Hi Shelly,

It sounds like your past marriage or history has really done a number on you! I’m guessing you are around my age, which means ~ we know there’s not tons of time left. Not truly. We yearn to only give attention to what is meaningful and what gives us a soul connection.

When you see your BF with his daughter, friends and family, you are reminded that HE had a meaningful history filled with soul connections. And yours (at least with ex husband) has fallen apart. It takes years to build those, to start from scratch. You feel like you are running out of time, and that you aren’t that close. We all want to matter in TOTALITY to someone.

Remind yourself every day that you DO matter, that NOTHING is lost, and that everything you do and all the relationships you have are MEANINGFUL. You ARE the Soul Connection!!

Blessings,

Inky

Dear Shelly:

As one with LOTS of experience with the feelings you describe, I do have suggestions and I will let you know how taking them myself worked for me, or not:

First things first: my relationship too was in great danger because of my behaviors. We attended couple therapy. After the first sessions as a couple, I saw the same therapist for the one-to-one therapy that I needed. The first part, the couple therapy, was about the therapist (first good therapist I ever had) put his time and effort into the first action that needed to be done ASAP, stop the bleeding in the relationship, rescue it. So he taught me, us , Interpersonal Skills so that the relationship survives the bleeding (it was bleeding hard). This is what I learned from that part of therapy (make it as short and clear as I can):

No matter how bad I feel, how hurt, how scared, how distressed, I learned to hold my tongue and NOT dump my emotions on my husband in my desperate need that he will give me the relief I … desperately needed for my distress. This means taking responsibility for my emotions. That is, understanding he didn’t cause my distress and it is not his job to fix it. I learned ways to share my distress with him without making him responsible to take the distress away from me. Sharing it in such a way that he doesn’t feel threatened or blamed or told he is doing something wrong.

This was very, very difficult for me to do, and it got less difficult years later, thank god. I mean, it was so difficult. Part of me believed that when he was generous to someone else that he was hurting me and it made me angry. So my first reaction was to lash out at him in anger, to argue or protest… and I had to … not do that.

My therapist told me “Do the opposite”- when feeling hurt (but not his doing), angry, to reach out to him for comfort instead of lashing out in anger. Done it again and again. It is getting easier.

Once the relationship stopped its massive bleeding (divorce was on its way), I attended the one to one where I got insight into my hurt about how my mother was generous to others and how jealous I was and how possessive I was of her… lots there, but I got the understanding of where that neurological pathway was established, what was fueling my jealously.

None of it is easy but it is doable. What do you think so far?

anita

Dear Shelly:

I am back… good morning to you! I re- read a bit of your original post. Your boyfriend then has a daughter… how old? A minor I suppose. Then I re-read the title to your post: “Can I change?”

My answer: yes you can, over time, with effort, ongoing intention and attention. Your feelings of possessiveness and jealousy, do not make you a bad person. Or a good person. You can’t help what you feel. What you feel is not a matter of choice (If it was so, living would take on a totally different meaning). What you feel automatically is a result of physical things that happen in your brain every time you feel something. Not a matter of choice. Those happenings in the brain, what you feel, most often is a result of childhood events and interactions, like a strong, strong mental habits.

It may take serious psychotherapy and lots of work for you to change. I have done TONS of work, persistently over five years and as I wrote to you last, I still cringe when my husband is generous to others. Now his children are in their thirties. If he had a child who is still forming, who lived with us on weekends or longer and I cringed, the child would take it very personally.. and there he or she will be forming her own mental habits that will hurt her lifetime.

My answer, more elaborate, is: yes, you can change, but not fast enough to NOT hurt your boyfriend’s daughter if you are to live with him and if she will be spending time with the two of you. So, I would not move in with him. I would either keep dating him but not move in with him until his daughter is into her adult years or end the relationship with him and date a man who does not have children still… forming.

It is his responsibility as her father to not introduce her into a home with a woman (live in/ wife) who is jealous of the daughter. That is his responsibility as her father. It is your responsibility as a person to not do the same, move in with him. Both of you are responsible to not hurt the girl.

I hope you communicate with him about this. Please make it clear to yourself and to him that what you feel does not make you a bad person but you cannot change it quickly or smoothly (consistently) to move in with him for as long as his daughter are at least in her first two decades of life.

Please do post again….

anita

Dear Shelly:

Two children, and the youngest is 4 only. I got to say: good job on his part. Like I wrote, it is his responsibility as a father to have a home that welcomes his children. He sure didn’t make good choices with the mothers of his children… too bad.

There is no reason for you to put yourself in a situation where YOU suffer as well. Seems to me like the break up is a win-win situation. I sure hope you choose a man with no children or at least, no minor children. To simplify, way-simplify my point: I do not like cake with raisins in it. To eat a slice, I have to pick the raisins out. It is time consuming and leaves a mess on the plate. It makes way more sense not to get cake with raisins in it then it is to pick them out after getting the slice… and it make no sense to get on a cake-with-raisins diet either.

Some difficulties we have, we work on healing, but no reason to make our lives more difficult than has to be.

Post anytime. I very much appreciate our communication and commonality so far!

anita