I’ve been talking a lot about my personal work toward my transformation. I’m trying to look deeper into who I am and make changes that take me on the path of growth. I’ve had several “A-ha!” moments along the way, and this is another one I wanted to share.
My husband and I have a monthly joint session with T, as we are both working on ourselves independently and together toward a better and more “intimate” relationship. As we learn independently how to be better versions of ourselves, there is both challenge and growth in our relationship. The “moment” I want to talk about happened as an off-shoot of a conversation that we had in joint session.
In the past, I have tried to make changes so that I better show my affection for my husband. I love him–that is not in question–but he is more outwardly affectionate than I am. I am a bit more subtle and quiet and understated in my affection, he is the exact opposite. I am more likely to do things that show my love and affection and appreciation for him, he is more likely to use touch or verbal affection. We are different, and we are working on understanding each other’s needs and each other’s preferences for receiving from the other. For a long while, I was attempting to show my affection the way he did, as his actions showed his preferences for how he wanted to receive affection from me. It took me some time to understand that, shockingly, I am not him. I am not him and I do not need to act exactly the way he does. The way I am, the way I act, is equally as acceptable as the way he is and the way he acts. So initially I was trying to change to be more like him, and during a session I asked if he had seen how I was attempting to act more like him when it comes to affection. I felt I had been working hard at it, and he basically had to be forced into saying that maybe he had seen the change “once or twice.” I was heartbroken…and angry. I was angry that he wasn’t seeing all the efforts I had been making. I was heartbroken because I felt I had been trying very hard, and even that wasn’t good enough for him. Subsequently, I came to the understanding that I don’t need to act like him, I need to act like me. And I need to be comfortable with how I was showing my love and affection for him. Yes, he should have the affection he wants in the way he wants it, but he also has to decide if he can be happy or satisfied with what I am offering him. And then there can be negotiation. And vice versa.
This past joint session, there I was again, asking Hub if he was seeing the changes I was trying to make. I was working hard–I thought–to share how I am feeling physically, mentally, emotionally with Hub. He shouldn’t need to ask me to know, and I should be able to share when I am ready. He is working on learning to let me share, and that he doesn’t need to ask to find out. I asked him during the session if he had seen how hard I was working to do that…so that he knows without asking. And trusts that I will tell him what I need him to know. Once again, disappointment ran through me when he said, “Sure, once or twice you’ve come out and told me…” Not only was I now wondering if he was just not seeing it or recognizing it, now I was wondering if I wasn’t doing as much as I thought I was. I questioned myself for the next day…thinking about whether I was fooling myself or lying to myself. How was it possible that I felt I was working hard and making progress, and yet Hub wasn’t seeing it??
I was literally in the shower when the “A-ha!” struck. Dammit, I was not making these changes for Hub, I was making them for me! I didn’t need to look for validation from him, I needed to find the validation in myself. And in the end, the “number” of times I did these things was irrelevant. There was no reason for me to ask Hub how many times he saw me do something…and I sat down and told him as much, in a nice, loving manner. I told him that I was making these changes for me, and I was no longer going to ask him if he saw the changes, or how many times he might have seen the changes. I told him that I was making these changes for me…and that I was hopeful that these changes would help us grow our relationship. I told him that I was going to work very hard to respond to him in loving and kind ways when we touched on any of these changes, but that I didn’t need his approval or his validation. And I asked him to let me know if he felt I was being rude or hurtful in the way I responded to him…I asked him to call me out, so that I could learn from it and do better the next time.
It’s me. I’m the person who needs to see my changes. Because I’m the person who wants the changes.
