Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
Hello,
I spoke with an old friend today. We were friends since the third grade. She called me, which she only does when she wants to talk about her man. She was telling me that if only he would go to church her life would be better. If only he would stop drinking her life would be better. If only he would just do what she tells him to do her life would be better. I am hard pressed in my life to find any single female friend that I have who is not a WWLTM.
I meet WWLTM everywhere. At the gym, at the pool, at my son's school, in the library, at church, in the grocery store. After a few moments there are always tell-signs that give them or rather us away. We are forever hoping, praying, wishing, wanting, thinking, planning, or preparing for someone to do something so that we can be okay.
I asked my friend if she ever wondered why every single guy she has dated was addicted to something. She dismissed it and I was reminded that it really is not my job to help her decide to move forward. I listened, I oh and ah at all the right places. I was empathetic and then he called and she had to get off the phone. The next time she calls I wont call her back for days and by then what ever little tragedy that has happened will be over.
It is not that I think that I am better than her. Nor, can I forget the many times I called her with the same type of story. I really wish he, who ever he was at that moment, would do this or that and everything would be fine. I know what that hope feels like. I know what that need feels like. I know what despair and desperation taste like because I have feasted on it for years. I know enough about her to know that her step-father is an active, functioning,- if you can be one, alcoholic. I know that her mother was and is very distant and emotionally unavailable. I know that she is struggling to fight against a belief that she is not enough. She like me is a care-taker. But as I listened to her talk I realized that I had nothing to give her and really she did not want anything of substance that I could give. If I told her she should read the Book, like I have, she wont do it. If I tell her, like I have that it is not about him, she wont listen.
I like to think that eventually the pain becomes too much for any of us and we go and seek help elsewhere. But I know that- that is not true because I see many WWLTM much who are much older than me and show no signs of stopping. My neighbor was a WWLTM engaged to a drunk. My best friend is a WWLTM married to a binge drinker and occasional weed smoker- who watches endless porn and is emotionally unavailable to her and their four children.
But I guess the greater lesson here for me is why did I surround myself with women who are in distress. Because I felt like they would not judge me, because I felt safe and hidden by their inability to give me any real notice. Because looking at them makes me forget about me- at least for a while. As I listened to my friend today, I thought to myself she has never really seen me or known me past my troubles with men. But truthfully I wanted it that way. I must admit that in the past I have thought that I was not as stupid as this person or that person. My man is a drunk but he does not do cocaine. Like the drug choice matters. Oh, her man cheats on her and she keeps taking him back- I would too but I don't tell her that. She chooses her man over her kids- I love to admit that I would never do that- until I did that.
Brene Brown states that you cannot love other past the point where you can love yourself. I must admit that I have always hated WWLTM. I hated them before I knew the technical term. I hated my mother, my aunts, and every woman who acted like she could not exist without a man. I hate gossips and care-takers. Why because I hate that part of myself. I did not feel sympathy for my friend today, I felt anger. Brene Brown states that you can't even love your children past the point where you love yourself. I wanted to disagree but as she further explained it I had to see the validity in her statement. She said as your children age and you begin to see more of you in them you start to see where your capacity to love stalls out. I have been struggling with weight all of my life. My son is gaining weight and it bothers me- as much as I want to say I can love it. I don't.
I have lost 70 pounds and instead of talking down to my son about how he eats I joined a gym where he can participate. He sees me "pony" run around the track and I eat and feed him better. What I have done is to try and love him as I love myself instead of hating myself and hating his weight. But I said all of that to say that I have-no I choose to learn to love the WWLTM much in me instead of hating her.
I spoke with an old friend today. We were friends since the third grade. She called me, which she only does when she wants to talk about her man. She was telling me that if only he would go to church her life would be better. If only he would stop drinking her life would be better. If only he would just do what she tells him to do her life would be better. I am hard pressed in my life to find any single female friend that I have who is not a WWLTM.
I meet WWLTM everywhere. At the gym, at the pool, at my son's school, in the library, at church, in the grocery store. After a few moments there are always tell-signs that give them or rather us away. We are forever hoping, praying, wishing, wanting, thinking, planning, or preparing for someone to do something so that we can be okay.
