You know, I find that a lot of people, women especially, are trained at a young age to be sweet, kind, accommodating and so on. Your environment, from parents to teachers to friends, keeps enforcing this ideal ‘mold’ on you which pressures you to actually meet that ideal. Which sucks, because then whatever else you wanted is lost in the void called ‘what I wanted, but instead…’ And as you practice the art of the ideal ‘mold’, you slowly become that ‘mold’ until you forget how to voice your want and desires because you’re too busy being that ‘mold’. But the ‘mold’ was created by other people, it wasn’t created by you. So it’s a good thing that you’re starting to realize that the ‘mold’ you are putting forward in everyday life is not yours, it is people’s idea of you. That’s the first step.

The next step is something I recommend so feel free to ignore it. But there’s something called behavioral psychology, the research in acquired behaviors through conditioning. There are psychologists who have studied cognitive behavioral therapy and work with clients to help them change certain thoughts and behavior. There are multiple techniques that the psychologist go through with clients over multiple sessions so that the clients get comfortable with their new perspective of actions that they can employed in everyday life. There are also many sessions in assertiveness too, but for now, I think it would be best for you to understand the underlying reason of why you want to please others so much. It’s not a bad thing to have compassion, but not at the expense of your own health and certainty not when it crosses your boundaries. So it would be best to find someone, it usually takes a few tries before finding a therapist you click with, to help you put together a narrative of your people pleasing behavior so that you can understand and start healing from the root of it rather than just change your behavior that’s only seen on the surface.

Good luck.

I wonder if your wife wasn’t tire of pretending that everything was fine and dandy. I wonder if she wasn’t waiting for you to be open and honest with her about your financial issues, or any of your issues. I wonder how many times she wanted to start an argument just so she can see you finally be angry, or at least something other than yes or okay. I wonder how burdened she felt at times. But for whatever reason, you’re still together. And now that you’ve decided to confront your past demons, it’s time you sit down and talk with your wife, face to face. You’ve probably started to do so in your therapy sessions but that’s probably about your issues and her feelings about it. Hopefully, she has begin to aired her grievences and you acknowledging her struggles too. She’s mad? Okay, she has a lot of reason to be. Acknowledge that. Acknowledge your past actions and her reactions and go from there. That’s therapy, but for the last few years, how much have you two talked to each other? Other than trying to please her with material possessions, have you or her been asking each other simple questions like did you have an interesting dream last night, how was your day, what’s one thing you want to do before the year ends, etc.

Right now, you can probably count this as a chapter in your life as the one where you acknowledge your childhood wounds, it’s a long process, and the focus will mostly be on you, but you can’t forget to acknowledge the role your wife has in this chapter. As with anything new, the water is murky and very deep in your case. So take this opportunity to thank your wife for going through it with you, regardless of the outcome. While also trying to give each other time, one of the most precious treasures because as I am typing this, everyone in this world is slowly dying, it’s just a matter of when. So give time, not possession, give attention, give words and make memories across or next to each other, you only have the now. You only have the now to acknowledge each other existence and time. Let her know, don’t hold back, not with everything you’ve went through. Talk, about anything and everything, what’s holding you or her back when it’s been so long already? Of course, she could cringe at whatever you’ve shared with her but it’s been 18 years between you two, what hasn’t she seen?

P.s. could you not use the word pussy like that? Otherwise, I like to see males give birth through their anus.

You know, society places a lot of heavy expectations on females. From the perspective of society, females should be kind, sweet, demure, pretty, smart but not too snart, a good listener and the list goes on. Those expectations is then enforced by your environment in some way but even if you meet the criteria, somehow it’s not enough so you should be doing more. But the cycle continues while your self esteem continues to take criticisms that you aren’t even trying, what’s wrong with you and so on. So it becomes your fault then your problem that you aren’t meeting that expectation so you keep trying and trying and trying but you can’t even see the end in sight.

You don’t feel you are enough as you are, you think that you can do better, you can be better, you can actually be pretty. You want to feel you’re pretty because maybe then people will accept you, maybe they will actually, really like you. Maybe you can even accept yourself. Maybe then you can like yourself. But that won’t ever happen as you continue the cycle of wanting to feel pretty because that comes from the acceptance of yourself. Wanting to be pretty is one thing but continuing to paint an image of yourself as ugly in your head then starving yourself is another thing.

Try and go see a specialist who can help you understand the story you are telling others and yourself about that “ugly” image in your head. See it for what it is then what you might see on the surface. People don’t punish themselves with such words just because they are bore, it’s usually because they don’t know how else to deal with themselves.

Good luck.

Dear Pristine,

I do not share the same continent as you, but I do share a similar culture to what you are describing in your post. From where I am living, success, to people, is doing things and making it known. Because if people knew that you were the winner in a competition or really smart or pretty or something, then that makes you a winner in life. Even if your life only consists of your family, friends and people you interact with in school and your neighborhood. And thats great for them because that might be what they wanted.

But I need you to take a step back from your dilemma and ask yourself why success means so much to you. Why is success the goal? Why do you have to be successful? What does success even look like? Ask yourself where these thoughts come from. Then ask yourself what you want from it.

Take your thoughts for what they are, but don’t allow them to determined who you are. And it’s hard, it is, but your thoughts only have power over you when you allow them to. So let them come, but gently let them go. Thoughts are only thoughts until you take actions.

GL

May I put in something? You can ignore this if it doesn’t make sense to you.

I understand that the thought of conforming merely for the sake of conforming gives you a bad taste, but does interests in movies, novels, hobbies, etc have to be about conforming/adhering to one opinion? People have their likes and dislikes. Two people might have the same hobby, but different reasons for keeping up with it, or they may just like it. A group of people might have the same opinion on a subject, but different viewpoints as to why. And it’s fine because people will have their opinions regardless. They are not conforming to one thing, but voicing their interests/connection to a subject with similar likes. It’s also fine to be speculative about someone’s else opinion (you just have to find a person’s whose opinion you trust to tell you the why to their like). Or if that didn’t make sense.

From your example of The Lego Movie: I didn’t watch it until a few years after it was made into disc form since it didn’t look interesting to me, but I did and I also didn’t like it. It didn’t really strike me as a good movie in my own opinion, though there were some lessons that I did agree with that was presented in the movie. I didn’t like the movie as a whole (subject), but I did like some of the amusing scenes. Some people might agree with me or disagree with me and that’s fine because it’s their opinion, which is something to be respected. So it’s not really about conforming or not conforming, it’s just people liking or disliking what they will. Of course, there are ‘zombies’, as you put it, that conform because they feel that they have to. But I believe that being aware of yourself and treating yourself with respect will prevent that from happening, which sounds like you already are so that’s no problem.

And I agree, it’s lonely that there might not be a lot of people that share your interests or opinion, but it never hurts to ask them about the why. They may not like something as a whole, but they may still like some of the details associated with it. It can bring about a good conversation and you might learn a little more about the person. Though I do encourage you to try the things that are the in at the moment, if it looks interesting to you, since you never know if you’ll like it or not unless you try it out for yourself. But it’s also fine if you don’t, it’s just a suggestion of mine.

I hope this helps you in some way. Best of luck to you.