And I had a side bar of an “A-ha!” moment. The reason Hub wasn’t seeing the changes I was making was because he didn’t want to. The old me is the person he knows inside and out. The old me is the person he’s comfortable with, because he knows how she is going to behave and react in almost any situation. He’s literally answering questions that refers back to the me of 10 years ago. He’s clinging to a me that keeps him stagnant as well…homeostasis. When you change, the people around you will try to pull you back into the behaviors they know and are comfortable with. I’m well aware of this phenomenon from other family members, but I didn’t expect it from Hub…although I now understand why he’s doing it. But this is his issue to deal with, not mine. I can’t go back to the person I was to make things easier for him…I won’t. I choose not to. He’s going to have to learn to see who I am now and respond accordingly.
I am incredibly grateful to feel confident that my husband will come with me on this journey. I do not worry that he will leave, only that he will feel left behind. It’s up to him to meet me where I am today, as I have promised I will do for him as well.
I have deep love and respect for my mother and my grandmother. These two women were very influential to me all my life. I am positive that I am who I am because of them.
Let me say that again… I am who I am because of them.
I have loved these women from the day I was born. There were times when I rebelled against them, and there were times I wanted to be just like them. And there were times I thought I wanted to be the exact opposite of them. I am the fourth and last of my mother’s children; she was thirty-two when she had me, so she is of an older generation than most of my friends. Both of these women were extremely pragmatic, saving their emotions for their private time. Both women worked hard for the things they had, working in and out of the home, raised families of 3 or 4 children on not enough money, and found ways to survive without us feeling like we were missing out on things. When my parents were the most poor in my lifetime, I don’t ever remember going hungry. I don’t remember wanting for much–except maybe going out to eat–and I rarely remember my mother saying “no” to things we asked for. This was the only childhood I knew, so if we were missing out on things, I didn’t know it.
I had a difficult childhood because I was fat from toddler-hood. From my perspective, my mother and my grandmother were just women, not overweight women. I know now as an adult that both of them struggled with their weight their whole lives, just as I have. I know now as an adult that the baggage I have carried about my body and my weight come directly from the baggage they carried about their bodies and their weight. I also know that I was terribly hurt and angry at how they treated me when it came to my weight. I was always on a diet, I was always being told to eat less, exercise more, lose more weight…
And I know my grandmother often said to me, “You have such a pretty face…if only you were thinner.” If only I were thinner, thenwhat? And thinner than what? No matter what weight I lost, it was never enough for my grandmother. She said terrible things to me, required me to starve myself and count calories and deprive myself…she required me to do things that shouldn’t have been a priority to me as a child. And she treated me differently than my brothers. Their weight was because they were boys; my weight was because I was wrong. That I ate the wrong things and in the wrong quantities. She judged me every day of my life, until the day she could no longer judge anything due to strokes and dementia. This was a woman who was so important to me and I never felt accepted by her as I was, nor loved as I was. Not even when I attempted to share my thoughts and feelings as an adult…she couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to be thinner. This was her ultimate goal…be thinner! Did she accept me and love me? As an adult I can say yes. As I child, I would never have answered that in the affirmative.
My mother borrowed money from my grandmother to send me to fat camp when I was a pre-teen. She and my father asked for money because they didn’t have enough to send me, and my grandmother agreed because she wanted me to be thin. I learned that it was so important to my mother that I be thin that she begged, borrowed, and nearly stole to get me that way. I learned that my mother’s priority for me was to lose weight. It didn’t matter what other attributes or characteristics I had, it was my weight that she was focused on. I knew she loved me, but I also felt she would love me more if I were thinner. All through my childhood. As I got to adulthood, I was able to speak my mind to her about my weight and she was able to hear me. I was always close to her, but after that I felt accepted and supported and recognized. And I felt she was proud of me for being who and what I wanted to be. As an adult, my mother and I were more than mother and daughter, we were friends. She even approved of me seeking therapy when I felt I needed it, although it was something she had never believed in before then.
