Dear Ilyana,

I am glad you feel seen and validated here. It’s wonderful that you also feel hopeful that things can change for the better and that you can have a different, happier and more fulfilling life.

Regarding your father, I am sorry he wasn’t really there for you when you were a child, since he left you alone with your mother and her anger, and refused to pay child support. You said you didn’t have any contact with him from the age of 3 till you were 10-11. Did he change for the better after the reunion, e.g. did you see him more often since then? You mentioned he was sending you gifts and letters that your mother intercepted – was it before or after the reunion?

It’s good that you’re starting to see that things weren’t black and white, and that your mother was no saint, and that your father was no villain either. Also, it’s nice that he’s supportive of you now, both emotionally and financially. I guess it feels good, even though he wasn’t there for you earlier.

In therapy, we are talking about the little girl I was and how alone she felt. I want to give her what she needs now, but being good to myself is so foreign to me. I don’t know how to do it.

Well, one of the first things you can do is realize that you’re not a bad person, and it’s not your fault you had such a difficult childhood. You’re suffering today because you were deprived of love and care and appreciation and compassion. Your needs were not met, neither by your mother nor your father. You have substance abuse issues not because you’re bad, lazy or undisciplined, but because you’re hurting. So that’s the first thing to realize, which can allow you to have compassion for yourself.

I imagine you also have a pretty strong inner critic, which is criticizing you all the time, telling you nasty things about yourself. That voice is blaming you, telling you it’s all your fault and that you’re good for nothing. Part of it is your mother’s angry, judgmental voice. Well now, as one of the first steps on your healing journey, you can start developing an observer self, which notices all your emotions and thoughts, both positive and negative, without judging them. It’s just observing, watching neutrally and noticing what is happening inside of you. That part of us is necessary in practicing mindfulness, which Anita was talking about. It’s key for developing self-acceptance – accepting whatever is at the moment inside of you, whether good or bad, whether positive or negative.

And then there’s the third voice – a voice of a good parent, or a compassionate therapist. When your harsh inner critic would want to start its tirade of judgments and accusations, the compassionate voice says: “it’s not your fault, you’re not bad, you’re just hurting”. It’s a voice full of understanding and compassion for your inner child.

Your task would be to develop both the observer self, and the compassionate inner parent self, as key parts of a healthy adult personality.

But I feel frozen. When I try to make changes, it never sticks. I will quit smoking or start exercising and do well for a few months, but I always fall back down. My default position is sitting still and ruminating and poisoning myself.

Yes, if we try to change from the position of the judgmental inner voice who says “look at yourself, you’re horrible, be ashamed of yourself, you need to change ASAP!”, it never lasts for a long time, because in order to truly change, we need love and acceptance, rather than judgment and condemnation. The strict disciplinarian voice that pushes us to exercise or quit smoking is a part of the inner critic, and the inner critic is the opposite of loving and compassionate! That’s why after a while, we rebel against this strict disciplinarian (which often sounds like our strict mother, btw), and we go back to soothing and numbing our pain with substances and addictive behaviors. Until the change comes from the place of love for ourselves, it can’t be long-lasting.

Dear Peace,

I too think your flatmate is guilt tripping you, and it seems to be common for all the men you were involved with. In their eyes, it’s always your fault that you want to leave them, as if it has nothing to do with their behavior. We’ve talked about it before – that when the child doesn’t receive love and attention, and is bullied or neglected, the child believes it’s their own fault. The child never blames the parents or care-takers, but themselves. That’s why you’re susceptible to blaming yourself and also to believing those who blame you.

You are not guilty for not liking and not accommodating to selfish people who’d try to use you this or that way. You have the right to dislike them and to protect yourself and separate yourself from them, both physically and emotionally. This flatmate is also a selfish, confused person, who doesn’t know what he wants and then is harassing you with his crazy proposals.

The best would be to find another flatmate ASAP, or move out and if you need a flatmate to share the costs, by all means find a woman! Don’t put yourself again in a situation where you have to share a flat with a man, and then suffer from any kind of harassment.

And remember:  you aren’t guilty for wanting to be treated with dignity and respect, and for wanting to protect your boundaries!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Tee.

Dear Ishita,

I am sorry you had this experience, but it’s good that it ended, specially if you couldn’t be yourself around him, or he didn’t really care about your feelings. You said you were very different people – in what sense do you mean? Perhaps it could give you an insight in what you glorify in others, while believing you don’t possess it in yourself?

Dear Ishita,

I am sorry you feel hurt and betrayed. You were hoping that he has feelings for you, and it turns out he was just “unintentionally” crossing boundaries. What might have happened is that he felt bad after his break-up, alone and hurt, and he needed someone to make him feel better. And that someone was you.

