Dear ginn,

I’m sorry if I’m expressing this a little messy because I’m not sure what’s wrong to my life and my thoughts are a little bit jumbled. Hope we can piece it all together and figure it out. Thank you all very much indeed for your time, from my bottom of my heart.

you are very welcome, and don’t worry, you aren’t expressing yourself messy. Our lives are complex, there are many factors to take into account, and it takes time to get a clearer picture. But I too hope we can piece it all together is figure it out.

My parents are always supportive for everything I want to do in my life. That’s why I really appreciate them and want to help them to retired earlier. Because I was among the many children, I was the best academically, in terms of overall performance. So my dad has highly expectations on me. But my dad did always criticised me when I didn’t do well in anything. When I cried because I was stressed about small things, he would criticised me that why I was being so weak and useless, how could I achieve bigger things in life if I can’t even handle a little stress and small obstacles. I believe he is trying to comfort me and telling me it is okay, not a big deal.

I think I understand it a bit better now: your father had high expectations on you, considering that your family was rather poor and you did the best in school amongst your many siblings. You were the hope for the family to have a better life, if I understood well. Perhaps your father was specially focused on you and your performance (more than your other siblings), wanting you to be at the top of your game academically, and criticizing you when you did something wrong. He also criticized you when you were stressed and crying about smaller things, telling you were “weak and useless”, and that you will never achieve anything in your life if you can’t handle such small obstacles.

His intention was to toughen you up, so you wouldn’t be so vulnerable later in life. However, such attitude can be very damaging for the child, because they are constantly criticized for not being good enough and not meeting the parents’ expectations. When a child cries – even for a small thing – they need consolation, not to be told they are weak and useless.

You said you rather skipped the piano exam than potentially fail and embarrass yourself:

I ran away from piano exam when I was twelve because I don’t want to fail it and embarrassed of myself.

You also said:

I hate myself because I didn’t being honest with my parents, maybe they could support me and let me know is okay to be fear

Considering that your father used to criticize you for showing fear and weakness, I don’t think he would have supported you if you were honest with him. You knew he probably would have criticized you for being so weak and afraid, and that’s why you didn’t want to tell the truth.

I think you had (and still have) a very big burden on your shoulders: to be a high achiever and lift your family out of poverty, and also to be tough and strong and unafraid – like a soldier. Anything less than that isn’t good enough. Those are quite impossible expectations, specially for a sensitive female child. No wonder you can’t meet them, and why you are getting stressed and feeling trapped…

It seems to me you would need to 1) allow yourself to be weak and vulnerable (let go of the expectation on yourself to be tough and self-composed), 2) know that you are good enough, even if the inner and outer critics tell you you’re not.

From that place of self-compassion and trust in yourself, you will be much freer to think about your life (I believe that my family and freedom are indispensable things in my life.), your passions, and how to proceed.

How does this sound?

Dear Michelle,

ON paper the relationship probably appears to be unworkable, and he may appear to be more damaged, but I do want to stress as Anita, pointed out that sometimes the responses I feel I’ve gotten have come from a place of potential bias or impatience. I’m sure that some of the things I point out about my relationship with this man remind anyone who is reading about a relationship they have had.

That’s true, I am speaking from a personal experience in an unequal relationship, in which there was an unhealthy mother-child dynamic, instead of two adults, so this affects my judgment for sure. My attraction for this person came from a place of hurt, and I suffered in the relationship. Luckily it didn’t last long.

But for you, it doesn’t sound like you are suffering, at least not any more. It seems you are learning to accept him as he is, while setting some boundaries to protect yourself:

Anytime he crosses a line, where he gets “disappointed” in me I will remind him that he did not appropriately communicate what his needs were, and that he cannot expect me to rise to a concealed expectation. I told him I am not perfect, and I will always try to work with him, and respect his differences, but he must also respect mine and be willing to acknowledge my efforts for things I do.

So you are not allowing to be unfairly criticized or condemned by him. That’s good. And you say you don’t feel abused, which is also good (I can see that he is trying little by little, and there is no abuse in our relationship).

