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Dear OrangeHeart,
I am glad that we pinpointed the most likely cause.
How do I do inner child work though?
Well, for starters just be aware that appeasing is a defense mechanism that the little girl that you once were chose as a way to protect herself from her mother. It was also as a way to be loved and accepted – and not rejected – by her mother. Later appeasing became people pleasing… you feeling intense discomfort if you were to do something that others object to, or if you were to express your own needs and desires. Be aware of the origin of that need to people please – it’s to appease and please your mother.
You can anchor yourself in your adult self, and be a loving, supportive parent to the little girl inside of you. Perhaps you can do a meditation and encourage her to express herself freely (maybe she would like to dance or sing or whatever the little girl would want to express), and you as the loving adult simply observe her with love and appreciation. You admire her, cheer her on, are happy to see her expressing herself.
So perhaps the first step would be acknowledging that your needs are valid and legitimate, and giving yourself love and acceptance for having those needs, rather than trying to suppress them immediately.
Do you feel like something you could do? But do it only if you feel connected to your adult self, who is capable of providing that loving attention to the little girl.
Hi Murtaza,
You are offended if I say that your reasoning is partially caused by childhood trauma. But why?
No, that’s not what you said in the past, here i accept this.
Good that we agree on something. I didn’t see earlier that this was one of your main problems with me, but now I see it, because you said it clearly in your last post. So now I see it.
The same thing you doing here, blaming me as if i don’t love myself, your response implies thats its my falut people don’t like me, i have one word, prove it.
I told you why people don’t want to communicate with you – because you rejected everyone (except anita) and in a rather rude and dismissive manner. Those people tried to help you, but you saw it as an attack on you. You believe you love yourself by wanting to stay in your misery. I said there is a way to get out of your misery, which doesn’t include suicide. But you stick to your belief, your strong conviction, that you absolutely love yourself. At the same time, you say you are animal. An animal doesn’t love itself in the way humans do. It wants to survive and procreate. You don’t want to procreate, you expressed it clearly. So how are you an animal?
And why individuality matters to me more then “healing”?
You expressed it before – that you value your uniqueness. And now too, you said “i Choosed to be this person”. You value this persona you created, you love this persona, you identify with it. And if others don’t accept it, you believe they don’t accept you.
Also if i remember correctly, “healing” that you suggested was to love myself in the way you want to, i also remember you saying its impossible without people,
If the person has the intention to heal, they can do a lot of work by themselves, for free. I suggested a lot of quality online resources, but you rejected it all. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you live in Iraq – you too have access to those resources. But you simply don’ want it.
no matter what i say, what excuse i give, what argument i provide, you won’t accept me, nor like me, why bother?
Indeed, it’s important that we first accept ourselves. If you fully and completely accepted yourself, you wouldn’t be looking for acceptance from people online. You wouldn’t want me – a random stranger on the internet – to like you, if you truly liked and loved yourself.
Dear Dave,
I never thought about her being a perfectionist, because she is so messy, but I guess those don’t have to go together, I assumed that perfectionists would want things clean and tidy.
I guess she is messy at home? But you say she’s never happy with the work the workers or volunteers do in the barn, or how the owners mow the grass, and she has the need to fix it afterwards. She wants to do things “right”. This tells me she isn’t messy but rather precise (or at least she is trying to be like that) when it comes to her work environment. So perhaps there’s a split there – messy at home, tidy/precise at work?
That might be the reason though, but if it is, then is there nothing that I can do to help her?
Yes, I believe she would need to resume therapy, because this doesn’t seem like an issue for couple’s therapy. I mean, you can suggest couple’s therapy, and see where that leads. But you can also try to talk to her about the things that we’ve spoken about here, and how her low self-esteem and feeling of “not being good enough” might be causing some of her behavior. Perhaps try to talk to her and see how she reacts?
Dear Dave,
you ask:
I get hints of resentment from time to time about me not helping her in the barn, I have helped her quite a bit over the years at the farm, but I told her when we first got together that her job is her job, I won’t be helping her all the time. .. So, maybe she is resentful of that, and takes it out by staying late at work?
Well, she might be resentful of you, but I don’t think that’s her main motive for staying late at work. Because you said:
I know that she does all the work in the barn, takes breaks and has tea with the owners, talks with her clients, sometimes she will have a few glasses of wine after she is done with the owners or clients at the barn.
It seems she is enjoying her time at work and doesn’t rush to come home. She even sits down for a drink after she’s done with work. All the time knowing that you’re upset that she is spending so little time at home. It appears she feels better in the barn than she feels at home, and it could be, as I said, because she feels she isn’t a good enough wife and mother, and she finds escape in her work.
Another reason is that she might be a workaholic and perfectionist (you said she’s fixing things after others, because she isn’t happy with how they’ve done it), and she just cannot force herself to stop – even at the expense of her family life.
Being a perfectionist is also a sign of low self-esteem and not feeling good enough. So she tries to make things perfect because when things are perfect in the barn, she might feel better about herself. But deep down, she still feels bad about herself, and that’s why she sabotages her family life…
So it seems to me that her low self-esteem (and not feeling good enough) is what drives her behavior of spending too much time at work and too little at home. At work she is trying to reach perfection, while at home she’s sort of given up. What do you think? Does this seem like a plausible explanation of what might be happening?
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