It’s almost like in a rebound relationship, where the person is still very much emotionally attached to their ex and use the new partner to make them feel better, or sometimes even to make the ex jealous, or suchlike. Yours wasn’t a full-on relationship but it appears he was using you to feel better after the break-up. This is very revealing:

I was again struggling with being vulnerable around him, but he couldn’t notice that exactly, because he was mostly more into his life.

Yes, it appears he was focused only on himself and didn’t care about your feelings. He might have led you on on purpose or accidentally (although I think he was probably aware that you’re developing feelings for him, and maybe that’s why he started playing cold). Anyway, it’s good that you confronted him and asked to clarify his intentions. And I know it hurts that he basically rejected a relationship with you, but at least you know where he stands and what you can expect from him.

I see you’re having a hard time accepting it, though, and believe that he does have feelings for you but isn’t admitting it:

BUT SOMEWHERE I FEEL HE DID HAVE FEELINGS FOR ME JUST THAT HE IS NOT CONFESSING IT.

He might have had feelings for you in the sense of feeling good in your presence, enjoying your attention and flirting after he was dumped by his girlfriend, taking his mind off of the break-up etc. He felt good in your company, perhaps your relationship was like a welcome distraction for him, but it doesn’t mean he wanted to get serious with you. As you yourself noticed, “he was mostly more into his life.” Meaning, his motives very pretty selfish.

I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS THE RIGHT THOUGHT, BUT SOMEWHERE I AM STILL HOPING HE WILL COMEBACK TO ME , WITH THIS REALISATION.

I don’t think you should hope that he’d come back. Although it’s painful to think that he’s just used you to feel better about himself, it’s probably what happened here. And it would be better for you to accept it, no matter how painful, and to move on. It doesn’t mean that you’re in any way lesser-then or not good enough, it’s just that he isn’t a good candidate. He gave you hope, he used you, and then he backed off.

The best thing you can do is to feel angry about him for a while (as you are now), but then to accept it that it’s for the best, because you don’t want to be with someone selfish or deceptive like he is. And to move on, loving yourself even more than before this entire episode happened.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Tee.

Dear Ilyana,

good to have you here! Yes, you’re right, self-acceptance and self-compassion is where you need to start. We can’t get rid of our negative habits and addictions while we’re judging and blaming ourselves, because eventually it’s love and compassion that help us heal. So have patience with yourself and start working, slowly but surely, on loving yourself and your wounded inner child.

Dear Timepassages2070,

I’ve just seen this thread, after Anita’s pinged it, and thought to add some thoughts, in case you’re still reading it. Your discussion with Anita was really enlightening and opened many important issues, including those related to your childhood. What I am noticing is that you seem to be blaming your friend for having used you, and then “dumped” or ghosted you without explaining what really made her change her behavior from being super close to you, even obsessive, to suddenly cutting contact and ignoring you for months on end.

You’ve offered 3 possible explanations: 1) she’s dating someone and no longer needs your emotional support, 2) she feels the two of you got too close, 3) a combination of the previous two. Based on what you’ve shared here, I believe a fourth option is possible too: that she felt the two of you got very close, and she in fact wanted it to happen, but when she realized, after a while, that you don’t intend to leave your wife, she decided to withdraw. That might be the reason for her silence and suddenly cutting you off.

I am saying this because based on what you’ve described here, it appears to me that for a while she was pursuing you rather openly, even in front of your wife: she sat in your lap at a theater rehearsal, she left flirtatious messages on your facebook, she called you and texted you frequently – without really taking into account your wife’s feelings. Perhaps she was encouraged by the fact that you told her about the problems in your marriage, so she started hoping that there could be something between you.

She also expressed that she’s against extra-marital affairs, which means that she probably wouldn’t be the one initiating anything inappropriate, at least not openly. But she might have been hoping that you would make a move, or at least indicate that you’re interested. She did tell you how special and important you are to her, and overall, I think her behavior showed she was  quite interested in you, even though she didn’t openly say it. She even tried to arrange a private yoga class with you, which would enable the two of you to meet regularly once a week.

What might have happened after a while is that she’s realized she’s not such a priority for you as you are for her. For example, you went 3 days without responding to her messages, or you made a comment that by sitting in your lap, she’d made it more difficult for the two of you to meet, because it will make your wife more suspicious, etc. With this, you’ve expressed that keeping your wife happy is more important to you – i.e. that your wife is more important to you than her. And that’s when she might have decided to withdraw.

When you later casually asked her what’s up, she responded in an offended manner that she’s tired of “chasing friends around and people not being responsive to her texts”. This might have very well been a reference to you and your not being quick in replying to her messages, and in general, not responding to her “chasing”. But she didn’t want to admit that openly, so she made a general comment about “friends” and about “needing space from everyone”. She realized you’re not interested in more than a friendship, and she cut off contact.

