Dear John,

you’re welcome!

Yes, it’s quite possible that you’re suffering from the fawn response, i.e. appeasing the bully, rather than setting boundaries and protecting yourself.

You say your childhood is not a likely source of your trauma, but only what happened with your wife, starting from your early 20s. Maybe that is so, however I do see some potential red flags in what you said about your childhood:

[about your mother] In many ways she is a very ordinary person who just likes to stay at home in a quiet and peaceful environment where no one bothers her.

[about your parents] She is a good natured person and got in very well with my father in that they never had any significant arguments in all the years they were married.

[about yourself] From childhood to this present day I have never really discussed any of my problems with any family member. … I was never discouraged from discussing problems but I would never raise them as I would not feel comfortable in doing so.

This potentially paints a picture of a quiet and seemingly “peaceful” home, where your mother expected not to be bothered by you, your brother or your father. And where you as the child might have felt uncomfortable seeking help, protection or soothing from her, since that would have upset her.

If you didn’t want to upset your mother with your problems, that’s already a sign that you haven’t received proper emotional support while growing up, but have learned to deal with problems on your own. Moreover, you might have concluded that you shouldn’t ask anything for yourself and that your needs are not important. If so, you’ve learned how not to stand up for yourself and to endure whatever bothered you silently, on your own.

If any of this is true, it would have been a setup for you later not having the courage to stand up for yourself, even in an abusive relationship. For enduring and trying not to upset the bully – similarly as you tried not to upset your mother. I am not saying your mother was a bully, just that perhaps you’ve learned the pattern of self-abandonment (abandonment of your needs and desires) as a child, in the relationship with your mother.

What do you think?

Dear John,

I haven’t been on the forums when you’ve originally shared your story, but I got to read most of it now. I am so sorry that it got to this, and that you couldn’t move on from the unhappy marriage.

As others have told you before, you’ve got an excellent insight and rationally, cognitively you understood everything. But it seems that on the emotional level, you got stuck and the fear of leaving was too big. It would cause paralysis and you’d always return to your wife.

The emotional level is related to our childhood, and I believe that the paralyzing fear that you felt (and are probably still feeling) belongs to the child in you. The child in us feels helpless to move, unable to act on its behalf. Not the adult.

That’s why I believe that working with the inner child could unlock the secret and finally give you a push in the right direction, i.e. towards freedom. You said you’ve worked with a CBT therapist. This might not be enough, since CBT remains on the cognitive level, while you need to go deeper. You need to access the emotional level and maybe even the pre-verbal level. So if you’re still considering therapy, I’d suggest working with a therapist specialized in Complex PTSD, i.e. in childhood trauma.

I know you said nothing was wrong with your childhood, but as others have said, it’s very unlikely that an emotionally healthy person would put up with the abuse for so long. We’re often not even aware of the way we were deprived in our childhood and how our essential needs were not met. If there was no physical abuse, we don’t necessarily see how we were harmed. There is also a thing called emotional neglect, so even if we weren’t abused, we might have been emotionally neglected and our needs not met.

So I encourage you not to give up, because I am sure there is a way out, if you really want it. You’re not doomed – you only need to find the proper therapy, which will address deeper levels too.

Dear Anil,

I am glad you’re feeling better at the moment and are practicing self-help. However, bad feelings might return, as you said it yourself:

I’m reading books and trying meditation it does help me for certain time but it doesn’t take away how I feel about everything.

It’s normal that if we suffer from childhood trauma, the problem is deeper and we often need another person or people to help us. We can’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We need support.

It’s also understandable that you don’t want to talk about these things with your friends and family (I kept these things discrete from most of my friends and family.) That’s why a therapist might be a good idea. In any case, it’s good that you have access to therapy, should you need it.

I know that I have been immature sometimes but I’m learning to be mindful, mature and decisive. I’m also spending my time on career as I never did before.

Excellent! I do wish you continued success. If you happen to feel down again, please know that you don’t need to do it alone – there is help and with good counseling, you can get permanently better. Wishing you all the best!

