Dear Katrine,

so good to hear from you! I am glad you’ve been feeling better lately and also managing your anxiety around the guy better. Yes, he seems like playing his usual games, provoking you on purpose, sitting in front of you while making out with his girlfriend, then later filming you while you were dancing….

It’s like he wants to have power over you, but not only over you, but other women as well, since you say he’s been fooling around with girls, cheating on his current girlfriend etc. Probably keeping women interested in him gives a boost to his ego, and it’s like a game for him. As I said, I don’t like him at all…

And it’s so good to hear that you’re not super anxious around him any more, and that your interest is turning towards the chef. He does seem sweet and caring, and I do hope your relationship deepens. Is he planning to come back after he visits his home country?

Dear Emma,

I am really sorry for what happened to you. It is so unfair and humiliating that a woman of such questionable character (M) managed to guilt-trip K into marrying her, after he’d already met you and seen through her intentions. It is unfortunate that he couldn’t say No to her blackmail and send her away. It is even stranger than he proceeded to stay married to her for 8 years (if I am counting well), until she took all of his money and left the country to marry another man. During the time they were together, she was mistreating him, humiliating him and insulting him in front of everyone.

All of this is telling me that K allowed to be fooled and abused by M for many years, and that you and your love were not enough to stop him from making self-destructive decisions. There was something in him – a sense of guilt or low self-esteem – which made him work against himself.

Unfortunately, this self-destructive drive is still in him. Because you – the woman he claims he loves – have forgiven him. And you are willing to leave behind the past and start anew. But he doesn’t want it, he is depressed, he “isn’t interested in doing much of anything “, and he refuses to see a therapist. Again, a self-destructive drive at play…

You’re right when you say that you’re being punished again (I can’t help but feel as if I’m still being punished instead of her). Now, after she sucked the life out of him (which he allowed) and he probably feels defeated and ruined, you should live with the consequences and accept that he is a ruined man. But why? He could get better if he wanted to. If he really cared about you, he would agree to seek help.

But something within him doesn’t let him, and he prefers to stay miserable. And he would like your company…. Well, you don’t need to keep him company in his misery. You deserve more. If he isn’t willing to help himself, you don’t have to be a part of it.

I know it’s hard for you, since he is the man you really loved. But please be wise and don’t let yourself be fooled once again…

Dear SereneWolf,

I totally agree like you mentioned (and even others told me) I was resourceful and pretty much self- reliant. But the thing is that for my parents and grandparents they never saw that as my good accomplishments. They were always like look what he did at this age? Look what he accomplished? Mainly my grandfather and father (Both are very “perfectionist” nature) So instead of praising they were criticizing me and that made me realize that no matter what I’ll do I wouldn’t be good enough for them. (I realized that years ago)

Good that you’ve realized it at a relatively young age! But the imprint stayed, and so their perfectionism became your own perfectionist inner critic. Which is telling you that you’re not good enough, not accomplishing enough at work, not earning enough money etc etc. It’s sad that both your father and grandfather were perfectionists, so you received a double dose of criticism.

Not only that, but it seems there was no male role model who could have served as a positive father figure (“My neighbors are like that, older relatives etc because they grew up in competitive environment“). So you were surrounded by bad role models…

Yes, I can totally relate! I know that feeling, but it must have been hard for you. In my case it was my grandfather. And even though I had good grades, It wasn’t enough! I felt literally pressurized to be in the Top 3 students! and yet I still made it as a Top 1st student till the end of high school. Just to feed their ego. So he can talk others like “look my grandson has always been the 1st”.

Right… so for your grandfather, it seems you were a tool to boost his vanity and pride. He boasted to others with your accomplishments, while at the same time he wasn’t really proud of you, but kept criticizing you. I can see how damaging it was for you, and how toxic. I understand why you wanted to get away ASAP…

But Because my mother and grandmother never criticized me for that and just loved me without any expectations from me. so It was kind of sane place for me. Otherwise, I swear I’d have to run in the jungle much earlier and never return.