You now feel used by her, but she could be feeling equally used by you. And that’s because you never drew a line and never made it clear for her that you aren’t interested in her as a romantic partner. What the two of you had was an emotional affair, where you were complaining to each other about your respective marriages and sharing your deepest feelings with each other. You said you’ve felt good about getting “closer and closer” to her, and that inwardly, you’ve probably crossed the line. Outwardly you never said or did anything explicitly, but you were quite open to her advances (e.g. you allowed her to sit in your lap in front of your wife, to call you frequently etc) and haven’t clarified your feelings – and by doing that, you were probably feeding her hopes.

As I see it, the missing piece – something that you haven’t admitted to each other – is that you were in an emotional affair, which muddied the waters of your previously honest and sincere friendship. This affair suited you (possibly because you miss emotional intimacy with your wife?), but it might have not been enough for her – she wanted more from you. When she realized it’s not possible, she called it quits.

Even if that’s not what happened on her side (we don’t know her side of the story), I think it would be important that you reconsider your own role in this affair and how you were encouraging it, rather than putting all the blame on her. Probably your own unmet needs played a role in it, so the more aware you are of those, the easier it will also be to navigate your own marriage….

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Tee.

Dear Nar,

“I don’t know why it is so difficult to accept that we were abused as children, why instead of facing to what happened, we just accept it as love… I guess part of it is because we still want to cling to that love that all children really need to survive. We can’t let go of the illusion that we were not always loved or that we were not loved at all in extreme cases…”

Yes, I believe it’s because the child, even if severely abused, rather blames themselves than the parent for the abuse. Because if the child is guilty, there’s at least hope in their mind that once they “become better”, the parent will stop the abuse and finally show them love. If on the other hand it’s the parent’s fault, the child cannot cope with the idea that they are left at the mercy of an abusive parent, and that they are helpless about it. So by blaming themselves and exculpating the parent – they’re actually able to hope that some day it will be better, they they will get what they need, if only they change. So yes, it’s an unconscious survival mechanism…

“But mistreatments and abuse are way beyond and much more complicated than just physical harm caused to children. Silent treatments, emotional blackmail, power control, withdrawals, judgements, demands.. Why are children brought up this way? Why do we damage the most innocent beings in such cruel ways and they just turn a blind eye to everything and want to be loved by anyone…”

Well, because our parents were wounded children themselves, and if they don’t heal their wounds, they simply transfer it to us. I remember my mother when she was younger didn’t want to be like her mother, but then later became exactly like her, and was even glorifying her, even if her mother was very cold and strict. She refused to see there was any problem with her mother, and she also refuses to see there was any problem with how she brought me up. Many people unfortunately refuse to take responsibility for their actions and they just keep repeating those same old destructive patterns…

It is all very sad but also incredibly awakening for me as I am not a parent yet luckily and I absolutely understand the full moral responsibility of being one now. I know I must work out through my own traumas and issues, so I pass none of that onto my children. So I never live in the past.

It’s great that you’re aware of those things and will become a much more conscious parent. Luckily, there are many conscious parenting trainings and seminars out there, which can be very helpful. I myself am not a parent, and it’s partially because for a long time I haven’t felt emotionally ready to be a mother, because I haven’t received a good example from my own mother. So it’s wonderful that you’re working on healing your emotional wounds… But also know that it’s enough to be a “good enough” mother (you can look it up what it means), you don’t need to be perfect, and the child doesn’t need a perfect mother, but just “good enough”.  But that too is only possible if we’ve solved our core emotional wounds…

I genuinely want to break free from my past. The work on myself is constant and part of me wishes there was a way to end all the problems in one go.

Yeah, I know… Perhaps it would help if you’d take a look at the Maslow’s pyramid of needs, because it lists our core emotional needs. In order to break free from our past, I believe we need to meet those core needs – the need for safety, security, love and belonging, and recognition/validation. It’s not like one should work in a linear fashion on those wounds, from the bottom up, but still, for me, it helped me a lot to observe myself in the context of those core needs.

Dear Michelle,

you’re welcome. I understand that you have an inner feeling that you should stay. And it’s not the voice of fear, but intuition. Well, it’s possible. Perhaps you should stay, but then you’d need to accept that you stay under his conditions – within the confines that he dictates. And you’d need to stop yourself from wanting more from him, from probing about the future, from hoping. Or even if you do hope, you mustn’t share it with him, but be very careful about how you express your feelings. For how long do you think you would be able to do that, without feeling exhausted? Without starting to suffer? And do you believe that you should suffer for love, if that’s in some higher interest?