These two women molded me with their love and their disapproval. They gave me baggage that I didn’t want or need, and I’ve carried that heavy load for most of my life. When I started therapy, I was there for grief and depression and anxiety…and as I moved through my experience in therapy, I began to understand what their love and their disapproval did to me. My mother died five years ago, my grandmother ten years before that. As I learned more and more how they had shaped me, I found more and more anger for them. Who might I have become if they had supported me instead of belittled me? What might I have accomplished if they had loved me exactly as I was instead of trying to make me who they had wanted to be?
Therapy and delving into my life brought me so much anger and disappointment and resentment for my mother and my grandmother. My mother was still alive during some of this time, but I couldn’t find a way to tell her how I felt. I tried, and sometimes I felt so close, but the words never came. The last two years of her life were a fight against cancer, and by that time all I wanted to do was not regret how I spent time with her. When her mother was sick, my mother took care of her and spent as much time as she could with my grandmother. My mom told me point-blank that she didn’t want to regret anything when it came to her mother. When my mother got sick, I said the exact same thing to her and to my husband about her. I put aside my anger and my resentment and I loved her. I loved her through everything that happened during those two years because I vowed I would not regret a moment. It was worth it.
After her death, I delved further with my therapist about her, as well as my feelings about her. As I became aware overall–through my therapy–that how people treat me was not because of me, but rather because of them and their experiences, I became more confused and yet more understanding. Both my mother and my grandmother were shaped by their own experiences with weight and their bodies. They treated me the way they did because of how they felt, not because of who I was or how I was. Their baggage weighed them down, and they treated me the way they did because of it. It was never really about me…
This discovery about reflection has changed me profoundly. Understanding that what my husband says and does reflects how he feels versus it being a response to me or something I’ve done is a game-changer. It’s also a game-changer in my feelings about my mother and my grandmother.
I have found grace and understanding for them. I have forgiven them for how they shaped my life because I now understand it wasn’t about me. I’ve given up the anger and disappointment and resentment I had for and in them because I see all of it more more clearly now. Keeping the anger, disappointment, and resentment does nothing for me except weigh me down. Giving all of it up has freed me and I’ve found relief from all that pain I was holding within me.
I have deep love and respect for my mother and my grandmother. These two women were very influential to me all my life. I am positive that I am who I am because of them.
Growing up, I was the “good” child. I was a goody-two-shoes, both at home and in school. My siblings made fun of me for following all the household rules as if I were in the military. No questions asked, no back-talk given, I did what I was told. In school, other students called me “teacher’s pet” and said I was a smarty-pants. I listened to my teachers, I did my homework and turned it in on time, I followed the school’s rules. All through elementary school I was like this, both at home and in school. I never wanted to step out of line for fear of getting attention for the wrong reasons. Teachers favored me, telling me how smart I was and how good a student I was. My parents praised me for getting good grades, good reports from the teachers, and for doing what I was told. But truthfully, I was left mostly to do my own thing because I could be trusted to do the right thing.
At the age of 12–in middle school–I started a small and understated rebellion. I was bored in class and angry that the more rambunctious kids got attention. Teachers barely paid attention to me because I was one of the “good” students. There were many times that I thought my teachers didn’t bother to look at anything I turned in because they didn’t have to worry about me as a student. They assumed that I was doing things correctly and that I would deserve an “A” on my work…and that’s generally what I got. Between the boredom and the lack of attention, I was so irritated that I started skipping classes. Sometimes I would just wander around the building and other times I would go hang out in the guidance counselor’s office or the secretary’s office. I never left the building so I wasn’t technically truant, but I was out of the actual classrooms. I think there was a lot of time that my parents didn’t even realize that I was “skipping” class because I stayed on school grounds.
Then when the guidance counselor told me that I could no longer hang out in her office, I had to come up with some other idea. And I realized if I said I was sick, I would not only be dismissed from class but I would be relieved of other obligations. Being sick gave me a kind of freedom from being the good kid…from responsibilities and expectations that came along with being the “good student”. And if I said I was sick, I was able to go home in the middle of the school day. Both my parents worked full time at that point, so I either walked home, or if I had money I took a cab. At home I was free to do what I wanted until someone else came home…either one of my siblings or my parents. And since I was a “good kid” my parents didn’t question if I was actually sick…they assumed if I said I was sick then I was telling the truth.
