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Dear Candice88,
your relationship with M is indeed deeply troubled and it seems to me you’re getting not even breadcrumbs from him. He gives you absolutely nothing, and then accuses you of being too demanding and not patient enough.
he finally quit using (if I’m to believe him) in April 2021. His attitude and behaviour haven’t gotten much better. I’m still going to bed and waking up alone 6/7 nights a week, I make dinner for when he says he will be home and I eat alone, then go to bed alone,
Do you even see him during the week? This regime of his gives him plenty of opportunity to still be using, without you knowing about it.
I don’t see any real willingness to change on his part. Even his claim that he quit is highly questionable, and he also wanted to cheat on you, because “you’re not saying anything nice to him any more”. It shows he doesn’t see his behavior as a problem but sees you as a problem. You should tolerate his addiction and neglect for years on end, and still remain hopeful that some day he might decide to change?
You’re doing a good thing you’re moving out. Even if he asks you to stay (because it’s convenient to have you in a mother/care-taker role), don’t stay by any means. The way things are now, he’s only using you, and not giving you absolutely anything but just causing you pain and more trauma. By moving out, you’re protecting yourself, your mental health and your well-being.
bracing myself for if we don’t work, despite how much I love him
Perhaps in part you love the memory of those few early months which were fun, and also the idea that he at least in theory shares the same values (regarding kids, family, life philosophy etc). But it’s only in theory – in practice he’s completely incapable for having a family because he would be a neglectful and unreliable father and partner.
Dear Lisa,
I love him but should I have to stay paying for that mistake I made or just let things be what they are and go our separate ways
no, you don’t have to be paying back the karma and enduring his mistreatment for the fact that once, in an extremely difficult period for you, you told him you didn’t love him. You told him numerous times since that you do love him, and not only that, but you’ve also worked on yourself:
i wanted him back and i told him i was going to change. and i did. i developed my self love and self worth. but then he almost started treating me the way i treated him.
What did you do to develop more self-love and self-worth?
If you really have changed, and weren’t pushing him away any more, like you were in the beginning of your relationship – then there’s no reason he’d treat you like that. It seems he started pushing you away when you sincerely wanted to get closer. He is still blaming you for something you said once, when you were in a really rough spot. He seems unable to forgive you. This would suggest he has issues of his own, perhaps dealing with a sense of betrayal that he experienced in his own family.
Anyway, what’s happening is that his blaming you falls on fertile ground, because you have a strong sense of guilt, and so you easily go into self-doubt, like I shouldn’t complain and shouldn’t even be saying anything when I am actually the one to blame for all this etc etc. Your self-love and self-worth evaporate in those moments…
Usually such a strong guilt is related to our childhood, e.g. we may be feeling guilty for disappointing our parents or something like that. Can you remember when you felt guilty for the first time, what were you blaming yourself as a child?
Dear Lisa,
I’ve taken a look at your previous thread, haven’t read it all, but I did get an approximate idea of some of the key moments in your life so far, including your childhood. I see you’re blaming yourself a lot, while at the same time trying to love yourself (“i told him i was going to change. and i did. i developed my self love and self worth.”). But it seems that on a deeper level, there’s still a lot of self-condemnation.
I love him but should I have to stay paying for that mistake I made
What is the mistake you’ve made, that you believe you should pay for, i.e. that you might deserve poor treatment for?
Dear Annie,
your sister does seem very spoiled, and your parents enable it. They have zero expectations from her, they let her do whatever she wants and accommodate to her whims, whereas they have all those expectations from you. There are unfortunately parents who treat their children differently, and yours seem to be like that.
I don’t know what the reason is: it could be because your sister is much younger, or perhaps her health was fragile when she was a child and that’s why they were worried about her and spared her from duties (?), and/or because of her character where she’s rather selfish and self-centered, and doesn’t care if she causes trouble to her parents. Whatever the cause is, they do seem to treat the two of you differently.
I know I keep pushing back on resuming the course, but I just feel like I have no time or energy to do it lately. I feel so mentally tired a lot lately just from work that I literally just feel like doing nothing.
It tends to be a vicious circle because sometimes we can’t say No to other people’s requirements to even start caring about ourselves. And so our exhaustion and burnout deepens… How is it at your workplace? Do you feel overburdened there too?
I know I will move out eventually in the future.
Yes, that would be really important. Do you have a vision of when this might become possible and under what circumstances?
Dear Candice88,
In my youth I wasn’t coping actually, I was severely depressed and had suicidal ideations until I was 17 when I moved to live with my dad.
I see. Well, you did have a rough time growing up, no wonder you were depressed and suicidal. How is/was your relationship with your father? How were you coping after you were 17? If you feel like sharing some more…
I think I got a job to be able to be more productive and “valuable”.
Does it mean your mother made you get a job? Like, she was suggesting you’re worthless and of no use, and so you got a job to look better in her eyes?
How do you need to parent her nowadays? (Please note, if you don’t want to share more than you’ve already shared, that’s okay. Only share what you feel comfortable with).
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