Wow, Whatis, I have to chime in again and mention that what you're talking about now resonates with me, yet again. My W's mother suffered abuse by her father, lost her mother when she was very young, was put in an orphanage, etc. My W used to talk about how she had to mother her mother - about how their roles seemed to be reversed. When W's mother divorced W's father, she looked to my W to provide support for her, not showing any concern for the young adult whose family was just ripped apart. Even now, her mother is extremely immature (drinking with "the kids" - her step children and son - to the point of throwing up fairly regularly, smoking pot, etc). I guess some of this is attributable to not having a role model to learn the role of mother (or even adult) from. She did, however, become very involved in the church, to the point of becoming a missionary and moving her family to the mission field for several years - so she has these very opposed ideas of what the role of mother should be: the good-girl church lady, and the woman who has given up her life in service and now wants to live it (it does often seem that she's trying to re-live her youth).
I think in a lot of ways this struggle between becoming good at being in a productive role in family or social situations vs. doing (or more accurately, getting) what she wants - what makes her feel good - is alive in her. And she's seen her mother do the same, sees her position in life now as something somewhat successful, yet also sees through it to some degree. She never used to look up to her mother - I know she blames her for the breakup of the family which was especially traumatic for my W -but it seems now that her agenda is supported by the choices her mother made in her life that she's not so critical anymore. Funny how beliefs change to accomodate someone's agenda.
W has often stated that she is tired of doing for everyone else - that she's tired of coming last. She feels she's been serving everyone and she has, because of her perspective, been sacrificing herself to do what's "right". With this overwhelming sense of deprivation and neglect, how could she possibly do for others? She can't even do for herself.
I can really relate to you about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But I think the important thing to remember is that it's often the details that make the biggest changes. If you focus on changing just one thing at a time you can keep the changes going. In the end, however, it's a relationship. The sum of two wholes. If one of those wholes doesn't take responsibility for their health, there's nothing the other can do to make them. You're trying your best, but there may be nothing you can do. You have a life to live too, and I think if there's one thing that we should learn through this process is that a great relationship is possible and that we shouldn't settle for less. The other part of this is that we must take responsibility for making it great - not blame the other party for it not being what it should. I think there comes a point, though, where we've tried our best, improved ourselves, and the obstacle really is our spouse. What then?
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
