HomeâForumsâTough TimesâNeed your opinions
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August 26, 2018 at 6:53 am #223097miranamParticipant
Dear anita,
I agree with your explanations and logical links.
Now, having this knowledge and understanding, what am I supposed to do? I cannot re-live my life… And, how can I use it in the future? I don’t think I will have an opportunity to apply it. What is left is to acknowledge that my whole life is a mistake. And I got what I got.
I just need to find something to live with less emotional pain as I don’t think I can possibly be fine one day.
August 26, 2018 at 7:07 am #223099AnonymousGuestDear miranam:
“Now, having this knowledge and understanding, what am I supposed to do?”-
Most religions will tell you what you are “supposed to do”- stay in that marriage, that holy word, marriage, twist your thinking any which way so to feel better. Lots of people will tell you what you are supposed to do. My first inclination just now was to tell you what you are supposed to do.
I will point to these options of what you may do, covering all possibilities that will come to my mind as I type:
1. Nothing, keep going as is. The positive in that is that you will not exert the great effort it takes to change your life circumstances. Another positive is that the brain/body cannot withstand constant misery, so you will continue to get your breaks from misery somehow. Maybe you can make those breaks last longer by taking vacations alone, far and away. Or otherwise spending more time away from home.
2. Something. Be is as small a something as having your own bedroom in your home, no longer having a physical relationship with this man.
Something a bit bigger: separate, move and live in your own place.
Doing something is about no longer doing the same, interrupting the old way of living. Better for your son, by the way, to no longer observe the old way of your living.
What can I say… well, I would choose something, if I was you. A matter of self respect for one, I wouldn’t want to let a man use my body when he doesn’t care about my feelings. As simple as that.
anita
August 26, 2018 at 7:11 pm #223159PrashParticipantDear miranam,
Thank you for your response. It means the world to me if anything I post is considered supportive and makes it easier for you. I tend to reflect for a period on what I want to post about because I feel that I cannot offer a genuine suggestion unless I am able to feel to some extent the pain that you are going through.
At the same time I understand that every single life situation that you face is uniquely your own.
You have tried many ways to get out of the pain that you are in. You have read about self love and compassion yet you are not able to take it up. I asked myself why that could be so despite your clear insight and intelligence. That is when I was reminded of my own struggles where intellectually I know what to do but yet I am unable to do.
For me, the reason I felt was the meaning that I was attaching to things, the definition that I was giving to happiness on a repeated basis.
Is it possible that you are telling yourself (despite evidence to the contrary) that you will be happy if your husband reciprocates your love or your son is able to see the way you love him and return in kind. And that if that doesn’t happen you will not be happy.
If that is still the case could you change this definition of happiness to include yourself. Bring more and more things into your realm of control and try to develop that happiness bit by bit. Happiness may not be one big thing but the many small things that you do for yourself.
Take care
August 27, 2018 at 11:11 am #223261miranamParticipantDear Prash,
Oh yes, it was very supportive. Last weekend I was very distressed and reading your comments when I could not fall asleep was very comforting and produced some calm effect for me.
I agree that all the life situations are unique. Sometimes it strikes me to want extent the blogs, the books does not talk to me. It feels so weird that the most common human struggle and experience is not something I find hard to take. At the same time people tend to be much more resilient with the things I find unbearable.
To give you few examples: social anxiety, job self-doubt, financial insecurity,… These common places of suffering let me indifferent. I mean, I empathize with people on the intellectual level and trying to support them the best I can, but I don’t experience it myself on the emotional level.
However, I struggle a lot with lack of attention, of love, of close and strong connections. I put so much effort to have it. Surprisingly (or maybe not (?))Â it so hard to get for me. Most likely I am too demanding. I work on it, literally talking to myself and stopping myself from acting as demanding. But no matter what there is no big improvement in the area. And this hurts me the most. I feel like people like me, but try to avoid me. I had some feedback that the deep level of my conversations and interactions feels too much for most of them. I am trying to change this one too… Well… I don’t know.
On the other hand, when I get my “minimum” of attention and care, everything become so good and light. When I feel loved and cared for just with a little (but real) gesture, I feel strong, I feel good and happy.
As I mentioned in one of my previous post, I am naturally a happy and positive person. I just need this small portion of feeling important and significant for someone and then everything fall into places. However, without this feeling I feel miserable no matter what I have or what I do.
