.

Mark

Penelope,

Your situation reflects what I understand how Love is a verb.  I believe that love does take conscious “work.”  When a parent gets up in the middle of the night to a crying child to feed him/her and comfort them, that is not the gooey and stars-in-your-eyes version of Love.  When you get in a rut with the day-in, day-out ordinary-ness of the person in front of you and would rather focus on how kind they are and other good qualities then that is Love.  Love is embracing that person whose qualities are what made you love him in the first place rather than  finding him being boring.  He is not there to make you happy.  Love is having you being happy with him.

Start a gratitude journal and write down three things that you love about him every day.

Mark

John,

My take is to let your current GF go since you really had not let go of your ex GF.

If you keep thinking/yearning/hoping to get back with your ex GF then you are doing your current GF a disservice.

In a way you are emotionally cheating on your current GF.

Life and relationships are risks with no guarantees.  All you can do is to live in integrity; be true to yourself and honest with kindness with others in your life.

Mark

How To Stop Feeling Guilty, 5 Secrets Backed By Research

Katie,

Sorry for your pain.  I am wondering what does your marriage counselor say about the state of your marriage?

Do you think that some of your sadness and pain is coming from the changes in your body because of your pregnancy?

I can understand the need to have your husband as a companion who emotionally supports you and being physically affectionate the way you want it but for whatever reason he is not doing so.

I can only offer a suggestion to look for other ways and other people to comfort you, to keep you company, to feel love from.  Your mother, your daughter, your close friends…

Was it better when you lived with your mother?  that he did not take you for granted?  Maybe going back to your mother is a short term fix for now until you deliver?

You can only change yourself, not him.  You can make request or demands or pleas but ultimately he will do what he wants to do.  You can shift the focus from him as the problem to focusing on finding ways of taking care of yourself without depending on him.

Mark

Chris Joss,

I’m asking the obvious question: Have you talked to her about this?  Did you share with her what you shared here with us?

Another obvious question: Why not go with her to her son’s games?

Mark

LifeUnravelled,

I am sorry about the pain you are experiencing again.  I encourage you to not to have any romantic relationships for a while in order to learn to be on your own.  I ignored this wisdom and left behind pain and squandered time.  It IS painful and lonely to do that but it is NECESSARY.  It some ways it is meditation in action but instead of sitting with yourself but you are living with yourself.  I don’t discount your fear but that acronym means False Evidence Appearing Real.  What is the worse case?  You will not die.  Your children will not die.  You can only find yourself and find ways of being self sufficient, emotionally and otherwise.  You will show your children how to be independent, stand up for themselves and face life.

Make sense?

Mark

LifeUnravelled,

I have heard from the wisdom of therapists and learned from my own life that jumping into another relationship after a long term one (for me it was a 20+ year marriage) does not work.  You/I needed to learn to be able to stand on my own two emotional/relational feet without having someone else in my life, i.e. live on my own without dating.

Plus another thing I learned for myself is to never live with someone until I get married.  I see living together w/o marriage is a half relationship.  It does make a difference when two people are married living together versus two people who are not married.

What is most telling about what you shared is that the time together for you and your man is the silence.

I assume that you are no longer living together.  I wonder what your therapist is saying?  I assume that s/he is telling you the reasons why you cannot walk away, whether it is fear/insecurity/loneliness…  In some ways it does not matter since you still are not able to sever the relationship.

It is not only being able to tell your daughters what to do (how old are they?) but also SHOWING them what to do.  We teach our children by example not so much by what we tell them.  They see you staying in a relationship what is not healthy.  They will probably choose men like their dad or your current partner because of what you have done.  If that does not motivate you then I don’t know what will.

The additional way of addressing this stuckness is to work with your therapist on the “why” you cannot.  We can all speculate here online but you have this in person relationship with a skilled professional who knows you.  S/he can best help you on this.

Mark