It’s good you weren’t criticized by your mother and grandmother. However, I get the feeling that they didn’t protect you from your father’s and grandfather’s criticism either. Your mother told you to take your father’s criticism silently and “maturely”, so basically she never challenged your father to change his approach. My father never protected me from my mother’s criticism either. That’s why the damage done by my mother was much bigger than it should have been. Because my father allowed the abuse and didn’t say anything. I think something similar happened to you too?

And sometimes I think how self-confident, fearless and full of hope kid I used to be. Because of the criticized father and my inner criticism over the years my self-confident and self-esteem is still quite low, and it did affect my career and relationships quite a bit. So I still have to work on my self-esteem and self-confidence.

Yeah, and I think there is even a difference between self-esteem and self-confidence. Self-esteem is a basic sense of self-worth (which doesn’t depend on any skill that you possess), whereas self-confidence is related to various skills we have. Say a professional athlete may have a lot of self-confidence that they are good at sports, but once they get injured, they may feel worthless because their self-esteem was based on their skills and not on a deep inner sense that they are worthy as a person.

Perhaps you too feel self-confident is some things, but what is missing is a deeper sense of self-worth, of being worthy simply because you exist?

Yes I believe I can resonate.  Because those lines hits me. As you know in my previous relationships, I wasn’t being my true self and shielded my heart.

Right.. and it seems to me that you’re very cautious with relationships not only because of your father’s (and grandfather’s) criticism, but also because you weren’t protected enough by your mother. So relationship might seem like a very scary thing, where no one is on your side?

Okay so I’m not sure if my subconscious mind believes in that but I’m sure that my conscious mind doesn’t believe competition in the relationships. It was mostly fear of judgments, criticism and inability to express my emotions properly.

Okay, you’re afraid to be judged by your partner. So to protect yourself, you rather judge her and make her seem deficient, so to feel less vulnerable? Like, you first judge her before she can judge you?

This part could be true though. Conscious and subconscious both levels

Okay, so you don’t want a relationship to be a competition and a power struggle. You hate it. And that’s why you’d rather not go into it. But the problem is that a part of you believes that relationship is a power struggle. Or at least that being in a relationship means being judged, criticized and hurt. That you can’t show your weaknesses, or even your spontaneity (like dancing while cooking lunch) without being criticized. Right?

And if you approach relationships from that vantage point (which is a vantage point of fear), then I think it’s better not to date. Because you’ll likely get more of the same. But if you work on slowly dissolving that fear, on realizing why it’s there and then dissolving it… that’s when you open yourself to a different kind of dynamic in a relationship. To a possibility of a healthy relationship.

That would be my answer to your question whether you’re ready to date (You think I’m ready? Or I still need lot of healing even to start dating someone?). I think you’re ready to date if you can let go of some of that fear of judgment in the relationship. We can talk more about it, if you’d like to…

Dear SereneWolf,

Omg yeah It wasn’t easy! and they tried lot of things to make me stay. But I was really stubborn about it and figured every answer to their worries. And still, they’d call me every day for more than two months.

It seems you were pretty resourceful, already at that age. And really self-confident in a sense, because you knew you could make it on your own, without your parents’ protection. The fact that they worried and called you every day is normal I think, because you were a minor when you decided to live alone… so I wouldn’t call that excessive worry.

In fact, I am thinking now that their biggest mistake as parents wasn’t excessive worry (because you sort of gave them the reasons to be worried 🙂 ), but rather, it could be the criticism and judgment that you grew up with. Feeling constantly criticized (e.g. your father was very harsh with you when you didn’t hand him the proper tool right away), always compared to others, perhaps always feeling that something is wrong with you and that you’re not good enough? Like, being seen not with loving, accepting eyes, but with strict, judgmental eyes, who always evaluate you and seek a reason to criticize you?