People with OCPD can be intolerant and harsh and can use every excuse in the book to separate from you and try to remain independent, but I still love him just the same.

Is he intolerant and harsh too? Or he is learning to be more tolerant and less harsh, as you are setting boundaries around some of his harsh behavior?

He has already tried sleeping in my bed more often to adjust. Baby steps. I think him having his own room to retire to and have his own space will help a lot, as well as me working three nights a week where he can unwind on his own.

Yes, him having his own room sounds like a very good idea. Is that possible in your current apartment, or you would need to rent a bigger apartment, to have a spare room for him?

yes I would’ve raised the child on my own had he not wanted to be a part of that.

Good, it means you feel ready and capable of raising a child on your own. That’s quite remarkable (again, this is me speaking from my own bias, since I myself would have felt very inadequate if I had to raise a child alone).

I can see now that he greatly wanted to be a part of it and would want it in the future.

That’s nice too, at least he’s not against it a priori.

I agree in trying to better oneself and seek help and grow to our ultimate potential, but at the same time, we must accept who are in this moment, and we must accept others as they are in this moment (as long as they do not inflict harm on us or others).

Yes, it’s important that you don’t feel emotionally abused and suffering. Usually, another precondition for a successful relationship is that we should accept the person as they are, without trying to change them, without even hoping that they should change. It seems to me you are accepting him as he is at the moment, but still hoping he would change – with your help – slowly, gradually, with lots of compassion and understanding on your part (We need to be compassionate as much as we are critical. At the moment compassion is working for my relationship.)

My premise and experience so far was that trying to change someone who is emotionally unavailable and wounded doesn’t really work… but for the two of you, it might work, if both of you have enough patience and compassion with each other. In any case, you are determined to keep going, to give it a try, and I wish you all the best. I wish that you can be truly happy and content in the relationship.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Dear Ashmitha,

how have you been doing? I hope you are having pleasant holidays!

Dear Javier,

how have you been doing? I am thinking of you and hoping that you are having pleasant holidays!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Dear OrangeHeart,

how have you been doing?

Dear aphroitte1,

I am sorry you are feeling sad and disappointed that your old boyfriend hasn’t changed. Unfortunately, it was to be expected, considering his behavior over the years. If a person doesn’t go through some serious healing and transformation, there is no reason why they would change.

I am very dissapointed and I’ve just realized that this won’t change like ever. I could wait another 70 years and he still won’t show me love and treat me like I deserve to be treated. It’s not because he can’t, he doesn’t want to.

It’s a good realization. Till now, all this time, you were hoping he would be different whenever you got back together. But it never happened – the end result was always the same: he left, or sent you away, accusing you of destroying him mentally. He was accusing you, even though you said you did everything to make the relationship work, agreed to his conditions, begged him to stay etc. Similarly like you agreed to secrecy with your latest boyfriend too.

I can imagine you didn’t ask much for yourself, just to be treated with basic respect and decency. However, you weren’t given any of that, but as you said, you got lack of respect and white lies.

Unfortunately, a part of you agreed to this kind of treatment, because you yourself said this newest rekindling of your relationship was nothing official or serious:

We were seeing each other for a month and a half, nothing official nor serious.

I imagine you would like your romantic relationships to be official and serious, and to be treated like a proper girlfriend, and be official, so that everyone knows about it. But the guys you are with aren’t able or willing to treat you like that – they reject you and keep you a secret. And you, because of your insecurity, used to accept their disrespect and lesser treatment. You used to agree to being kept a secret and to believing that you are the problem, not them.

You now demanded a better treatment from your old/current boyfriend – to acknowledge your anniversary and show you some love and appreciation, show you that he cares about you, that you are important to him. But instead, he told you this date doesn’t mean anything and explained why you should never celebrate it.

No wonder you felt very hurt and angry. Why would someone who loves you reject to celebrate your first date? And should you be with a person who so vehemently refuses to appreciate that date, and by extension – refuses to appreciate YOU?

