These are all things I would love to have in my H/with my H. But I fear if these are things that I need of him. I will be in need for the rest of my existence. My H has/shows no desire/ability to fufill any of these wants/needs.
I just read through your thread and keep hearing one theme and it all has to do with your unresolved issues. I’m sure you are aware if this since you mentioned your step dad yelling over money. But your analysis of yourself never seems to touch on this. You even seem a little uncertain why you want to be so self-sufficient. So saying that this desire seems to come from anger with your mom for depending on your step dad seems too obvious. I do not know your full history, so maybe you’ve already discussed this sometime before. But I haven’t seen talk of it on this thread.
In this way you sound a lot like my wife. Her father was abusive, her mother stayed at home without a job, education or any skills, so my wife was determined not to be her. She places a lot of emphasis on education as a means to self sufficiency, although she had a terrible education in high school, never studies and took forever to finish college. She prides herself with being self reliant and always tells me she doesn’t need me or any other man, but she is (until recently) a stay at home mom, dependent on me. She is better than her mother, but still is in her shadow and I think she really doesn’t like this about herself. (But she won’t admit it.)
Could it be that your husband was “abandoned” as a child? His neediness sounds very much like that to me. And that may be his attraction to you, finding a surrogate mother to give him the security he never had. And you were attracted to him since he was someone you could nurture, giving you a sense of control you never had in such a chaotic home? Again, I’m sure you are aware of all this, but it sounds like you have not confronted it directly, instead focusing on changes in behavior to help the relationship. But until those stones are turned over, the behavioral changes fade out and you are left with no more ideas on what to do. This is what I’m hearing.
Get those skeletons cleared out of the closet and all those suggestions you’ve made can have a greater impact.
In my last thread dancing with my devils. I address the fact that my step dad is one of the two basement dwellers within myself from my past that seem to have lasting effects into my adulthood. Though I did address the past relationship I did not really put out there much regaurding my step dad. And my feelings about him. Maybe I should address it. My step dad is the one person in my life I cannot ? well I do not know the word forgive is not it. Lets put it this way the one person who's negative impact on me I can not overcome. Who I cannot try to see in a different light? Something of that effect. My step dad is the most mean and angry person I have ever known.
So saying that this desire seems to come from anger with your mom for depending on your step dad seems too obvious.
I have no anger at my mother. I know that sounds odd but no one I have ever known has endured as much hell out of love for there children as my mom did. No one. With my older sister and my mother and grandmother my love for them is as unconditional is it is for my children.
Could it be that your husband was “abandoned” as a child Not in definition but in theroy yes. His mother played games with the father over the kids when they split up. And the dad got tired of it and backed away from the kids. And even though he was favored by most of his Aunts and Uncles and grandparents. His mother seemed to favor his older brother which breed a sense of competative air between them.
But more then anything from what his step dad has told me. His mom created her boys to be dependant. She poured there baths,not only dished out but cut up there food and various other things well beyond a age that they should have been capable to this for themselves. When I met my H his mom still cut his toe nails.
And you were attracted to him since he was someone you could nurture, giving you a sense of control you never had in such a chaotic home?
Though I don't know if I agree with the statement. Your statement about giving me a sense of control I never had just made me realize something regaurding how long ago I started detaching from situations and maybe some of how it started. When I was younger dinner time was hell. My father would start dinner was never good enough, served soon enough or was ready to serve to soon what ever. It was always something. And he would fly into a rage. Everyone else would leave the kitchen. My mother would run for cover from my step dad to there room which he would stomp back and forth yelling at her. And my sister would run for cover in our room. I would sit and the table and continue to eat. Not that I was not bothered not that I wanted to continue to listen to his [censored]. Just that I refused to give in to him and his stupidity. This was night after night. Week after week year after year I found away to detach myself so his actions and my mom and sisters reactions did not affect my reaction to his raving on and on. And every night I sat there in my defiance of him it became easier and easier not to care about his outburst and the easier it became to over ride my want to just tell him what a [censored] he looked like. I had learned to disassociate myself from the situation.
Thank you. I have with the help of others been looking for a means to where my detachment began though out my life. And what may have been the cause of it. I think you may have just helped me stumble across some answers.
I'm glad I was able to help. I felt a little bad the other day when I seemed to upset you. Sorry about that.
I'm not meaning to press this if you don't want, and I'm willing to accept your explanation about your mom, but the reason I mentioned it is that I too felt the same about my mom. She would give her life for us kids, she tolerated a lot for us, what with all the fighting with my dad, and I truly believed she was the most loving, sacrificing mother a kid could have. But I now understand that she was/is very dysfunctional, very selfish in many ways and very controlling. This was probably one of the most difficult things for me to see and still one of the most difficult to accept.
My wife had a similar situation with her mother. After her mother dies, the kids had to go to court for something dealing with the estate (I’m not too clear on this). But I do remember her saying the judge told them all to go see a counselor because they had some false idolization of their mother (I hope I’m getting this right). She ultimately came to see some of the faults of her mother, but I don’t think she has thought through all of them. I believe these uncovered issues still play a major role in her intimacy issues.
