Dear Cali Chica:

I am glad you are beginning to experience the feeling of empathy for your  husband, excellent!

“It was like.. being married to my mother/sister”- that is the loyalty issue. Need to switch your loyalty from your sister/ mother and their values- to your husband and the values that you choose!

Healing, proceeding in the journey,  is about you determining the values that will guide you  in your  life, no longer following someone else’s values.

And so you put your energy where you see value. Your mother’s value was the-people-over-there, the big family in Disney World, or the happy stranger walking by…and so, you proceeded to value the (almost) strangers moving to Florida, or the people walking by on that walk recently. Abandon her values and adopt your  own.

Coming to think about it, your mother didn’t value anyone, not you, not your sister, not her husband, not the people here, there or anywhere.

“we have a strong bond” you wrote regarding your sister. It is a sometimes-feeling bond.  I understand that, but it is based on her being in your life since you were so very young. It is an attachment to a person based on the attachment being made at a time when your brain was different than it is now, less formed. Based on the two  of you having been children. Things are different now.

anita