Eventually my parents saw my quiet rebellion and things came to a halt. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to return to my formerly good student/child life…period. I was too afraid to say no, so as I moved into high school, I left my small rebellion behind. Instead of being bored and pouting about it, I turned everything around and flew through high school. I took as few classes in the day as I could and still graduate. When I wasn’t in school I was working part time retail. I saw the brass ring hanging out there and I wanted it. My last year of high school I was only in school for three classes, then I left in time to go to my job where I was earning money for my car and for gas and insurance.
As expected by my parents, I went to college. I took classes that looked easy and I breezed through most of them. I was still working while I was in college, and I think my parents felt relief that their “good kid” was on track. Unfortunately, in college I ran into the same kind of inattention/disinterest from professors. After the first few assignments of each class–when the teachers realized that I was smart and knew what I was doing–they stopped reading my work. I know this because I started turning in shitty work and still got A’s. It was disappointing and frustrating. I was left aside for students who needed more assistance. To this day I feel I missed out on a lot of education, but at the time I didn’t do anything about it. If I’d been a better person, maybe I would have stood up and asked for more attention, but I hated being the center of attention or “rocking the boat”. So I skated through and graduated without much issue.
During my junior and senior years of college, I started working full time and going to class part time. I found a career path that had nothing to do with my schooling but had everything to do with things that interested me. Technology. I excelled at my job(s) and took pride in my work. As I moved up through the ranks of my technology job(s), I began to feel the imposter syndrome. I had grown up feeling as if I weren’t good enough, and that ingrained feeling led me right into feeling as if I were an imposter in my job…and essentially in my life. I felt I didn’t deserve any of the things that I had.
I met a young man while I was in college. Our early relationship was online, but then we began dating (irl). I didn’t date in high school or even mostly in college. I felt like I didn’t deserve to have a boyfriend. And when I got a boyfriend, I never felt good enough for him. It wasn’t that he was better than me in some way, it was my old baggage of never feeling good enough for anyone…or anything.
Being a good employee, a good wife, a good daughter, a good sister…I didn’t feel good enough. So my body resorted to what had worked for me as a pre-teen. It made me sick to release me from all those feelings of not good enough. If I was sick, I didn’t feel like I had the obligation or responsibility of trying to be good enough. Or doing things that were good enough. I had several vague illnesses that had no real source. I had labels put on me by different doctors that amounted to different “syndromes”, which really is just a collection of symptoms that couldn’t be attributed to anything specific. I had pain symptoms, fatigue, dizziness, balance issues, gastric issues. I went through a lot of doctors and a lot of tests, but I was never really given any concrete answers. Doctors attempted to help me resolve symptoms, but they were unable to give me the reason why I was sick. And I was really sick…a lot of times I couldn’t get out of bed. I was too fatigued and painful, I took a leave of absence from my job to deal with my ill health. After almost nine months, I was released from my job because I could not return in a timely fashion. I was sick in this way for close to 8 years, although at one point I was writing (and publishing) books. During this specific time I felt very involved in a community and my symptoms waned. They were still with me, but it was manageable. But for the most part my symptoms ranged in severity and specifics over the years. I was unable to hold a job during those 8 years. Most of my family and my husband understood my limitations, and rarely did they ask too much of me. If they did and I could not meet their expectations, they always made sure to tell me that it was no big deal. I wasn’t ever looking for attention when I was sick…I hated the ongoing doctor’s appointments and tests, so it wasn’t that I was seeking attention. I now think I was seeking a break from my own expectations for myself…if I wasn’t well then I didn’t have to strive for the perfection I expected of myself.
