Dear Sadlyconfused,

I am really happy that you and in a much better place with your husband and that he is, to use your own words, “nothing alike” your father! That’s fantastic because that means he is not a judgmental, criticizing type, who makes your life miserable, but is an understanding and loving person, whom you can talk to. There was a glitch in his behavior during the pandemic, but as you said, circumstances contributed to that as well. It’s good that you are now seeking to forgive both him and yourself for “any dysfunctional behaviour over the last couple of years”.

If you keep your communication open and honest, knowing that he is not your father and won’t judge you – I think that will be the base for a healthy and emotionally intimate relationship.

That’s fascinating that the pandemic actually enabled you to feel safer because your father couldn’t just pop at your door at any time to harass you. Maybe this feeling of safety encouraged you to stop taking anti-depressants too? (you said you’ve been weening off for the last couple of years, which coincides with the pandemic). Which also means that the reason you were taking anti-depressants all this time was your father and your inability to say No to him, to protect yourself from his harassment, I imagine? But eventually you succeeded:

distancing myself from him was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an adult but to allow the psychological assaults to continue would have been just as bad.

Congratulations on distancing yourself! How is your relationship with your father now?

It also seems that unlike with your father, you felt safe with your husband – safe enough to start reducing the anti-depressants and discovering and expressing your authentic feelings, and showing more and more of your authentic self. I am happy for you!

You were right to react to your husband’s excessive use of Discord:

I certainly couldn’t keep quiet about the things that were bothering me anymore, regardless of how silly they might or might not have been. I was feeling so insecure about it.

It wasn’t silly. He was having an emotional affair with people in the cyber space, and was neglecting you… so you were totally right to make an issue of it. And I am glad that this game doesn’t exist any more, but also that he had already reduced the time he was spending on it, even prior to that. It seems it lost its emotional grip on him, which is good news.

I would like to return to your father briefly:

I sometimes even hear my mind telling myself “I’m bad” or “I’m disgusting” and it’s sad and scary how ingrained these beliefs are. I’m trying to grieve for my childhood when emotion comes up and attempting to talk to myself kindly. In the present day I genuinely don’t feel like I have any reason to feel that way towards myself and I know that it’s not true, yet my nervous system is wired around these messages.

It’s great that you don’t trust the inner critic any more, and when you hear those deprecating words, you try to talk to yourself kindly. That is the way to counter the harsh voice of the inner critic: to talk to yourself with warmth and compassion, like a good, loving parent. You are doing a great job, and all I can say is: Keep up the good work!

It will take some time to stop the automatic thoughts from popping up, but it’s important that you notice them and sort of observe them, but not identify with them.

Apparently it was Martin Luther who said “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair“. So you notice the deprecating, harsh thought, but you know it’s your Inner Critic, and you counter it with the voice of the Inner Good Parent, or the Inner Coach, as some call it. Someone who loves you and cheers you on, rather than someone who judges you and puts you down.