If your mothered married someone like your step dad (and stayed married to him) then she HAD to have some major dysfunction to find him remotely attractive in the first place. And for her to allow you and your siblings to endure such abuse says something about her (though I don’t know what). I am sure you love your mother and have no ill feelings toward her, but you could still have at least some lack of respect for her or a feeling that “I will never let myself get into a situation like her.”
I do not say this to offend you in any way. It is very difficult, but I cannot imagine that your mother hasn’t had some effect on you. Maybe she considered herself something of a martyr, as you say, sacrificing for her kids, a role you are emulating. Maybe you had some anger with your mother for staying in that marriage, and you feel the same way in yours? But your husband is not your step dad so maybe the feelings you have toward men are just conditioned responses from living in a war zone for so many years.
Detachment is a way to deal with pain. I think Blackfoot said something about pain creates fear which creates anger which creates defenses which creates dysfunction. Detachment is the dysfunction, so going backward, detachment ultimately comes from pain. But the defense masks the pain. What I am saying is I think you could have some great pain buried down deep that is still affecting you and your marriage. I have no idea what it is or if it is truly there, I just suspect it could be. Your step dad is the obvious demon, but your mom is culpable too. (I know, ouch. Sorry.)
I guess the reason I do not blame my mom is because I know she felt what she was doing was what she believed best for us kids.
My real dad abandoned her when she was pregnant for me. She raised my older sister and myself by herself for 11 years. She was uneducated and worked as a waitress for those years. Mostly 7 days a week and double shifts. My sister and myself were being raised by babysitters a large part of the time. She lost her home that her and my real dad had bought when I was very young. And we lived in a little apartment for most of those 11 years. Her family seemed ashamed of her and was not supportive. She has one sister who pretty much looked down on her for us being poor my mom being a waitress and a single parent. My grandparents helped out with me but I do not really remember them keeping my sister that much. So she still would have had to pay a sitter for her I guess.
My mom meet my step dad when I was 9 I think. They dated for two years before they got married. Since he never spent the night nor did he spend much time with us kids while they were dating and what time he did spend with us did not allow his true colors to show through prior to them getting married. I don't think my mom was aware of how terrible he could be. When my mom remarried it allowed us to move into a big house. Her family/sister all of a sudden started inviting us places comming to our house ect. It allowed her to be home with us kids more. But slowly as we kids became accustom to our new school and developed friends little things started cropping up. We were not allowed to talk on the phone for more then 5 minutes and if he was home we had to talk in the kitchen where he would stand and listen to the conversation. we were not allowed to have friends over. Nor were we suppose to be ran after or go places. A cup or a dish was not allowed to be sat in the sink. A pair of shoes was not to be set by a door. Dinner was to be ready to serve the moment he walked through the door. And I can go on and on.
My mom ran interference as best she could. But if she allowed us to have a friend over. It usually turned into a embarrasment for us so why bother. If she allowed us to go somewhere there would be one hell of a fight that broke out. And again on and on.
Oddly my older sister and myself reacted different to it all. She did not care how much they fought. She wanted to go to football games and out dancing and so forth. I on the other hand ran around cleaning after her(she was a born slob) to stop him from screaming at my mom about how terrible her kids were. She joined sports regaurdless of the fights my mom having to run to the school and pick her up would cause ect. And she would ask for money to do things with again reguardless of the fights. She dated got her license the whole ball of wax no matter what. I stayed home most of the time. Seldom asked for people to come over. Seldom spoke on the phone. Never asked for money. I did join the drama club and choir but had a girlfriends who's parents would bring me home. I never got my license until I was 18. I avoided any thing that would prevent the screaming he would do at my mom about us kids best I could. My mom seldom screamed back unless it was regaurding us kids. But I developed a very rebellious and defiant side. I went from being a straight A student to almost failing. I started hanging with the more troublesome kids at school. Started cutting classes. And allowed no one to tell me what to do (other then at home). By the age 15 I started running away from home. Lived in a group home for 6 months because I refused to go back home. When I came home the dynamics changed some what. My step father backed off of me to some degree. I think out of fear of what it would cost him if I choose to go back to the group home. My older sister had graduated and moved out. So it was just me and my little sister. But that left my mom to be the blunt off all his anger. He got laid off and became meanier to my mom by the day. This is where my pure hatred for the man set in was from the way he treated my mom. When you are little you miss things that as you get older you recognize as not being right. I noticed just how controlling he tried to be of her. Things that I thought were based at us kids before I started realizing was more about his want to control her. Like not wanting her to drive us kids places and so forth was more he did not want her to go anywhere. Him not wanting us to have friends over was he did not want someone else for her to talk to. Even his dislike of us kids I think was more based on his jealousy of her love for us kids and we came about from her having sex with someone other then him.