A few years later, I actually started feeling better and was able to do more in my life. My home circumstances changed, my parents were living very close by and I was spending more time with them. My husband continued to pursue his technology career and we finally felt more financially stable. Although I still felt badly that I was not bringing in any income, my husband was fine with the situation. My body began to heal, my mind felt comfortable, my spirit was buoyed. I was living in a way that was working for my body. I didn’t push myself too much, and yet when I needed my strength it was there. I felt at peace with my health even though it wasn’t perfect.
And then my mother was diagnosed with cancer. A relatively rare and aggressive cancer. My life changed…and so did my purpose. I became my mother’s cheerleader, her caretaker, her confidant, her friend. I was her secretary during doctor’s appointments–I took copious notes to review later–and I helped keep her calendar. I was with her all the time, keeping her occupied, keeping her on schedule, keeping her fed (this from the child/person who never cooked or baked because she knew in her heart her food would never be as good as her mother’s food)… I had flashes of doubt and impersonator syndrome, but it usually ended up being drowned out by the things I needed to do for my mother. My health stabilized and I found energy and strength that I didn’t know I possessed anymore. Taking care of my mom was not an obligation or responsibility…it was love. That was why my body allowed me to do that. I WAS good enough to love her that way.
After my mother’s two year battle and her passing, I grieved terribly. Other than my husband, my mother was my best friend. During the two years she lived with this terrible cancer, I spent almost every free minute with her. Losing her left me devastated…and lost. For two years I had a job, a purpose, and despite having no experience with caring for a sick person or dealing with cancer, I had been good at it. No one asked me to do the things I did or act the way I did, I just did it. I didn’t worry if what I was doing was good enough (until the end) because I was too involved in participating in my mother’s life and fight. But afterward I floundered. I looked for charities and volunteer opportunities to find a new purpose. But about a year and a half after my mother died, my body rebelled again. Thinking about it now I would not call it a rebellion, I would call it a rescue.
I had a very severe case of classic and vestibular migraine disease. There were months in the beginning where I could not leave my bed. Months where I could not walk, months when I had to go to doctor’s appointments in a wheelchair with dark glasses on even indoors. It took me close to two years to even begin to find recovery with medications, diet, supplements, vestibular therapy, and exercise. And then 2020 hit, and any of the plans I had to participate more fully in life fell away. I was given the opportunity to really focus on my mental health, on my healing, and on my transformation. My physical recovery continued–sometimes slowly and sometimes in leaps and bounds–and I focused my mental recovery on becoming who I wanted to be. And along the way, I have made some pretty surprising discoveries.
This discovery about my physical body and the illnesses that plague it, came unintended. I was going to work on a blog about a different discovery I’d had in therapy over 2020, and a whole different set of words came out. About my health, and how it has affected my life, mentally and emotionally.
My body tried to save me from the torment of feeling not good enough. Of the daily mental and emotional torture of feeling not good enough. When my career became “too much” and I began suffering with imposter syndrome and endless feelings of “not good enough”, my body introduced an illness that took over my life and my focus. I had years of “a break” from those “not good enough” feelings while I was sick because I didn’t have to feel not good enough when I was sick. Because all I had to do was exist. Obligations and responsibilities fell away during both lengthy illnesses…I allowed myself to put away concerns of “am I good enough” because surviving was good enough.
This realization was actually quite difficult for me. My first instinct was to be embarrassed that I “made myself sick” to avoid obligations and responsibilities (even if the obligations, responsibilities, and expectations were from myself). How do I tell my husband that I (or my body) made me sick so I didn’t have to deal with guilt or shame or criticism or judgement over whether or not I was good enough for…anything? Fortunately, my work in therapy came into play and I reminded myself that I did not consciously make the choice to be sick, that it was an autonomic response. And then I reminded myself that without that person–the one who was sick on and off for many years–I would not be the person I am today.
