You are living in a mode of self protection rather than self confidence
Cat, your long post to ETB - which contained much good advice, was worth reading for this single gem. Yes, I believe that we learn to do this to survive, at various points of our life, and our finding or re-finding that self confidence is hugely important. It helps us to eject our spouses from living rent free in our heads. We have the courage to get on with our lives, which is the surest way to self fulfillment and happiness. They aren't stopping us, we are stopping ourselves, however much we are overwhelmed with responsibility both emotional and financial for our children, property, work and so on.
It is a reminder to me to keep going on and grabbing life with both hands [without shoving and pushing of course, we are nice people here!] as well as being authentic to who i really am, and not trying to be someone else. But we sometimes use that as an excuse for doing nothing.