The answer is no, of course. And I hope you’ve come to the same conclusion, aphriotte1. It appears you have:

I could wait another 70 years and he still won’t show me love and treat me like I deserve to be treated. It’s not because he can’t, he doesn’t want to.

Yes, you’re seeing that right, I am afraid. He isn’t able to give you the love and appreciation you deserve. And you shouldn’t be hoping any more that things will change.

I feel little quilty because I hanged up like that, but when I remember how many times he hanged up, never actually picked up the phone, ignored me, blocked me etc.. I just justify every anger I have right now.

Don’t feel guilty for hanging up. Your anger is justified, in the sense that you refuse to accept his BS any more. You refuse to be  blamed and disrespected, you refuse to beg for his love and then receive breadcrumbs, if that at all.

Use your anger constructively: to say STOP to this relationship, to say stop to the emotional abuse you’ve been taking for so many years. Enough is enough. Turn your anger into DETERMINATION to respect yourself and not allow anybody to disrespect you, deny you, keep you a secret, or blame you for treating you badly.

I hope you’ll have the strength to put an end on this relationship and turn a new page, entering the New Year!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Dear Carson,

I’ve read your two other threads as well. You’ve been through a lot, and I believe you had a very confusing and tormenting childhood. Your father behaved in very inappropriate and sexually (and psychologically) harmful ways with you, while your mother didn’t do anything to protect you. As anita said, your mother now seems disappointed that you are having mental problems and aren’t able to get better quickly. She is basically blaming you for having been traumatized and suffering consequences, although every child would have been traumatized in your place.

Your father also blamed you when you refused to bathe with him when you got a little older. Again, blaming you for something that is absolutely not your fault, but in fact a natural instinct of self-defense.

As a result of all this blame and making you a bad person and somehow faulty, you feel guilt and shame about yourself, when in fact, you are the victim in all this, and your counselor is right:

My counselor tells me to see myself as a victim more as opposed to bullying myself. But I am having trouble going through this.

No wonder you have a hard time seeing yourself as a victim – because your parents have been telling you all along that it’s your fault, not theirs.

You also feel a tremendous amount of anger – justified anger – because a part of you knows that what they did was wrong. A part of you wants to protect yourself and fight back. When this anger is suppressed, it turns into something darker – a wish to harm your parents, and also to harm anyone you feel threatened by, such as the boy you felt attracted to. I think it would be very important to be able to express your anger in a safe, therapeutic setting, because it’s a justified anger. If you express it in a safe, controlled environment, it won’t torment you any more, threatening to become dangerous to yourself or others. It will also allow you to protect yourself and set boundaries. To know that it was you who was harmed by your parents, not vice versa.

I think it’s really important for you to stop blaming yourself for being unwell, for having issues, for not being able to just snap out of it and get on with your life. Those things take time. But first, you’d need to acknowledge that it’s you who have been harmed, not your parents. It’s not your fault, but theirs. The wound will need time healing. Give yourself time. Try to have compassion for yourself, because that’s what you need the most right now.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Tee.

Dear Isabel,

you are very welcome, I am glad I could help.

Yes I was attracted and yes I did want to have sex with him, but I didn’t I stopped it, and apart from a couple of times in April when I had two indiscretions (thanks again Anita), the reason for me to stray was due to a need that I needed filling.  Yes, I did feel amazing I had a skip in my step I was buzzing at life.

It’s great you can see it as it is – because indeed it was a legitimate need (to feel appreciated and respected, and to be treated with kindness). It’s good you are aware of it, so please don’t blame yourself if you feel that need again. I imagine it would be important in the future to start demanding respect from your husband as well, however you might not be able to do it just yet.  I guess first you’d need to work on that childhood wound and start loving and valuing yourself, in order to be able to demand it from others too.

I do hope you can find a good, compassionate counselor, and slowly but surely start building up your self-esteem. Please post about your progress, or if you have any other questions or doubts.