Melissa, you must know nice houses, luxury cars and fancy vacations don't define success, right ? And divorce doesn't define failure. Not on your part anyways.
Well, that's the funny (not funny haha, funny curious) thing . . . I would say I do NOT think those things define success, and I would not say that someone who doesn't have them is not successful, yet when I find myself looking at the reality of not having those things, it makes me feel like a failure.
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Did you have a lot of pressure growing up to be a "success" or perfect? Maybe it's where your need to control comes from? ( I'm not saying you are controlling personally, I just recall you saying that)Just asking, it's a good thing to look at.
Well . . . my Dad went to undergrad Brown, Master's at Harvard and Yale law degree. My brother (older) has an MBA from a top ten MBA program and I graduated from a top ten law school. We're a bunch of overachievers. I don't think of my parents as demanding perfection, but there were the times. Like when I got an A- and my Dad said, "why not an A?" And he laughed, but still. My Dad is not an emotional guy, doesn't often say he is proud, that kind of thing. So I'm starting to think maybe that's where I got this never good enough BS. Also, I see that my Mother questioned a lot of my decisions - she does it to my kids. ("Are you sure you want to buy THAT stuffed animal? You already have three stuffed cats and this one isn't as cute as the dog anyway. Come look over here at the dogs." or "don't paint the blue on top of the red!" argh.)
As far as being controlling, I do think I got that from good ol' Dad. I think that he did it for reasons related to a crappy childhood; I just picked it up as a habit.
Perfectionism probably came from childhood but also, I see that when I decided to quit working, I knew I had to be THE BEST MOM EVER. (Where else would I apply my Type A, overachiever personality?) It resulted in me ignoring my own needs and my H's needs. Not good.
I am thinking (as I organize my house with all the expensive furniture and tons of clothes and other belongings that I would gladly trade for a happy M) that while I know deep down that these things don't mean success . . . maybe I grabbed onto them as I felt my own self disappearing and my M struggling. After all, if we drove nice cars and lived in a nice house, and had two adorable, smart, well-mannered children and vacationed in Hawaii, we were living the good life, right?
I am also embarrassed to admit that the weak part of me would prefer to be the SAHM in the not-so-great M who has all the trappings than the single Mom scraping by but who has gained herself back. Oh, the ugly things I see when I look in the mirror. I am hoping that I will prove myself wrong here, I think I am just scared of the unknown.
And GM, when you talk about your own sitch, I totally admire you and would never call you a failure. Why are we so much harder on ourselves than we are on the rest of the world? (Where is the head shaking emoticon?)
me: 44 XH: 42 M 11 years D10 and S8 Bomb drop 9/27/13 D final 7/1/14