I am trying to understand, but cannot get my had around it. I understand the evolutionary explanation of human being social animals. Bu then why is it me who seems to be the only person who react to it so sharply? I don’t find articles, blogs, posts about this… Mostly: “stop dwelling on the past…”, “don’t be a perfectionist”, “don’t depend of others think of you”. But, again, this does not speak to me.
For your question about my definition of happiness, the answer is – yes.  I agree. I actually came to the same conclusion (intellectually though). I put some conscious effort in trying to find other source of happiness, but was not successfully so far. It feels phony. Do you know what I mean? Like if I start painting or playing piano (which I do), how is it supposed to fill the void due to the lack of human interaction? Probably I should persevere…
It might sound stupid, but do can you give me some examples?
- This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by miranam.
August 27, 2018 at 6:46 pm #223311PrashParticipantDear Miranam,
I understand and relate to a lot of things that you wrote about. People struggle with social anxiety and situations like jobs and financial security for the possible reasons that their values are based around them and they are yet to attain some level of fulfillment in those areas. For them the internal dialogue would be something like – if I am confident in this aspect of my job I will be happy or if I have an x amount of money I will be happy.
A person who already has it or has their values based elsewhere is less likely to think of them as important. When you wrote about how your deep level of conversations and interactions feels for most people, I couldn’t help but smile when I thought of similar situations that I find myself at times. I have wondered several times whether other people also think to the same extent about life in the way I do. This kind of intensity makes me hesitant to talk to others and more often than not the “introvert” tag sticks.
I understand that you are possibly not introverted but I thought I will share how I have handled some of the conversations that I felt were not at the level that I wanted. One of the things that I realized was the level of curiosity that I had in others – sadly was nothing much to speak about. Working on it has helped. Since I am naturally curious about myself the shift was not very difficult.
How do you get that minimum attention and care, that feeling of being important and significant for someone?
I feel that there is very little that you can do to ensure that another person feels that way about you simply because I believe that it is out of our area of control. But one thing is sure that when we interact with another person with that cloud of expectations over our interactions, in some way we are bound to show our disappointment. So what I try and tell myself – No expectations = no disappointments.
This has helped give me a degree of freedom to the extent that my energies are focussed on me alone and paradoxically this  helped improve a lot of my interactions.
I absolutely get what you mean when you wrote about feeling phony about other sources of happiness. But it is not about filling a void. I think it is more about creating joy for its own sake not looking at replacing something. Maybe it would give the energy needed to fill the void?
With regards to examples – again reiterating that my life situation is different from yours – re defining the degree of expectations of love to make best use of what is currently available – is that an option?
Take care
August 27, 2018 at 7:11 pm #223319PrashParticipantDear miranam,
Just thought of adding a post script related to the above.
When I read your response about how my post made you feel better, I felt really good. But even if that hadn’t been the situation, my emotional state would be neutral. That wouldn’t prevent me from feeling the positivity when it came; since I believe my role in that post ends with pressing the submit button.
No expectations = no disappointment
I understand that I am referring to totally unrelated and different situations but I believe you get what I am trying to tell you.
August 28, 2018 at 5:07 am #223357AnonymousGuestDear miranam:
In a recent post you wrote: “who would ever take care and be empathetic to such bossy and controlling woman?”, referring to yourself. In my response to you I rejected the “bossy and controlling” before considering it. I wrote to you: “You don’t come across like such to me, not throughout your threads. You’ve been reasonable.. respectful.. gracious to all who replied to you.. the opposite of bossy and controlling”
I was wrong to not ask you what you meant by bossy and controlling. I now realize that I failed to ask you lots of questions throughout your threads, here are only a few questions I failed to ask you, following quotes from you:
“I feel like people are very selfish.. selfish toward me… All the people in my life are just taking” (How has your younger son been selfish toward you, since what age, how did he take and take from you and what did he fail to give back?)
“I had few friendships on and off and they always ended with me being very disappointed… I am a very open and social person. I have a lot of empathy and always am there for people in every possible way… My core value is genuine love for people and strong ties… I don’t really have strong connections in my life.. people don’t really care about me” (When you are hurt by people, and/ or angry at people, how do you communicate your hurt and anger?)
“I always considered myself being a ‘bad guy’ in our couple” (what about your behavior led you to think of yourself as a bad guy?)
“who would ever take care and be empathetic to such bossy and controlling woman?” (how are you bossy and controlling?)
