Create the life...

[Elbereth]

I keep dwelling on my convo with my brother today. I have to admit that I have kept him and his partner at arms length. There is history there that causes me to feel judged and not supported. Sure, he does help me in some ways, but when it comes to the emotional part of support, that is where I feel judged and pressured. You see, even when I divorced the first time, they had no patience for my struggles. And now with what I am going through, I hold back because even when I share a little, I feel judged.

I think I will focus on some of this with my therapist. I honestly struggle to manage others expectations of me right now, when I am struggling to just keep moving forward. Today I felt measured against how another friend is doing who lost her husband to sickness. I felt judged for continuing to struggle. I felt dismissed when I expressed feeling overwhelmed with having to move and go through divorce (and quitting my job) in the same month. I know my family wants to help. But I dread discussing things with them. Suggestions feel like invalidation or pressure.

I told my brother that I love him and I appreciate his support and I understand he is trying to be helpful. But I expressed that he can’t understand what I am going through and this is not something he can fully help me with. His partner suffered betrayal, but I expressed that it’s different for everyone. I mentioned that I have resources like this site, but he said, “well, if no one can understand it, why do you confide in them?”. I feel like I can’t win…like they are forcing me to share with them so they can feel better, but it doesn’t help me at all. I honestly do not feel like they can help me. I feel like they just are frustrated that they really do not know what is going on inside of me or what happened in my marriage. I told him I don’t want to be told that I should be in a different stage than I am in by someone who has never walked in my shoes. I told him that I am doing IC, that I am reading a lot of books, that I have this forum, etc. I told him I am moving forward, but I can’t just turn on happy face like he says I should.

I listened to some podcasts that discussed codependency, and I think I am seriously codependent. At least I was in my marriage. And maybe even in my work. I bought the book “Codependent No More” and I see my marriage in some of the descriptions. I put my Hs needs above my own. And when I was completely depleted, that was part of when I stood up for myself and he left. Now, seeing how much I neglected myself, I am trying to put my needs first and I keep getting resistance in several places. I also bought a book on boundaries and I keep trying to be better about those. But instead I just feel more pressure and guilt when I establish my needs or my boundaries. Is this normal? Has this happened to any of you? How do you keep enough closeness to allow your family to feel they are supporting you, but having enough boundaries to protect the parts you don’t want to share or to avoid areas of judgement? I also think my mother in codependent as well, as I see her doing everything for my dad and also nothing for herself.

My brother and his partner have an extremely happy and almost perfect marriage. But they also have a very happy and rich life of travel and leisure. They have no idea of what it is like to struggle in the ways that I have. So, it’s very hard to share feelings that I feel they can’t wrap their heads around. It’s like describing scraping food from the bottom of a trash canl to someone who has only known food served from a silver platter.

I know I’m in a very down place right now. But I am also in a very stressful time. I feel I am doing what I can to keep my head above water. I am doing self care, I am learning about healing, I am working to get control over my finances, I am taking steps toward moving on in my life. Just because I can’t say I’m happy right now and put a smile on my face doesn’t mean I am not where I should be right?