Dear Rhonda,

you’re welcome. I am sorry things are complicated with his 8-month daughter as well. What is with her mother? She isn’t fit to be a parent?

It’s not right from him or his parents to accuse you of having reservations about caring about his daughter, who has special needs:

I know I can’t do it all with a newborn, my son, and his 8 month old daughter. He makes me feel bad about that and so do his parents. I have a full time job, and on top of that his daughter is special needs.

They promise they’ll take care of her while B is working, but as you say, his mother is a traveling nurse and his father is quite mean… so they might not be able to deliver on that promise. And it’s quite a lot to take on someone else’s disabled child. It may sound cruel to say, but that’s the reality, at least in my opinion. Btw, with whom is his daughter living now?

B has changed, but I’m not sure if it’s temporary to get his daughter (because I’m a good appearance for the courts)

People don’t change so quickly. When the two of you met, which was not that long ago, I assume, he was still doing sexual favors for men. His daughter was either on the way, or she was already born when the two of you met. So becoming a father for the first time hasn’t really changed him. I am not so sure that it changed him the second time around either… He might be using you not only to get custody of his daughter, but also to have you as her primary care-taker.

The fact that he is already blaming you for having second thoughts about her care is not a good sign. He sees it as your duty, while it shouldn’t be your duty. If you marry him, this would tie you even further into the role of her daughter’s care-taker, and I am afraid this is what he is after… so be very very cautious. Don’t let yourself to be dragged into a very unfavorable arrangement, which will be very hard to move out from.

People do indeed change, but as I said, it doesn’t happen over night. And the fact that he is so protective of E and wants to keep him close although the old man is pining for him – tells me that he hasn’t really changed in any significant way. It seems to me more and more that he is trying to use you, Rhonda.

I’m just that person that believes everyone deserves a second chance and until I’ve given him a fair trial at one I can’t give up.

That’s noble of you, but I am afraid that the longer you stay with him and the more chance you give him, it might get worse. Because so far he got you pregnant rather quickly, and now he wants to marry you and have you care of his daughter… If you say yes, believing he deserves “another chance”, it might leave you in an even more difficult place, I am afraid.

Dear Dan,

how have you been?

I would like to comment on something that you’ve said recently. You said you feel terrible for not having suggested to bring your wife’s children to those mini vacations:

I look back now and see that maybe I should have suggested bringing the kids. I know kids can sense these things and although it wasn’t my intent at all to make them feel excluded, I can see how that may have happened. I feel terrible for that. … I feel so bad as I love the kids, but I’m not their dad and I can see how negative thoughts or beliefs can arise.

Please don’t blame yourself. First, you were in a tough situation, your wife’s children spending almost all of the time with you, being closed in one place 24/7. They didn’t go to school, you worked from home, so it was literally 24/7 with them. It was only natural that you needed a break. Wanting to have some time off in a situation like that doesn’t make you a bad stepfather.

And secondly, even if you did show some impatience sometimes, hoping that your wife would give you more attention – it was because of ONE part of you: your wounded inner child. You were otherwise a good stepfather and a good husband. You said you helped your wife a lot with the children, and you also gave her a great settlement, leaving the house to her and her children. This shows you are a good, kind, generous man. Your neediness didn’t show in the financial aspect – you generously provided for your wife and stepchildren.

So please don’t be so hard on yourself. And have compassion for yourself, specially for that needy part which might have caused you to behave less than optimally. That needy part went through a lot as a young child… He doesn’t need your judgment, but your empathy and understanding. I hope you can realize that…

Dear Julia,

for me, addiction was a way to soothe the pain of not being good enough. You said:

But I thought about what brings me to starting going down the path again and again and like you described it probably falls back to anxiety – of being alone (with my thoughts?).

What are those thoughts? Do you have a harsh inner critic, telling you how bad or inadequate you are? Maybe your inner dialogue is quite painful, and that’s why you need to distract yourself from it?

Dear Katrine,

I was forced from a young age to do things that was way too overwhelming for me, and I wasn’t ready for it. That’s the thing when it is mental, people expect you to go from 0-100 and if you can’t they say it’s because you don’t have the will.

You mean mental as opposed to a physical problem? I am guessing that it was different with your sister, who had a physical/neurological disease. She probably wasn’t expected to simply “heal” with the power of her will. And she wasn’t criticized that she was weak when she didn’t succeed, was she?