Regarding your younger son, “He always was rebellious and difficult kid… very self absorbed, arrogant and selfish… I don’t believe it is the teenager’s issue…I suffer in my family.. we always end up in argument. I cry, my son apologize and it re-start”
– I missed a huge opportunity here, to ask you to elaborate on this disturbing dynamic: “I cry, my son apologizes and it re-start”
In my communication with you I had tunnel vision. I assumed some things that weren’t true and then rejected some troubling statements you made, pushed them aside and away from my awareness simply because they didn’t fit my assumptions. I assumed that indeed you are this loving, giving woman who is not loved in return.
“I cry, my son apologizes and it re-start”- this is a very troubling statement that indicates a sick relationship between you and your son, one that you are responsible for, not him. I know this as a fact because a child is born loving his mother, eager to please her, honest and open.
anita
August 29, 2018 at 10:33 am #223603miranamParticipantDear anita,
I think we have a natural tendency to simplify complex phenomenon. Our automatic desire is to find a simple answers to the difficult questions to put things in order.
Moreover, the specificity of our interaction is that I will give you a portion of the information I am concentrating on at the moment I am writing. It might be contradictory at times. Hence, the changes in your perception.
To answer all your questions objectively and thoughtfully in order to give you enough information, I will need to write a dozen of pages, and, even after that, I donât believe you (or anyone else for that matter) will be able to get the clarity required to fully understand what happens in my family.
If my husband was a bad person, I would leave a long time ago. I know and understand his shortcoming. He has also a very good and admirable side. I also realize that I might contribute to the issues we have and I am working on it alone as well as with my therapist.
As for my younger son and your statement about kids in general, I am afraid I disagree. Some kids are born quiet and some are prone to cry more. There is an inborn part, then there is the influence of the environment. What we become when grown is the result of the combination of two. I donât think there is someone who can tell the exact proportion of their respective contribution, but my observations tell me that the inborn part is probably the one which drives, unless there is something utterly wrong in the environment.
My husband and myself we always have been very caring (maybe too caring) for our son. I think we did not give him the opportunity to learn to develop a resilience for the frustration of not getting what he wants. Well, I tried and still am, but my husband being an inborn conformist tries to avoid conflicts and resistance as much as he can. I am more resistant, but first – have my limits too and second â I donât want to play the role of the âbad copâ. I played it a lot while daddy is much cooler. Who do you think my son prefer to spend time with (not to mention common guys interests).
As for my son giving me, I was referring to think and to give a gift for the motherâs day for example. He did forget for two years in a row.
Another example of a behavior which hurts me would be the following: we went to see a movie together. I picked a parking place which he disliked, he said we should park on the other side. The when we went out, he made such a big deal about it, was arrogant and harsh. I said it is unacceptable and stopped talking to him. Later, he would apologize. And this type of things happens often. I think he has anger management issue, especially with us, because he knows he will get away with it. Mind you, even being toddler at the daycare, they told us that he has such âstrong charactersâ.
It might seem easy from the outside to deal with it. But believe me, this is not the case.
I think I will do the best I know and can to keep myself and my family together.
Thank you a lot for your time and care.
miranam
August 29, 2018 at 11:00 am #223609AnonymousGuestDear miranam:
You wrote: “my observations tell me that the inborn part is probably the one which drives, unless there is something utterly wrong in the environment”.
You described your son as “arrogant and selfish”. I would like to understand your thinking, therefore I ask:
do you believe that your son was born arrogant and selfish unlike other children who were born perhaps humble and generous or
was there something utterly wrong in the environment he was born into?
anita
August 29, 2018 at 12:18 pm #223625miranamParticipantDear anita,
None of your statements describes what I think.
Generally speaking, I think that people are born Selfish. With an ability (not a garantie) to become altruistic if properly educated.
When it comes to arrogance, I think it is a magnifestation of the inner feeling. Which in its turn is conditionned by hormonal composition as well as the environment.
When it comes to my son, I think that the anger and/or anxiety is something which he inheritated – yes. And I believe there was nothing utterly wrong in the environment. There were mistakes (see my post above), but nothing dramatic.
As much as many other people. It mades it more difficult to educate him. As much as my older son was born with âhappy geneâ. Almost never cried, always smiled when was few months old.
August 29, 2018 at 12:49 pm #223629AnonymousGuestDear miranam:
Are you saying then the following regarding your younger son ?:
1. “people are born selfish” and so, your son was born selfish as well.
2. “there was nothing utterly wrong in the environment” into which your son was born and in which he has grown up so far.