I asked my friend if she ever wondered why every single guy she has dated was addicted to something. She dismissed it and I was reminded that it really is not my job to help her decide to move forward. I listened, I oh and ah at all the right places. I was empathetic and then he called and she had to get off the phone. The next time she calls I wont call her back for days and by then what ever little tragedy that has happened will be over.
It is not that I think that I am better than her. Nor, can I forget the many times I called her with the same type of story. I really wish he, who ever he was at that moment, would do this or that and everything would be fine. I know what that hope feels like. I know what that need feels like. I know what despair and desperation taste like because I have feasted on it for years. I know enough about her to know that her step-father is an active, functioning,- if you can be one, alcoholic. I know that her mother was and is very distant and emotionally unavailable. I know that she is struggling to fight against a belief that she is not enough. She like me is a care-taker. But as I listened to her talk I realized that I had nothing to give her and really she did not want anything of substance that I could give. If I told her she should read the Book, like I have, she wont do it. If I tell her, like I have that it is not about him, she wont listen.
I like to think that eventually the pain becomes too much for any of us and we go and seek help elsewhere. But I know that- that is not true because I see many WWLTM much who are much older than me and show no signs of stopping. My neighbor was a WWLTM engaged to a drunk. My best friend is a WWLTM married to a binge drinker and occasional weed smoker- who watches endless porn and is emotionally unavailable to her and their four children.
But I guess the greater lesson here for me is why did I surround myself with women who are in distress. Because I felt like they would not judge me, because I felt safe and hidden by their inability to give me any real notice. Because looking at them makes me forget about me- at least for a while. As I listened to my friend today, I thought to myself she has never really seen me or known me past my troubles with men. But truthfully I wanted it that way. I must admit that in the past I have thought that I was not as stupid as this person or that person. My man is a drunk but he does not do cocaine. Like the drug choice matters. Oh, her man cheats on her and she keeps taking him back- I would too but I don't tell her that. She chooses her man over her kids- I love to admit that I would never do that- until I did that.
Brene Brown states that you cannot love other past the point where you can love yourself. I must admit that I have always hated WWLTM. I hated them before I knew the technical term. I hated my mother, my aunts, and every woman who acted like she could not exist without a man. I hate gossips and care-takers. Why because I hate that part of myself. I did not feel sympathy for my friend today, I felt anger. Brene Brown states that you can't even love your children past the point where you love yourself. I wanted to disagree but as she further explained it I had to see the validity in her statement. She said as your children age and you begin to see more of you in them you start to see where your capacity to love stalls out. I have been struggling with weight all of my life. My son is gaining weight and it bothers me- as much as I want to say I can love it. I don't.
I have lost 70 pounds and instead of talking down to my son about how he eats I joined a gym where he can participate. He sees me "pony" run around the track and I eat and feed him better. What I have done is to try and love him as I love myself instead of hating myself and hating his weight. But I said all of that to say that I have-no I choose to learn to love the WWLTM much in me instead of hating her.
"We are complex psychological beings. We carry around 'souls' -- or at least the behaviour and beliefs -- of our parents, our grandparents and who knows what other people who influenced us in our early years. When you scold your child, you hear your mother's voice. When you criticize your lover, you sound like your dad criticizing your mother. Dybbuks: beliefs and behaviours of others, now deeply etched into our beings. They control us. They ARE us. They make correcting [self-defeating behaviour] very difficult."
I have my own theories about "ancestors" that sort of overlap with all of this, but anyway. There are many ways to explain the same thing. We're programmed SO early on. We're conditioned in ways we and the people conditioning us aren't even aware. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Some of the women you describe are old enough to have grown up at a time when the predominant parenting style was "hands off," kids were kept in line through fear and anger and it was believed that cuddling equalled coddling, i.e. created spoiled and needy little monsters. I think on a societal level, things are maybe shifting A LITTLE. For example, I have a friend, a fellow WWLTM who had the same kind of critical, hands-off upbringing I did. She spent 18 years trying to get an unavailable man to love her. In the meantime, she had a daughter who is now 10. She has made a POINT of making sure her daughter is hugged, validated, made to feel she has a voice and that her voice matters, and so on. Good for my friend for breaking the chain. But it has to be said, awareness of this kind of thing (of how early childhood experience affects later behaviour) has really come into the fore in the last 40 years. For people of my mother's generation, the information simply wasn't there.