Am I sensing this correctly that there is wound there related to a different treatment that you and your sister received? Your problems were minimized and you were told to “just get over it”. While your sister got your parents’ full attention. And they never minimized her problems, but took them seriously, right?

People didn’t (and still to this day) respect my boundaries. Which is one of the reasons why i am so hard on myself. I was always told just to push myself harder and that it was not okay to say no because that way your anxiety wins.

I understand. Your boundaries, or rather, your limitations weren’t respected. For example, you were pushed to do a presentation at school, even if you felt horribly anxious. While your sister’s limitations were respected, I guess. Nobody pushed her to do things she wasn’t able to do.

Maybe I am reading too much into this, but perhaps there is another layer of pain – namely not receiving the same kind of care and attention as your sister, even though you too had significant issues and challenges, only of a different type?

So listening to my body and giving it rest when it needs is super important. Be my own gatekeeper and if my body is giving me the red light, people should’t try and convince me that it’s a green light.

That’s true! For example, you shouldn’t be pushing yourself to work overtime. Recently you said: I am working 11 days in a row to help pay for this treatment so not a lot of rest. That’s an example of pushing yourself too hard and not paying attention to your physical limitations. I mean, assuming that it wasn’t your supervisor who forced you to work 11 days in a row, but that it who you who chose to, to pay off your debt sooner?

Dear Sadlyconfused,

you are very welcome!

It’s wearing your heart on your sleeve (or rather, your face!) and having no control over it. It leaves you feeling so vulnerable and exposed around people who aren’t always very kind about it.

Added to that is the secondary shame of having been bullied for my shame reactions by my father, sibling, people at school and a particularly nasty teacher.

I had the luck that my mother (or my father) didn’t shame me for blushing. And neither did my teachers. I am not sure about my classmates, I don’t think they teased me for blushing either, since my blushing started mostly in secondary school, and they weren’t as cruel as some of my classmates in primary school. So I don’t recall having been teased for blushing (although I did believe that everybody thought of me as a freak because of that!)

You unfortunately were shamed by your father, your sibling, a particularly nasty teacher and your classmates. That’s very very hard and I feel for you.

The kids I can forgive because they were insecure bullies, but the fact that there wasn’t a single, empathetic adult to reassure me that there was nothing wrong with me meant that it became more of a complex than it should have done. I feel so angry at them as a I recall it, which is probably a healthy reaction!

Definitely, it must have been devastating for you. Not just the children bullied you, but also the authorities figures, whom you admired and looked up to. In fact, this teacher should have been called to responsibility for his unprofessional behavior…  Your classmates were probably encouraged by his attitude, and therefore felt free to mock you even more.

You said you had a well-meaning mother, but it seems that she didn’t protect you from this kind of shaming? Have you told her about this nasty teacher? What was her reaction?

I feel so angry at them as a I recall it, which is probably a healthy reaction!

And you should feel angry! This teacher should have lost his job! And your father – well, he really was a cruel, heartless man.  A sadistic man, I should say. I think it would be good if you could express your anger in a safe, therapeutic setting, because it will help you to build the capacity to say no, to set boundaries in the future. To not allow people to bully you and disrespect you.

Thank you so much for sharing your positive outcome with healing your shame, it’s so reassuring that your cheeks became less reactive as your self-compassion grew! …If you don’t mind me asking, how long do you think it took you to start noticing that your change in self-talk was having a positive impact?

You are very welcome. I think I took me a few years of intense work on myself. But I think the largest impact was when I started feeling compassion for my inner child – that’s when I could slowly let go of that core shame and of the core belief that “something’s terribly wrong with me”. When I no longer believed that I am defective at my core, I could relax more and it didn’t feel like torture to simply sit among people, or in a lecture, or at a public event.

I’ll aim to get into the habit of speaking to myself kindly before doing things I know are likely to trigger me. I think at the moment I get preoccupied with the discomfort of feeling panic and have been feeling that anything kind I try to tell myself will have no impact, so it helps to read that someone else has been through it and managed to make such inroads with healing.

Perhaps it would help you to do some EFT tapping (EFT – emotional freedom technique). I haven’t tried it personally because I didn’t know about it at the time, but apparently it helps to calm our nervous system.

Dr Nicole Lepera, a clinical psychologist, has a youtube video about it, titled: “Emotional freedom technique (EFT)”. You tap on 9 meridian points, while telling yourself “Even though I am feeling anxious, I deeply love and accept myself.” Perhaps this method has a stronger effect than just speaking to yourself kindly, because it involves working on the nervous system too.