This seems to me the greatest wounding that you’ve experienced. I’ve experienced the same from my mother. She took my good results at school for granted, never praised me for that, and at the same time she looked for every opportunity to scold me. There was always something wrong with me, in her eyes… and so I grew up with the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. My self-esteem was zero.

Children who grow up being heavily criticized develop the harsh inner critical voice (which we’ve talked about already), but they can also develop the outer critic, as the flip side of the inner critic. According to Pete Walker, the outer critic is our defense mechanism against getting hurt in intimate relationships:

“CPTSD typically include an attachment disorder that comes from the absence of a sympathetic caregiver in childhood. When the developing child lacks a supportive parental refuge, she never learns that other people can soothe loneliness and emotional pain. She never learns that real intimacy grows out of sharing all of her experience.

To the degree that our caretakers attack or abandon us for showing vulnerability, to that degree we later avoid the authentic self-expression that is fundamental to intimacy. The outer critic forms to remind us that everyone else is surely as dangerous as our original caretakers. Subliminal memories of being scorned for seeing our parents’ support then short-circuit our inclination to share our troubles and ask for help.”

The above is the excerpt from Pete Walker’s book “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving”. It could be that you felt very unsafe and criticized when you showed vulnerability or weakness in front of your parents. This might have given you the message that being anything less than “perfect” means being judged and rejected. It also might have led you to believe that the person you are in the relationship with is there to judge you and criticize you.

You might even subconsciously believe that this is what relationships are all about: competition, who is better, who is more successful, who is more “perfect”. If so, you naturally want to either win in that competition (be the “more perfect” one, and judge the other person for her supposed deficiencies), or you want to leave the competition altogether (not be in a relationship at all).

Would you say this is true for you? I have more to say and I’d also like to answer your questions, but let me know if the above resonates with you?

Dear SereneWolf,

Bună Tee

Is that Romanian? Had to look it up but am still not sure…

You always give great examples. Thanks!

You’re welcome!

It was actually just recently few months ago. I started the swimming classis and after that I told them. So my parents wouldn’t argue with me.

Oh I see, it was recent. What would they argue with you? That you shouldn’t take swimming classes because it’s dangerous?

Heck they’re even worried that I’m letting a stray cat inside my place. They be like she might have diseases and blah blah blah.. I’m like I’ll go to the vet and give her vaccination. So, you don’t have to worry about that. Literally no one in my family grown up with a pet. So I did see that coming.

Yeah, it does seem they are a little overprotective. I wonder how they’ve survived you leaving home at the age of 16 and living alone, if they are so worried about you even to this day? How did they even allow it?

But it’s right I did act like an overprotective, critical father! Not all the time but still…

Yeah, and there might be a similarity with how your parents acted with you (and are still acting with you). Overprotective, trying to control you (although not succeeding), and doing it “for your own good”…

Or is it just like my parent thinks they still have to care about me like even though I’m not a kid anymore…

Yes, it does seem like that… that you tend to behave in romantic relationships a little bit like your parents behave with you…

Striving towards Perfection (specially with Humans) isn’t a wise thing to do I guess… and I tried to make them “perfect” the way I wanted even though at that time I just saw it as a care and concerned about their health.

Yeah, it’s pretty destructive for the relationship if you see the person as “lacking” and try to make them “perfect”. The person feels not good enough, whereas you put yourself in a superior position, and basically judge and criticize them for “underperforming”. Of course, you can say it’s all with a good intention, “for their own good”, but it’s not a healthy, equal relationship.

In a healthy relationship, we accept the person as they are – we don’t try to change them and mold them into something that we would like them to be. It doesn’t mean we need to tolerate and accept some of their bad habits, however fundamentally we don’t try to change the person to be something they are not. It’s like we look at them with love and acceptance, not with a measuring stick that says “not good enough”.

But it’s right I did act like an overprotective, critical father! Not all the time but still…  And after that I get exhausted and give up on the relationship.

