Dear pixie:

On July 11 last year, in your original post here, you wrote: “I am… feeling terribly guilty for the prospect of hurting (your husband). He has suggested that he would hurt himself if i left him. Im trying to move on but everytime i think about initiating the conversation i get so anxious i make myself sick.”

In your second post you wrote: “He had a total emotional breakdown… He laid in bed and cried all over me all night”

In your most recent post, seven months later, you wrote: “My dad used to cry all over me and tell me how much he was hurting which made me feel like his pain was mine to fix.”

Clearly, your husband is doing what your father did and you are stuck in the same guilt you had when you wanted to get away from your father crying-all-over you. Your father’s pain imprisoned you as a child, and your husband expressed pain is imprisoning you now.

To break free from your past and current prison, the false belief that you are responsible for your father or husband’s pain, competent psychotherapy can do wonders for you.

And by the way, it was abusive of your father to express his hurt to you, his daughter, a child. He should have expressed it to an adult, and an adult who is not his daughter. Your husband, reads to me, repeats the behavior that works for him- he cries, you stay. And yet, he doesn’t seem to love you. He just wants you there. Why? I don’t know…

anita