And thanks to my therapy, I am choosing to have compassion for the young girl and the young woman whose body did its best to shield and relieve her of the ongoing mental and emotional pain that would have beat her down in an ongoing fashion for all the years she was sick. I am grateful for the sacrifice that my body made for my psychological health, even if it felt like a struggle to survive during those years.
*I would like to note here that my chronic illnesses have been and are 100% real and sometimes physically disabling. I have not had a miraculous recovery since coming to understand that there might be at least partly psychological reasons for why I was and am sick. I have no idea what recovery might look and feel like, and I am not suggesting that anyone else’s chronic illnesses are not physiological.
Six years ago I wrote a blog post about my body. At that time I thought I was ready to work on the relationship I had with my body. I had my list of cons and pros–all of which still stand–but I was unable to hold onto my gratitude for the physical that carries me through my life.
I have changed physically, emotionally, and mentally since that time, and yet my anger and disappointment in my body still exists as it did that day. Yesterday during my session with T, I talked about my relationship with my body, and how I want to come to an understanding of sorts. Really, I would like to find and hold onto the appreciation I should have for this body that holds my life spirit. It’s the only body I have…I choose to pursue a better relationship with it.
T asked me to look at my body as if it were a physical being on its own, a friend rather than a part of me. Would I be as abusive to a friend as I am to my body? Would I belittle and berate it? Would I be angry at how it stands, how it sits, how it moves? Would I call it names, tell it that it’s too ugly, too flabby, too big, too everything? I would never say or do these things to a friend, how is it that I allow myself to do and say these things to myself? This is not a new concept to me, that I treat myself way worse than I could ever allow myself to treat someone else. Why isn’t it getting through to me?
Every day I carry my craft bag up and down our stairs from bedroom to family room. In it are the things I use all the time, like my crochet supplies, my iPad, some books, my migraine tracking calendar and etc. It has to weigh less than five pounds. And yet there are evenings when I go upstairs that I feel so tired and so heavy, or my knees are tired and painful, that I struggle with the steps. Our steps are U shaped, so halfway up there is a landing that I stop on. I’m not under duress, I’m not sick, I really can climb the steps without issue, but during this year of 2020 I feel beyond. So the other night, I’m stopping on the landing–because maybe I stood a lot chopping and cooking for dinner–and I rest. And a thought hits me…for most of the years I’ve lived in this house and many more in our last house, my body carried fifteen times the weight of my craft bag on top of my current weight. Seventy five more pounds than I am carrying at the moment I had this thought.
My body did that on an almost daily basis. And yes, some days it was harder than others, and some days I took our residential elevator to the bedroom level. Some days my knees hurt more or less, my back hurt more or less, my feet hurt more or less, my myofascial pain flared or didn’t, my migraine pounded or spun, my head ached or didn’t, my stomach rebelled or didn’t…and still my body carried me. Still my overweight, overstretched, overused, over-abused, over-belitted, disrespected body carried me where I needed or wanted to go. My mind and spirit carried so much anger and disappointment with my body, and unrelentingly my body carried me. Yes, there were days when I wasn’t getting out of bed due to vertigo or pain or exhaustion…but my body still held me.
I have got to stop this hate, this disappointment, this abuse. Now. I choose to stop this hate and disappointment and abuse. My body clearly loves me or it wouldn’t do all these things for me…I am choosing to learn to love it in return. Every part, every roll and lump, every bit too big, too broad, too hairy, too short, too everything.
This body that carries me is my best friend. The kind of friend that will do anything and everything for you, oftentimes unasked. It’s time I do the same in return.
What others in my immediate orbit do does not reflect on me. Growing up, my mother and grandmother always impressed on us that what we did reflected on them. People would assume that if we did something inappropriate, or our bedrooms were messy, then it was a reflection on them as a parent.
