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Dear Isabel,
you are welcome.
I think this situation has made me realise that I do love my husband but perhaps there is some work to do in our marriage.
There probably is some work in your marriage, since you earlier said that he is very controlling around money and has high expectations of you. You haven’t said anything else about your marriage, but it seems to me you are blaming yourself excessively for everything that happened, and freeing him from any responsibility.
I have also realised that I need to look for happiness from him and not from someone else.
What if he cannot give you happiness and joy, at least the way he is now?
I just feel like he deserves better than me
This is the problem: your lack of self-worth. You believe you are bad and worthy of judgment, and probably he is quite judgmental (“has high expectations of you”), and this is the dynamic you are in. Maybe he is blaming you for spending too much, or for not being good enough in this or that way. And you believe him, because that’s what you believe about yourself (and this, as you said, stems from your childhood).
He would never forgive me though I no that for 100% certain. Truth and honesty is what he is about.
If he would never forgive you, that tells something about him, doesn’t it? It’s all fine and good that he is about truth and honesty, but what about other qualities, such as compassion, understanding and forgiveness?
Dear Javier,
I am happy to hear from you. And I want to let you know that I am here, rooting for you.
The saddest part is that I need and want help, but my mind won’t let me.
As both Peter and Sarah said, our mind is often our enemy, telling us lies, distorting things, even giving us distorted images. It happened to me once, when I tried to meditate on Jesus, all I got was some distorted images coming from my subconscious or I don’t know where from. I was desperate.
What helped me was to call Jesus into my heart. I told him to please circumvent my mind, because my mind is polluted, and come into my heart. I begged him because I couldn’t bear living without love any more. I was desperate. And he did – I felt warmth descending into the upper part of my body, into my heart, and I felt loved. It changed my entire life. It gave me hope.
You may try something similar, Javier. Ask Jesus or Mother Mary to circumvent your mind and come to your heart, so you can feel their love.
Dear Sam,
you are very welcome.
I do need to realize that I have to fight the urge to help them whenever they release disagreements they share with others to me. Afterall, It’s never all bad whenever I’m with them. … Besides, it’s not the worst thing a person could deal with.
You do need to stop trying to help them, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean you need to stay in the situation and tolerate their complaining and raging about the supposed wrong-doings done to them by other people. It sounds as if you are reducing the problem, trying to convince yourself that it’s not all that bad… while at the same time it is draining you (I’m emotionally tired) and triggering your own anger and rage (I’ve been finding myself having so much rage), to the point where you are afraid you might react violently, if I understood correctly? (I was trying to look to an outlet that wouldn’t result in any reckless reaction.)
I believe the first thing to do is to remove yourself from the situation, i.e. move out in case you’re currently living with your family. Or if they complain to you on the phone, you’d need to set some boundaries and refuse to listen and “soak in” their anger and rage. So ensure that you reduce the amount and intensity of triggers coming your way.
And the second thing might be to process and regulate some of your own anger and rage. Your anger is most probably very justified, not only because your family members are stubborn and refuse your help, but also because you might have learnt it as a go-to reaction from the people you looked up to, whom you call your mentors: dad, siblings, grandparent.
If all those people are male and this is how they’ve been dealing with their problems – via anger and rage – no wonder you’ve learned to react similarly. So it’s possible that you’d need to learn some anger management and some mindfulness techniques, so you don’t overreact so easily and potentially violently, if a trigger is presented.
How does this sound to you? Am I correct in assuming that anger and rage was/is a family pattern?
Dear Sam,
I’m emotionally tired and really needing a place to vent, but if anyone has any advice about how I should handle them, that would be great.
I don’t know if you’re reading this, since you haven’t responded to anita, but I understand your frustration. You’re trying to help your family members, but they refuse help, they refuse your advice, even though just days earlier they were complaining to you, even raging, about somebody mistreating them.
I know the feeling: my mother complains a lot about having so many chores, and she is already elderly and gets tired easily. But when I suggest she could hire someone to help her occasionally (she can afford it financially), she refuses. She rather complains, portraying herself as the victim. This is just a small example, but she has been doing that forever, always finding reasons to be unhappy, and yet never doing anything to help herself.
I’ve learned to let go of trying to make her happy and help her, because it’s in vain. She’d rather be miserable.
With you, I believe you too would need to learn to let go of trying to help, because it seems like your family members prefer to remain in their anger and rage, portraying themselves as victims, rather than do something to help themselves. You’d need to let go of the urge to help them, even though it’s a normal urge – to help the people we love and care about. But sometimes it’s just impossible, and the only thing we can do is to disengage – for our own good.
Dear Rachal:
You said his sexual fantasy might be related to his parents stuff but he first brought this fantasy up 6 years ago when his parents knew nothing
It’s strange that he has been hiding your relationship for so long. Does it mean he only told his parents about you 3 years ago, and that’s when “the parents fiasco” happened? They have never even met you (his parents havent even met me they dont even know me), and yet they have been rejecting you since day 1. That’s bad. I guess he knew they wouldn’t approve of you, and that’s why he has been hiding the relationship. Am I right in thinking that?
If this has been going on for 12 years, it means that his inner conflict might have lasted since then. One way of dealing with the inner conflict could be to create a split in his mind, where one part of him doesn’t like you and wants to humiliate you, like his parents do. That way he could still be with you, and at the same time stay “faithful” to his parents too. I am not saying this is what’s really happening, but it can be, based on what you’ve shared.
his mom has alwsys been the one taking decisions on behalf of the family always and my boyfriend to avoid conflict has always given her an impression that she is in control of his life too
If he has the need to keep her happy by doing what is expected of him, that’s a recipe for disaster. You don’t want to get married to someone like that. He’d really need to solve this issue and stop seeking approval from his parents.
he said there is no way I will blame you or look at you as the reason for all this because the reason is only me and my parents and not you,
Rationally, he knows you’re not to blame, but subconsciously, he is still seeking approval from his parents. As long as he doesn’t sort that out, it will affect your relationship and your marriage. If not in other ways, it may via his sexual fantasies, in which he is disrespecting you.
may be I am overthinking or may be not I dont know. I dont know may be I am thinkimg too much and feel drained!
No, you’re not overthinking. You are right to be upset and cautious about your common future. The way things are now, it’s not good. He’d need to sort out his relationship with his parents and stop seeking their approval (and even cut ties with them if necessary), otherwise you’ll have problems in your marriage, unfortunately.
Dear Rachal,
you are welcome. I am not anita, btw 🙂
The situation with his parents does seem pretty complicated. You said you’ve been together for 12 years and living together for 4 – does it mean they have been against you all this time?
I dont know if I should neglect all the good things in him and the fact that he has kept me so happy throughout 12 years or should I go ahead with not getting involved with this man at all? I am in a big dilemma because both of our families have been involved and everything.
When you said this, I thought your families were tightly knit and that’s one of the reasons why you are in a dilemma. But it seems the opposite is true, since his parents don’t like you at all:
his parents are against me and they have stopped picking up his calls, his mother writes to him every now and then accusing him of ruining the family name and ruining his dad’s health,… they just dont wana agree to this marriage
That’s pretty bad. The conflict with his family, which has been ongoing, seems like a much bigger cause of stress than his work stress… He is forced to choose between the woman he loves and his parents, whom he loves too, but who see you as someone who is ruining their family. Perhaps this conflict even has to do with his sexual fantasies, in which he basically wants to humiliate you and degrade you to a sex object — it might be a part of him who wants to please his parents. I don’t know, just a thought…
So definitely, a lot of therapy is needed… But also, how are you feeling in all this? How are you feeling about his family being so mean to you and rejecting you?
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