Hi Freddie,

I didn’t really confide in anyone just dealt with it myself and bottled it up I suppose, I used to talk to my dad about stuff if anything got majorly on top of me, but my terrible friends I tended to just put up with on my own.

I see… that’s an important piece of information that you haven’t really confided in anyone, and that you bottled it up and tried to deal with it on your own (which was to people please, to avoid further bullying). It’s always harder if we need to deal with bullying on our own, without the support of adults. Do you know why you didn’t say anything to your parents, not even to your father?

I am asking because by the time the bullying happened (you said early teens and earlier – which would means around 10 years old?), you might have already concluded why turning to your parents for help might not be a good idea (e.g. you didn’t want to make them worry or burden them, or you didn’t feel they would understand and support you, or maybe they would have made a too big deal out if it, which you didn’t want. There can be a number of reasons – I am just listing various possibilities here).

I know you said there was no particular trauma in your childhood and you had a good upbringing:

It’s hard to pinpoint where this comes from as there is nothing particularly traumatic in my past and had a good family upbringing.

However, we as children are often unaware of subtle emotional wounding that we might have suffered, even with well-intentional parents. If there was no physical abuse, no bullying or extreme criticism, we might believe that everything was fine. When in reality, we might have missed something and our emotional needs weren’t met properly. This all could have lead to us to not want to confide in our parents and to suffer alone, so to speak.

I think I caused damage by instigating this on off cycle we have been in, it’s caused a lot of hurt to her and I’ve been getting anxiety about if I’m doing the right thing or not.

Now that we’ve talked for a while and I gave you the feedback that in my opinion, you’re doing the right thing for wanting clarification and more honesty on her part – how do you feel? Are you still feeling you’re making a mistake for sticking to your values? And for standing up for yourself in this major issue?

I should have been more upfront about my concerns earlier and not sat on things as long as I did and perhaps made her feel safer about talking about her daughter.

I understand that. You regret that you haven’t spoken up earlier, but only 6 months after your engagement. And you’d been together for 6,5 years before that. I get that. But actually, you did speak up earlier, only not with that level of intensity. You asked questions, but they were never answered. They were brushed off. You were told you were insensitive for asking those questions. You were also blamed for not inquiring about your partner’s daughter, when in fact she, her mother, didn’t make any initiative to meet her.

So basically you were blamed for asking valid questions. And so you backed off. Because you probably felt guilty for hurting your partner, right? You did say that in therapy you discovered you suffer from guilt and shame. Perhaps that’s why you didn’t dare to ask more frequently, to insist, to be more assertive?

In my opinion, your only mistake was that you weren’t more assertive, that’s it. But you are assertive now! You know what they say: better later than never. You’re standing up for yourself NOW, finally.

But what I am noticing is that guilt is trying to stop you again. Guilt stopped you before (when you tried to clarify things with your partner), and guilt is trying to stop you now, when you’re trying to stand up for yourself at last. So no matter what you do, guilt is there. And it seems to me like guilt for standing up for yourself… What do you think? Do you relate?