Up until this morning, I was living with the same feelings about my husband. If our house was messy and someone came to visit, even if the mess was his, I felt like it made ME look bad. That I was not capable of keeping a clean and neat house. My husband does not put things away, and his ADHD means he often will not see the things that need to be put away. For most of our marriage, I would nag him to clean things up, to put things away, to take his items to his areas of the house so they weren’t sitting in our kitchen or family room, looking messy. When he failed to do these things, I would get annoyed and clean up for him. Which left me even more annoyed.
One of the things I’ve been working on is letting things go that belong to him. If he doesn’t remember to do something, or put something away, or follow up on something, it is his issue. It is his to own and deal with. I’m no longer cleaning up his items, throwing away his trash, tossing the fruit he bought for himself and left to rot, following up on things I’ve asked him to do. Our house—our kitchen in particular—looks like a trash-hole. There are items piling up on our island, on the raised bar part of the island, on the console table just inside from the mudroom door (also in our kitchen)…some of it is unopened mail or bills, but there is also trash he didn’t throw away, items that came UPS or Amazon or FedEx that he either opened and didn’t put away, or hasn’t even opened. There are also packed boxes to take to UPS for return, which is his job as I do not drive at this time. He and I trade paying bills off twice a month. When it’s my two weeks, I take and keep track of the bills that come in and then pay them on the 1st of the month. When it’s NOT my two weeks to be collecting bills to be paid, I leave them where he has dropped them (the raised bar of our kitchen island) and let him deal with it.
I’m not saying that this isn’t driving me a bit crazy to see all the junk and trash piling up—because it is—but I’m learning to manage that feeling. If I continue to do clean-up and organization (and nagging) detail, how’s he going to understand his consequences? I mean if he wants the consequences of not returning items to the store/amazon, then he pays for items we don’t want or need and it sits on the console table forever. If he wants to have unopened bills hanging around and one of them needs to be paid sooner than he gets to it, he’ll have to deal with the late fees. If he opens a box of pills for our dogs and leaves it—box and all—on the counter, when it comes time to need the pills, he’s going to have to find it among the junk. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life wasting my time and energy dealing with his shit. I have my own shit to deal with. For more than twenty-five years I have been his executive function, reminding him to do things, to follow up, to clean up, to put away…it’s exhausting. And it’s time I take back my energy and my focus. I need my energy and my focus centered squarely on me to become the person I want to be.
So I live with his junk. And I accept that it might be this way forever. Because it’s not my behavior to correct, and what he does reflects on him and not on me.
One of the things I’ve been working on recently is owning the things that are mine, and letting go of the things that are not. Specifically, I’ve been dealing with this issue with Hub recently. I don’t talk about his issues too much because he’s a private person and I believe it’s his right to keep his private stuff to himself. I’m going to try to walk a tightrope here of what I will and won’t share, because his issues and my issues often intertwine.
I have always carried the emotional load in almost all of my familial relationships. This is something I have struggled with in my marriage as well. I did this automatically, not even realizing what I was doing until very recently. I wish I could say that my family (and my husband) abused my capabilities, but truthfully I did it because it seemed to work for me. Now I know it really doesn’t work for me, as I’m finally acknowledging that my body has physically been trying to get my attention by breaking down with multiple chronic illnesses that really could never be explained. While I’m working toward my transformation, my chronic illnesses—which often left me bedridden for weeks or months at a time—are easing. I’m feeling more energy and seeing more of the person I want to become.
One (technically two) of the recent examples of how I have carried the emotional load in my relationships happened with Hub (since he’s the guy I actually live with 24/7!). My father had called to tell me he was going for a stress test as per his doctor’s recommendations. The night before his test appointment, I acknowledged to myself that he would be in the hands of an actual doctor (it’s required for stress tests), and if anything happened, he was literally upstairs from their Urgent Care unit.