Dear Casey44,

there’s no way I’m going to have sex with him to ease his ‘tantrum

You’ve noticed it very well – it’s almost like he is restless and uses sex to “calm down”. There are such men (and I guess women too, but less frequently) who use sex for emotional regulation, without being aware of it. Specially men who aren’t in touch with their feelings, as it seems to be the case with your husband.

I find his practice of texting you to get ready for a “quickie”, in between his two meetings, rather degrading. This too seems like venting off stress via sex. Using you like a tool to meet his own needs, without taking into account your needs and your feelings.

It would be much healthier if he would come downstairs for a hug or a quick chat with you in the break between his meetings…

I am here to talk more if you feel like it…

You’re welcome, Caroline. Good talking to you too!

Take care and take it easy 🙂

Dear Dan,

You said:

I get really down on myself thinking what more could have I done?  I’m stuck ruminating a lot wishing things weren’t the way they are.

In this post I’ll try to explain why in my opinion, your relationship didn’t succeed, and what both you and her could have done differently. I’ll say it right away: I think that your relationship didn’t succeed because of unhealthy patterns in both you and her. It’s not just your fault, and it’s not just her fault.

Let me give you an example. You said you wanted to go on mini vacations, but she always refused. You said it was because you didn’t go on a honeymoon and wanted to make up for that.

It’s normal for a married couple to go on a honeymoon, and to go on a honeymoon alone. So if she refused that, because she didn’t want to leave her children – that shows an unbalanced approach, where she feels guilty for doing something for herself. For having alone time with her new husband.

Besides, her children aren’t that young as she claims. 10 and 14 isn’t so young, they don’t need constant supervision. So she could have left them with their dad for a few days. Claiming they are young and using it as an excuse to not set any boundaries is a mistake on her part.

Returning to the mini vacation example: At the other end of the spectrum would be a scenario where you would want to go on mini vacations exclusively without her children. Where you would say “the weekend is coming, the kids are their dad’s – why don’t the two of us go to XYZ place and have some fun together?” I am not saying this is what you were pushing for, or hoping for, but it would have been an unbalanced approach too, because it would exclude the children altogether and make them feel unwanted.

If your wife was more on one end of the spectrum (never want to go anywhere without her children), and you were more on the other end (preferred not to go to trips with her children) – then it would have caused friction.

I do want to say I understand you: you got a deal which you didn’t want, because covid came and her children ended up spending all of their time with their mother and you. And you didn’t get to have any time with her alone. So going for a mini vacation just the two of you, would have been nice from time to time. And it wouldn’t have been selfish to ask for that.

But if what her children felt from you is the vibe of impatience, something like: “God, when are they going to leave already so I can be alone with my wife?” – then they would have been offended and start turning against you. I am not saying this is what you were thinking, at least not consciously, but unconsciously you might have been giving off such a vibe.

But it must have been hard for you, and you did find yourself in a difficult situation. Let me turn again to your question:

What more could have I done?  I’m stuck ruminating a lot wishing things weren’t the way they are.

Well, if your wife didn’t have so much guilt, she would have understood your need and would have gone with you on one or two mini vacations (provided that it was possible to travel during covid?).

At the same time, if you weren’t so needy, you probably wouldn’t have been so negatively affected by the living arrangements during covid (being stuck with her children 24/7), and you wouldn’t have felt so deprived when she was attending to her children. So maybe there wouldn’t have been this rivalry between you and her children.

But this is only maybe, because if she spoiled them (and probably she did, because you said she had no boundaries with them, e.g. she lets her son sleep in her bed), then even if you were more patient and less needy, they might have still been jealous of you. I don’t know.

Anyway, to wrap this up: it seems to me that your responsibility in the breakup of the relationship is in being too needy, i.e. expecting her to meet all or almost all of your emotional needs (to feel loved, cared for, appreciated, seen, validated). She was your best friend (and maybe your only friend?), and it seems you depended on her to feel good about yourself. Due to this neediness, you might have unconsciously felt jealous of her children, which they picked up on.

While her responsibility in the breakup of the relationship, as I see it, is her strong feeling of guilt for not being able to please everybody, as well as feeling guilty for having needs of her own. Depriving herself of the things she loves, so she can please others.

What do you say? Does this seem like a plausible explanation to you?