I could go on and on. But in truth all I am trying to say is. I have no anger for my mom. I feel sorry for her. I understand she thought that what she was doing was what was best for us. By providing us a home and a father and a family that was no longer embarrased of us. I feel sorry for her because the two times she tried to get out. She had no one that would help her. I feel sorry for how trapped I know she felt do to lack of family support and lack of education. I feel sorry for the two years of living hell I put her through myself. And I feel sorry for the fact I know she feels she let both myself and my older sister down some how and that every thing she thought was for us ended up hurting us. That is a hell of a guilt to live with. I know I live with it myself where my daughter is concerned.
There are some negative aspects of my upbringing that I know have carried over into my adult life. Some of them I have been very aware of for a long time. The biggest is I have always been very rebellious to having a male tell me what to do. I do not deal with male authority well at all. This has shown up in past dealings in work were I have had male bosses. Looking back I see a pattern of my either wooing them with my looks and personality to set them off footing and become favored.(my old Senior VP use to laugh at how I could do this and said that my ditzy blonde ploy was a way to disarm people and come in with the kill as to how smart I actually am and earn respect) Or I go straight for the throat. And tell them straight off that they are not a superior being over me and will not treat me as a lesser being since I am a female. This has made me labeled a man hater more then once in my life. Oddly I have always been well liked and well respected in most of my jobs lol.
My eatting disorder is also another thing that carried over into my adult hood. I still suffered from this daily until 8 years ago. The most I ever have weighed in my life is 136 lbs and I was pregnant.
But oddly last night while I was cooking dinner something about your post and my response made me realize another thing.
When my kids were little I did the family dinners every night everyone sits down at the table and eat. As they have gotten older and little bickers started occurring this dynamic changed. I no longer eat with my family. I eat either before them or after them or not at all at dinner time. On occassion one of them will sit in the kitchen and eat with me (table only big enough for two) But they eat in the dinning room usually. It seems that as soon as the situation started getting discomfortable for me. I did what I do best I disassociated myself and detached from it. I can only wager a guess it was because of my past dinner experiences and trying to avoid it.
And Cobra yes I do know my emotional responses are dysfunctional. Alot of that awareness has come from reading others post on this board. If I take what my doctors told me about my my eatting disorder " The reason I do not feel hunger is because I over rode those feelings so long my receptors in my brain no longer recognize the feeling of hunger as such" and apply it here. Only subsitute the word emotions for hunger. I know this is something I can overcome. But eatting regaurdless if you are hungry is much simplier then feeling when you don't feel.
Sorry to not reply sooner. Weekends are busy, as I’m sure they are you. You and my wife have a lot in common. While she has loss issues, you have more abuse issues, but for both of you the root of your problems lies with men. My wife could also be considered a man hater, I’ve thought of her this way myself. Her problem is that she never received the attention and respect she wanted from her dad. Her two older brothers received that. Her mother didn’t have time for her because she went on to have three more kids. I think she was angry at the lack of attention, so when her parents fought and her dad hit her mom, she took her anger out on her dad. I read somewhere that these “abandoned” or neglected children can become angry. This seems to make a tough contradiction to over come. I think my wife hates the person she wants to feel loved from the most.
I remember her telling me that when she found out her mother was dead, she felt the grief, but also a huge sense of relief coming off her shoulders. She later came to realize she had some anger toward he mother for not being stronger and more competent and allowing herself to be so dependent on men.
By the way, I’m really sorry to hear about your past. I can’t imagine living in a horror like that. You show a lot of strength in the way you reacted to your step dad. But you also sound like a rescuer, trying to make everyone happy to keep the peace. I know when things get tense around here, I want everyone to de-escalate before things get out of hand and a huge fight breaks out. I know I can’t tell my wife what to do so I tend to get on to the kids to behave. I think my wife does some of this. This is essentially rescuing behavior, but I am also mad at everyone else for starting up a fight.
The one thing I wish I could get through to my wife, and I’ve told her this before, is to stop blaming me for what her father did. If she wants revenge, then go take it out on him, but stop attacking me for something I did not do. That only makes me angry and when I’m mad, its hard to feel compassionate for her. I know that what I ask is difficult for her, but there is not alternative, and I won’t pretend to be big enough to keep taking it forever.
Hi Chrissy, my independent and detached friend,lol. Lots of discussion on your thread about the past...I want to address the current situation with you and find out how the 180's are working out.
Chrissy, I have not read all of your thread recently but have had some of the less than normal experiences with an over bearing step father. I am older than you, he died around 1962, it took until my kids were out of the hous for me to drop some of the resentments, and I still come into a room and feel a little something where I cringe a little, when things are left on and no one is in the room. Almost no phone calls for me and you better not waste electricity. Sometimes he took the cord to the TV when he went out for the day and I was going to be home alone.
Your H sounds like he is mostly normal. I wash and dry clothes but rarely fold things. I am glad you are seeing he is doing what he thinks he can do for now. It takes time to make and adjust to changes.
Until I get to a point where I can concentrate on the forum a little more, take care of yourself.
Almost no phone calls for me and you better not waste electricity. Sometimes he took the cord to the TV when he went out for the day and I was going to be home alone.