The next morning, my father called me after his early morning appointment to say he was home. The stress test had been truncated, due to something they saw on his ekg. He was waiting to hear from his doctor, so I said okay, asked him to update me whenever he had more information. Hub came into the room a short while later, literally telling me that I’d been worried about my father’s appointment. My internal hackles went up, because I don’t feel it’s appropriate for Hub to tell me how I’m feeling. I said no, that I hadn’t been worried, that I knew my father had been in good hands. Hub accused me of having my cell phone under my pillow, awaiting my father’s call. I said I had not had my phone under my pillow, and I hadn’t given up any sleep over my father’s appointment. Hub said he was skeptical; I was feeling as if Hub didn’t believe me and thus I felt not heard. I was angry and not okay with the situation.
Technically speaking, Hub had probably been worried about my father (they are sort of close, and my father has been more of a father to Hub than his own father). But because I’ve historically been the one to “worry” in our relationship, Hub pushed his worries onto me so that he didn’t have to deal with it as his own.
Later the same day, I had a text from B3 about his dogs and his trip to see a behaviorist for them. Hub and I are dog lovers, and B3 has been struggling with his two dogs, especially now that he has a small (almost walking) baby in the house. I told Hub what the text said and he made a face. Again he TOLD me that I had been worried about the dogs and what was going to happen at the behaviorist’s facility. I bristled for the second time that day, under the same exact circumstances. Hub was telling me how I was feeling, and for the second time he was wrong. I told Hub I had not been worried about the behaviorist meeting…and he told me he didn’t believe me. That I had recently told him I was worried about the dogs. I tried to explain that I was taking steps to stop worrying about things that I had no control over. I said I was sad that the dogs were struggling, and that it was unfortunate they were in the situation they were in. But I was not taking my time and energy to worry over an appointment that I had no say in and no control over. I suspected, again, that Hub was pushing his worry onto me because I’m usually the one who carries the emotional load between the two of us. I said to him specifically, if you are worried about the dogs, why can’t you say that? He said he knew I was worried, attempting to distract the conversation away from him and his emotions. I refused to let him get away with that, and I asked again why he didn’t just say he was worried about the dogs. He got mad and said I was worrying and I should admit it. I told him again that I was working hard to not worry about other people’s things, that I had enough of my own to think about.
I was pissed that he was telling me how I was feeling. And I was pissed that he didn’t believe me—and in fact attacked my honesty—when I was telling him the truth. I feel unheard, untrusted, and unworthy of being believed. We stopped the conversation since it was heating up, and later in joint therapy we talked about it. I also addressed it in my individual therapy, which was when T started talking about me carrying the emotional load in most of my relationships. She said she was proud that I had seen what was happening with Hub, and that I confronted the situation as it was happening. What I still had to work on was how to address it with Hub so that neither of us felt attacked or disbelieved. We continue to work on our communication skills together.
And the issues of feeling his feelings (or not) belong to Hub, not to me. The issue I was dealing with—carrying the emotional load for others—was what I had to continue to work on.
It’s interesting, because upon seeing this prompt, my first thought was to use an example of physical bravery. There is a lot more to bravery than just the physical…
“Mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty.” The definition from Merriam Webster doesn’t actually say the danger, fear, or difficulty is physical.
I’ve been brave in the face of anxiety, of panic, of grief, of the unknown. Every morning I get up out of bed and face a day of unknown. That has been one of my biggest triggers ever, the unknown. Learning to let go of the fear of the unknown has been an undercurrent of all my therapy. I had to really understand that being afraid of it didn’t help me, it made me unable to manage when things happened. Now I do my best to understand that I can manage anything that comes to me because I’m capable and resilient. I have 100% been able to handle unknown situations. I’m still here, sometimes battered and bruised, but I survive.
I have been brave in the face of growth and transformation, a current battle in therapy. I’m becoming a better me, more of me, and a lot of this change has been scary. I’m looking to find validation for myself and within myself, versus finding it from others. Having spent the majority of my life seeking my worth and my value from others–especially my family and my husband–it’s been quite difficult to let that go. To let go of the need to know how others have judged me. I’m the only person who can judge me, validate me, approve of me.
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