Yeah, no wonder, because it’s like you’re in a war with the person, trying to make her do what you think is right for her, and she wouldn’t… And maybe you think she doesn’t love you if she resists, if she has different priorities and preferences than you? And so you conclude it’s not worth the trouble because things can’t be the way you want them to be?

External environment could be the big reason as well not just my friends but like everywhere I see it just that all be like it’s lot of mind games and complex – not like clear communication as it should be. So yeah it’s like a confirmation bias

Yes, it seems some of your friends tell you you need to “play the game”, which makes it look like some kind of competition, like who is going to outsmart whom… Whereas a healthy relationship is not a competition, but a loving and supportive co-existence (or something like that, I can’t think of a better definition now 🙂 ).

The way I perceive my past relationships. Like Did I even had a healthy relationship before that I’m longing for it again?

So because of these reasons, I just feel more hopeless and I just feel not excited for dating. Not more than Maybe just some time spending and physical pleasure.

I imagine you haven’t had a healthy relationship so far, because of those emotional wounds and programming that stem from your childhood. So no wonder you fear more of the same… But what you’ve experienced so far isn’t what a true relationship looks like. Trust that you too can have a healthy relationship, but you’d need to heal some of your patterns before that’s possible.

And yeah what about you? Did you celebrate valentine week?

Well, not particularly, I did get flowers from my husband. But we’ve never really paid attention to that date, so I don’t consider it important. But we do have a very good and strong relationship, and that’s what matters most 🙂

Dear norit,

I am very sorry about your father passing and you finding yourself in a very difficult situation.

It doesn’t always feel safe to leave her at home as she will fall over, or injure herself and not realise, or leave the oven on, among other things.

If your mother is dangerous to herself, is there a possibility to place her in an elderly home? Because it is a lot to ask from yourself and your brother to sacrifice your lives for your mother – when she doesn’t want to do anything to help herself, and is in fact denying that she has a problem.

I know it’s hard to do that with a loved one, because we naturally care and feel guilty for not helping them. But in this case, you’re not really helping her – because what she would really need is help with becoming sober. But she doesn’t want that, she wants to keep destroying her life.

What you’ve been doing so far is trying to soften the blows and minimize the consequences that she is inflicting upon herself. But unfortunately, you’re ruining yourself in the process too, and the result is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, specially for you and your brother.

That’s why I don’t think it’s sustainable to keep caring about her, in a way that she dictates the rules and you’re just trying to do damage control. It’s exhausting.

Please do to seek help, perhaps first in a support group for families of addicts, like Brandy suggested. They may give you useful information about how to cope better and find a more sustainable solution for you and your brother.

Wishing you strength!

Dear frozenfireflies,

when we have conflict it’s typically a situation where my husband complains or has a criticism directed at me – which is not unreasonable in itself – but it’s the way he expresses himself that makes me feel hurt and unsafe emotionally. It’s also very often something ABOUT me or how I express myself, like that I’m too stressed or heightened and triggering him, even though my stress has nothing to do with him – sometimes I just have intense emotions about something we discuss.

About half of all our days my husband gets unhappy or irritated about something with me.

It seems to me that your husband is very critical of you, and often blames you for no good reason, i.e. that he has a tendency to relieve his stress on you. It seems you’re his scapegoat and he feels entitled to get upset with you and scorn you whenever he pleases. His criticism doesn’t seem like constructive criticism, but just his bitterness about life that he dumps on you.

I think you shouldn’t allow such treatment any more. But it could be that you do allow it because you feel you do partially deserve it (my husband complains or has a criticism directed at me – which is not unreasonable in itself)?

Even if his criticism is sometimes “reasonable”, there is a loving and respectful way to express what bothers him, which isn’t based upon sarcasm and hostility.

I think that probably you need to be more assertive and tell him that you won’t allow to be treated like that because it hurts you. And that when he starts treating you like that (yelling at you, dumping his anger and frustration at you, putting you down), that you will leave the room, or something like that. You shouldn’t be taking his verbal abuse and hostility any more. I think you should protect yourself from it.