Dear Anil,

I don’t know why I was always under the assumption that a romantic interest would understand me and fix me but I don’t think its a feasible solution to achieve happiness.

That’s actually very common – our romantic relationships are a mirror of the relationship with our parents. And in our romantic relationships we try to get what he haven’t received from our parents. In your case, you craved that someone would love you, care for you and understand you, because you haven’t received that from your parents.

But you’re right, it’s not a feasible solution to achieve happiness, because even if we were to find a super caring person, that emotional wound and the sense of lack that we’ve experienced in childhood would still be in us, and it would never be enough. When there’s a wound inside, it’s like a bottomless pit – it cannot get filled, even if someone is trying their best to love us and care for us.

That’s why the solution is to heal that wound first, to give ourselves what we were lacking in childhood. And that’s when you won’t be so needy in a relationship, but will be able to love and care for yourself better. As a result, you’ll also have a different dynamic with girls, you won’t be so needy, and you’ll be able to have a healthy relationship.

the last couple of months have been terrible, I caged myself in an endless pain and suffering with alcohol, cannabis and cigarettes (Currently, I’m sober for a month and I feel a bit better) . I’m doing a bit better now with good sleep, food, meditation and mindfulness.

Glad you’re doing better now and taking care of yourself better! But yes, addiction is a typical way of soothing our pain. I believe that every addiction is about soothing or numbing the pain of our inner child… If you can get in touch with that inner child and meet his unmet emotional needs (the best would be with the help of therapy), you can be free from addiction too. And other issues too, such as low self-esteem.

Have you considered therapy? Do you have access to it?

Dear Anil,

you’re very welcome.

The toxic behaviour was I blamed them for my unhappiness. I did not abuse either of the women physically or verbally but I texted them mean words, avoided them and stopped talking to them

I see… so you said something mean to them, you blamed them for your unhappiness, and then you stopped contact. Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t nice, but it’s understandable – it was pain and hurt speaking from you, and this was your way to express your anger.

I believe that a lot of your current pain and suffering is related to your childhood, because you said you didn’t really have any emotional support, and you grew up exposed to your parents fighting all the time:

My childhood was not good to be honest, it was okay. My parents would always have constant fights and arguments in the house which gave me a bit of trauma and no emotional support.

In such an environment, without tenderness, care and gentle feelings, the child feels terrified. Also, the child feels unseen and unimportant, because the parents don’t care about him, don’t pay attention to him, but are preoccupied with hurting one another. The child’s emotional needs are unmet, even if his physical and material needs are met. So even if your parents provided for you and enabled you good education, it seems they still failed in providing what is most important: emotional care and support.

I think that’s why you are in such a dire need to be loved and cared for. And that’s why you tend to “latch onto a person, hoping I would find happiness.” The child in you has those key emotional needs unmet, and he is looking to have them met by another person, i.e. a romantic interest. At least this is my assumption. How does it sound to you? Does it sound plausible?

Dear Anil,

I feel so guilty and ashamed because I confessed to a married woman and it made our friendship awkward.

First, don’t feel guilty because although she wasn’t officially divorced, she was separated from her husband. She even had a boyfriend after her separation, with whom she broke up. All that happened before you even met her:

she was separated from her husband (she was a victim of domestic abuse, so she left her husband but never divorced him). She had a boyfriend after moving away from her husband and they broke up soon (This happened before I met her)

So when you met her, she wasn’t in a relationship with anybody, so you weren’t trying to steal her away from anyone. You confessed your feelings, because you fell in love with her, and you didn’t make any mistake by doing that.

Where you probably made a mistake is that you couldn’t accept her rejection and you did something that hurt her:

I fell so hard for her and I confessed to her after 6 months, she denied it politely. I couldn’t accept the rejection and avoided her on purpose because I know I would end up getting hurt again and would hurt her in the process of making her love me back.

