I was just thinking about a bit from the 1959 movie "Some Like It Hot" -- Jack Lemmon dressed up as a woman and saying, "Men! We wouldn't be caught dead with men! Big hairy beasts, with 8 hands, and they only want one thing from a girl!"
How many of us women were fed subliminal messages like this from before we can even remember?
GGB, the fact that my childhood has had a huge impact on my sexuality is a very new concept for me. I honestly couldn't see it before. I can't believe I couldn't see it before now. I think H has understood it for a long time.
It was a post by Corri some weeks ago about her connection between her sexual abuse and her LDness (I hope I'm remembering the facts correctly) that got me thinking about my childhood. I knew I wasn't molested, but I still felt that I had been violated. I started exploring my feelings again about what had happened with my father and just had an epiphany about my sexuality. I am afraid of my sexuality. I can't own it. I'm both intimidated and awed by women who can and do own it.
Also I learned from therapy that we tend to consider verbal abuse to be not as big a deal as physical abuse, especially because there are no physical after effects of verbal abuse (no bruises, etc). But it is just as damaging. Those of us on the receiving end tend to minimize its effects too. We might think we didn't have it as bad as someone who was beaten. What were're really saying is that our emotional selves don't get/deserve the same respect as our physical selves.
What scares/worries me is I see shades of her mother in her in her dealings with the kids. It is usually subtle, but the undertones are definitely there. Mentioning any likeness at all to her mother is a sure-fire trigger, so that is something I avoid doing. Instead, I try to intervene, and lately have been more assertive in pulling her aside and telling her what she's doing is not acceptable. mixed results at best.
You know my wife has made the statement “Don’t mix sex with emotion.” How did you bring these two together?
I don't think I have to this day.
My dad did not insult me or ever call me names or anything like that. He used to tease me-- and I HATE teasing. For example, when it was time for me to get my first bra, I asked my mother not to tell him, because I was sure he would make fun of me. And right away she understood. The view of sexuality I learned at home was very skewed.
Edited to add:
I think the teasing was a kind of violation. I never felt safe with my father.
For example, when it was time for me to get my first bra, I asked my mother not to tell him, because I was sure he would make fun of me. And right away she understood. The view of sexuality I learned at home was very skewed.
I understand too. I don't think I ever asked my mother to protect me. I think knew it would have made it worse. When I did confront them both many years later about the teasing, I got the typical "oh, I/he didn't mean anything by it. So-and-so would have just laughed. Why are you so sensitive about everything?" ::sigh::
I think the teasing was a kind of violation. I never felt safe with my father.
I have a couple of pictures of me taken when I was about 11. These were taken one right after the other. One is with my brother and one is with my father. In the pic with my brother I look like a happy kid--we both had silly smiles and so forth. In the pic of my with my father you can actually see that I looked like I was trying to disappear. My facial expression is completely different. I can't even describe it really. I did show them both to my previous C and we talked about it.
I'm sorry you never felt safe with your father. I remember being at a friend's house and watching her father, and wondering why I couldn't have a father like that. What I saw was a nice, kind dad, not a scary perv.
My dad did not insult me or ever call me names or anything like that. He used to tease me-- and I HATE teasing. For example, when it was time for me to get my first bra, I asked my mother not to tell him, because I was sure he would make fun of me. And right away she understood. The view of sexuality I learned at home was very skewed.
I’m trying to understand this because teasing is more a male thing than a female thing I think. Teasing, joking, testing are all ways that boys bond. I would think girls can bond in this way too, but to a more limited extent. However to be able to take on the “toughness” required in male bonding, I think a girl needs to have a certain amount of emotional self confidence first. I think that comes from the mother.
But how does a girl react if her relationship with her mother is not strong? Is she angry with her mother? Maybe. Or maybe she knows she is emotionally vulnerable, but the dynamic of female relationships does not open up that wound so it is not apparent. Taking that wound into a male bonding experience could be like rubbing salt in the wound. So could your discomfort with your dad be due to weakness in your mother? And was your dad doing anything more than just acting like a male? Just theorizing….
I set out to find a husband who was the exact opposite of my father. My father has brown eyes and I have always felt somehow threatened by men with brown eyes, even though I did date a couple. I was always attracted to guys with blond hair and blue eyes.
I never dated a "worldly" man; my boyfriends were all college students. I was always drawn to younger men. I guess I felt safer with them.
Anyway, my father is dark-eyed and somewhat "swarthy" looking (French-Canadian descent). My H is blond, blue eyed and has a boyish-looking face, even at almost 42. I have always found boyish-looking men attractive.