3. Your son genetically inherited “anger and/or anxiety” that led him to resist the proper education that you and your husband provided him, and therefore he did not become altruistic. Instead he remained selfish (and arrogant as well).
4. Your son’s anger at you has nothing to do with the nature of his interactions with you, his mother throughout his 13 years and everything to do with his genetics that were set before he was born?
*I will soon be away from the computer for about 15 hours.
anita
August 29, 2018 at 6:02 pm #223649PrashParticipantDear Miranam,
Posting here just to appreciate your statement – “I think I will do the best I know and can to keep myself and my family together.”
Wishing you the best for that.
Take care.
August 30, 2018 at 11:29 am #223759miranamParticipantI am definitely not an introvert, rather the opposite, which I think doesnât help. Should I be an introvert, I would be more self-sufficient and emotionally independent. I understand what you mean be âintensity makes me hesitant to talk to othersâ, except that, as opposed to you, I think I naturally âimposeâ my talk on others. The realization that they might be not interested at all comes when it is too late. While at the moment I am very positive that it is interesting for everyone. I am bad at the small talks and cheat chats and usually cannot take it for more than 5-10 minutes.
Could you please detail a bit more about the shift you made from curiosity that you had in others towards yourself?
How do I get my minimum?… This is a challenging question for me. Because, on one side â I get it. But not always. Probably it is about to have my portion of attention on a regular basis? Probably when I donât have it for a certain period of time, I start running low on supply? Almost like food? I am saying that because strangely enough, when I get it I am good to go without for some time⌠I really need to think about it. I donât have an answer right now. It is almost like I am convinced about my insignificance and in order to feel otherwise, I need reassurance. I am âthinking out loudâ here. Not sure if this is trueâŚ
You really make me review my beliefs about myself which is amazing! I thought I knew it all (ok, a bit of self-irony here).
I am familiar about the concept of lowering or suppress expectations. I am not sure I am comfortable with it, even at the theoretical level. Doesnât it come at the expense of passion for life? Maybe âshiftingâ (as you wrote) is better?
I started working on re defining the degree of expectations of love. Again, what you write resonates very well with me and the place I am right now. But, I must admit I donât have a full clarity yet. However, I think after much efforts for the past few years I slowly start acquiring a certain level of understanding. It is not an easy process for me.
Accepting and being content with what I have along with looking at the other sources of joy which makes me less dependent of others is my primary goal.
Thank you so much for encouraging me!
August 30, 2018 at 11:55 am #223775miranamParticipantDear anita,
Please see my answers below:
Are you saying then the following regarding your younger son ?:
1. âpeople are born selfishâ and so, your son was born selfish as well.
> Correct
2. âthere was nothing utterly wrong in the environmentâ into which your son was born and in which he has grown up so far.
> Correct
3. Your son genetically inherited âanger and/or anxietyâ that led him to resist the proper education that you and your husband provided him, and therefore he did not become altruistic. Instead he remained selfish (and arrogant as well).
> Not correct. I wrote : “I think we did not give him the opportunity to learn to develop a resilience for the frustration of not getting what he wants” To add, we did not establish clear boundaries of what is allowed and what is not. We are at fault for this.
4. Your son’s anger at you has nothing to do with the nature of his interactions with you, his mother throughout his 13 years and everything to do with his genetics that were set before he was born?
>Â Â This is an over simplification if what I wrote.Â
I think, sadly, we don’t get to understand each other with you any more. Maybe my English is not good enough to explain what I want.
On the other hand, I perceive you imply I am a bad mother which did not know how to interact and help her son to grow and to became a good person and that I fail to understand that I am the only one to blame. If so, I got your idea and I will think about it.
However, according to my therapist, the guilt I experience (and always experienced) prevents me from moving forward and improve my relationship with everyone, including my son. He thinks I “overdo” and might be perceived as “too much”, that I should let go more often than not. So, somehow what you show me the opposite direction and I think I will pick the path suggested by my therapist. I believe changing direction 180 degree will not do any good for me right now.
I feel sad reading what you think about me, but I don’t want to justify myself any further.
Thank you.
August 30, 2018 at 12:14 pm #223783AnonymousGuestDear miranam:
You are welcome. “we don’t get to understand each other with you any more” and “I don’t want to justify myself any further” means that you don’t want to communicate with me anymore, I think.
Unless you clearly state to me in a future post that you do want to communicate with me further (I will be away from the computer for about 16 hours), I graciously withdraw from your thread and hope you continue to post and communicate with other members.
anita
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