After my confession, I just couldn’t bear the pain and I became so toxic towards both of them and hurt them both. I stopped talking to them or meeting them anymore.

May I ask what have you done to hurt her? Did you just avoid her (and that male friend of yours), or there was something else you’ve done, which you think is toxic behavior?

You say you had a similar experience with another woman 7 years ago. She too rejected you but you couldn’t accept it, so you say you ended up hurting her:

A part of me wanted her but I know it couldn’t happen no matter how hard I tried, I ended up hurting the woman I loved and myself.

How have you hurt her?

I have been running around in circles looking for love or approval, but it never happens. … I would like to know what can I do now to make my life and people around me better.

It seems there’s been a pattern of unrequited love: you loving someone and yearning for their love, but them not loving you back. We have such deep yearning usually when we don’t really love ourselves, and we believe we need someone to fulfill us. To give us the love we desperately need. It’s very likely related to your childhood and perhaps feeling unlovable?

Dear SereneWolf,

I told you about my CEN (Childhood Emotional Neglect) Right?

Yes, you have. I’ve mentioned the inner child healing again, because it seems to me like we might be getting closer to understand the key wound of your inner child, which is lack of self-esteem and the fear of being judged. If deep down you still believe you’re not good enough, or not worthy enough, then this might be why you don’t want to be “seen”.

Ohh I see. So just enduring silently could be pretty damaging as well.

Very much so! In the Bible, it’s called the sin of omission – the failure to do something which was right and necessary. For me as a child, my father’s silence was very damaging, because I had no one to defend me. So in my mind, it meant that my mother’s judgments of me were true and that indeed, there is something terribly wrong with me.

What a great way to explain! I agree with that. But like what does it mean to let them see into us? Does it mean let them know what we’re thinking without judging, without fear of criticizing, and also being vulnerable or something more?

All of the above. Also, share your hopes and dreams without fear of being ridiculed, for example. Let them know if something hurts you (rather than giving them silent treatment). Let them know if you’re worried about something, discuss your feelings, rather than stuffing them and pretending that everything is okay. Let them know what you need from them, rather than expecting they should read your mind.

Yes maybe this inner feeling not being worthy is damaging me for so long that I lost track of my own self.
Right! One step at a time

Well, you’ve got a strong inner critic, which so far you were mostly aware related to your career (e.g. you were scolding yourself for not doing enough work, or for lagging behind in your career goals, etc). So, the inner critic was quite obvious in your career, and you’ve been doing some important things recently to lessen his impact: you’ve learned how to have more self-compassion and stop pushing yourself to do more and faster all the time (i.e. you’ve lessened the impact of the “drill sergeant”). You’ve lessened the impossible expectations on yourself, work-wise.

In your relationships, I’d say that so far the outer critic was more pronounced (more than the inner critic), because you’ve been mostly critical about the girls you were with and finding faults in them. But it could be that this outer critic is just a defense mechanism, which allowed you to not go deeper with a girl, to not show yourself really. A defense mechanism against true intimacy. Because if you judge someone and feel superior to them, you don’t really want to be vulnerable with them. As you noticed it yourself, it kills the chance for intimacy:

Yes, and it makes them feel inferior which makes things even worse. Because they don’t feel much comfortable after that. Eg. “Share their true self” And as the comfort decreases, means the distance is just increasing. Right?

Yes, if there is this superior-inferior dynamic going on, the distance increases and intimacy becomes impossible. That’s why I am thinking that your outer critic (which is this superior, judgmental, critical persona that you tend to put on in romantic relationships) could be a defense mechanism against vulnerability. This “persona” serves to protect your inner child from being seen and being hurt. This could be the shield around your heart that we were talking about…. What do you say? Do you think it’s possible?

I mean with my parents I still do, but not with my romantic interests.

Oh I see – it’s great that your girlfriends liked your spontaneity!

Thanks for giving me hope though. I was about to give up if I didn’t find out its not only about dating but it’s much more deeper thing to resolve.