In addition to finding H physically attractive, he was very attractive in other ways--intelligent, well-read, humorous, sensitive, none of which were qualities I saw in my father. He passed my litmus test with flying colors. Oh, and I was beyond impressed by the competence he displayed, at the age of 20, operating a small airplane. I never saw my father as competent, perhaps because my mother never did.
There was one thing they both had in common: smoking.
H mentioned here last fall that the very first thing I ever uttered to him included "get away from me." What I said was, "would you get away from me with that cigarette?!" I didn't even know him; we were both in the designated smoking area in the building; I was in a bad mood.
I am a highly sensitive person, which really means that my nervous system is more sensitive than the average person's. My sense of smell is extremely acute. All kinds of smells bother me, good and bad. For me, smells can be overwhelming, even sickening, literally. For an HSP, smoking would probably be a deal-breaker on a R, but I believe now that I overlooked it because H made me feel so safe. Safety was more important to me than anything else. Perhaps I was afraid that if I made an issue of it, he'd walk. I guess I just decided I had to deal with it.
I'll bet most people here understand the connection between smell and sex, the connection between all our senses and sex. I had no clue about this. I understand now that you can't have a complete sexual experience if you can't involve all of your senses in it. A lot of the time I have had to sort of disengage my nose.
This is hard for me to write because I don't want to hurt my H. Writing here has helped me to realize just how much I truly love him and how much I appreciate all that he has given me.
This is hard for me to write because I don't want to hurt my H.
That's completely understandable. I'll bet, though, he feels happier, closer and more connected to you when you trust him enough to show him who you are and what you really feel and think, even (especially) when it's potentially negative.
Ask him.
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
GGB, I was scared to see some of my mother in me (my mother was the disciplinarian) when I interacted with my son. I also saw a bit of H's father in him which was scary too. We both come from abusive homes.
I have read quite a bit on parenting and I had a basic idea of what I wanted to do, but I still found myself resorting to my mother's tactics sometimes, much to my dismay.
A book called "The Pocket Parent" has helped me a lot. (don't know how old your kids are, but this is for handling 2-5 year olds.) I read it at least a year ago and shelved it. I picked it up again recently, and it just clicked. If your wife isn't receptive to the idea of reading a parenting book, then read one yourself! Tell her how important you think it is for children to be raised with love, respect, etc.
Comparing your wife to her mother will make her feel defensive. She may very well know she is "channeling" her mother, and she may be unhappy with herself for doing it, but may not know how to stop it. Having said that, it's good that you intervene when you have concerns about the way she is treating your children. You protect them every time you do it.
Edited to add: Switching from a "punishment" mentality to a "discipline" mentality is hard work. It's a process. It involves learning how to stop personalizing your children's behavior. I know I'll make mistakes, but I try not to beat myself up over it. I believe in what I'm doing.
Cobra, the kind of teasing you're talking about that is part of the male bonding experience is done BETWEEN OR AMONG PEERS. If it done between people who are not peers-- like parent/child, teacher/student-- the superior better do it (if at all) in very small amounts, with a great deal of love and affection, AND avoid particularly sensitive areas.
Thus, a father could not, in kindness and safety, tease a boy who was crippled about his athletic ability, although presumably he might LOVINGLY tease a crippled boy who was intellectually brilliant about losing a chess game.
Teasing an adolescent girl about budding breasts or getting her period would NEVER be a good thing for a father to do, although presumably a grown man might lovingly and sparingly tease his wife WITH WHOM HE HAS A GOOD AND SATISFYING SEX LIFE about her period. Surely you can see the difference?
I'm going with definitions 1 & 6:
tease /tiz/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[teez] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, teased, teas·ing, noun –verb (used with object) 1. to irritate or provoke with persistent petty distractions, trifling raillery, or other annoyance, often in sport. 2. to pull apart or separate the adhering fibers of (wool or the like), as in combing or carding; comb or card, as wool; shred. 3. to ruffle (the hair) by holding it at the ends and combing toward the scalp so as to give body to a hairdo. 4. to raise a nap on (cloth) with teasels; teasel. 5. Also, teaser. Television Slang. a short scene or highlight shown at the beginning of a film or television show to attract the audience's attention. –verb (used without object) 6. to provoke or disturb a person or animal by importunity or persistent petty annoyances.
I don't think he meant anything by it... he wasn't a cruel person, just depressed, angry, and socially inept. He had one brother and told me that he had never been around little girls ever until I was born. I don't hold this against him. He's been gone for almost 20 years... but the damage was done.
I didn't feel safe around him.