You’re welcome! Yeah, romantic relationships are always about deeper things, since there’s always a connection between our attachment trauma and the way we behave in relationships.

Like today pretty much every one have some issues related to childhood that they need to address and work on. But instead feeling like a victim. Being mindful in the present and accept that and he quotes from the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna said: “Whatever happened, happened for the good; Whatever is happening, is happening for the good; Whatever will happen, will also happen for the good only.”

Yes, it’s a good way to look at it – not to feel like a victim, but rather, see our childhood as something that shaped us but also something that we can grow from and transcend. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but there is a Japanese art of kintsugi – repairing broken pottery with gold. The idea is that our “cracks”, i.e. our wounds and painful experiences can make us beautiful, if we manage to heal them and integrate them into our life.

Just think about it like if everything went perfectly would you have this drive to improve yourself and work on yourself every day? Probably not. So it’s like bitter and sweet things mixed cocktail which is fun thing about life and that’s what makes it interesting and worth living not just like a raw water.

Actually yes, we can learn and grow from challenges…

Makes me think that striving for this inner peace is nothing less than a great war against ourselves.

Well, inner peace is important, but I think if we want to achieve it by hiding from the world, hiding from challenges, then it’s not the real thing…

Dear SereneWolf,

Yes the IMPRINT! That’s the thing I’m working on

Yes, and the imprint is carried by the inner child… that’s why it needs inner child healing.

Yes I can say that’s really similar what happened to me. But what do you think what stopped your father and my mother from protecting us?

Well, my father had his own emotional wounding related to his mother. I think he was trying to get love and validation from his emotionally distant mother. He repeated that in the relationship with his wife, i.e. my mother. So he always tried to “please” and “appease” my mother, and he never wanted conflict with her. It was important for him that my mother isn’t angry with him. That was his priority, not my well-being or even his own well-being. And so he stayed silent and endured what he shouldn’t have endured.

With your mother, there could have been also cultural factors at play, maybe that women shouldn’t object to their husbands? So perhaps that contributed to your mother staying silent?

I totally agree with you! I do feel like I’m missing deeper sense of self-worth. And recently quite a lot

I see… yes, if you’re missing a deeper sense of self-worth, it’s very likely related to that incessant criticism that you’ve heard from your father and grandfather….

Right! and that’s the reason why I also still have fear of commitment. It feels so scary.

Right… because the closest relationships for you were a source of stress and humiliation, not a source of encouragement and support. And also broader relationships weren’t too supportive either, because as you’ve said, it was all about rivalry and who is more accomplished, who makes more money etc. No wonder you didn’t want to show any vulnerability, or your true self.

But do you know what Henry Cloud’s definition of intimacy is? Intimacy = into me see.

We need to allow the other person to see us, to see into us, otherwise there can be no intimacy and no real relationship.

It could be that your inner child is still afraid to be seen, because he believes he’s not good enough, not worthy enough? But if you can truly believe that you’re good enough and have so many good qualities, and that you don’t need to be perfect (unlike your parents and grandparents told you!)… then you might allow another person to “see into you”. As we’ve talked about before, you don’t need to spill out all your deepest secrets on the first date, just maybe share one vulnerable thing and see how she reacts…

For spontaneity I don’t feel criticized. Because in my previous relationships I received lot of good compliments about it and I myself believe that without spontaneity relationships are much less fun..

I said it because you mentioned earlier that you fear they might judge you for your spontaneity:

I know I’m in touch with my inner child and I still do lot of things that an adult actually doesn’t do like I turned into a kid when I’m with kids, Different kind of bicycling, Singing and dancing for no reason (Lot of times while cooking, Watching Anime and Cartoons and lot of things like that) And I kind of fear they would judge me for that and not actually understand.

But it’s good if you feel you can be spontaneous and playful after all!

I want to get out from this fearsome repetitive cycle. So, I will date and experiment till I have the success.

Good! I guess you can now be more mindful while dating and observe yourself, and notice if the fear arises… which is already a big step!