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.
In the last few years of my marriage, I was obsessed with numbers and budgeting. Every single expense on our credit cards or current accounts was coded and tabulated on to an excel spreadsheet and every second day or so I updated the numbers. Basically I knew how we spent every cent of our money. I would check the supermarket receipts to see if I was charged the right amount and if I ever came across a incorrectly charged amount, I would get my husband to drive me back and get the refund, even if it was only a dollar or two. If I couldn’t get my numbers to balance down the last cent, I would spend hours agonizing over it. I was obsessed.
On the surface of it, I was being a good wife and housekeeper, managing my money and making it go further. But if you dug deeper as to why I was doing all this, the picture was murkier. Things were very out of control in my marriage. My husband spent most of his free time playing golf and when he was home, he was either; sleeping, watching sports on TV or practicing his golf swing. We were completely disconnected and disengaged from each other. He constantly complained about his job and I kept trying to fix things by moving cities and countries and offering to let him stay home and play golf while I supported us. Anything to make him happy. Yet nothing was working. I was throwing everything I had at it to fix it, but all to no avail. So instead, I tried to get some sense of control back in my life by controlling my money. The more out of control my marriage felt, the more I needed to stay in control of my money. If my husband charged anything at all to our account, I would question him endlessly about it so I could add that to my spreadsheet.
The lie I told myself was if I had complete control over where every cent went, then my life was all ok. It was a big fat lie, my life and marriage was in shambles, but I couldn’t see it. It is only in the last couple of years I have come to realise what lay behind my need to control money. And that came about when I learned that the reason my autistic son lined up his toy cars or had his particular routines he needed to do every day was because the rest of the time his world felt very out of control and being able to control one particular thing in his life made him feel better. It was a coping mechanism.
It is not just money we control when we have stuff going on in our lives that we aren’t happy with. My ex boyfriend said to me after we broke up that driving fast over long distances was how he felt like he was in control. He was confident of his ability to drive the car and pushing it to the limit while maintaining control made him feel better. Another friend of mine who works as a PA and has a busy life managing school activities and t hejob with other social activities is an organising freak. Every activity is written up on a bit blackboard calendar in their hallway and all the shopping is done fortnightly online, everything in the pantry is in labelled containers and even the Lego her children play with is sorted into labelled containers. Yet another friend of mine is obsessed about food. Everything her children eat is organic and sugar free and homemade..
All of these obsessions are harmless as long as they don’t go to extremes. But when they do, they are symptomatic of the fact that you are feeling like something else is out of control in your life. In those situations we need to have the necessary awareness to recognize that fact and examine the other areas of our lives to see why we feel like that. Personally I now know that when I am getting obsessed about my budgeting spreadsheet, I need to step back and figure out what’s going on and if necessary, take action to remedy the situation.
Do you have things you like to feel in control of and if you do, can you think of what you are using that as a substitute for? This is just my personal experience and interpretation..Really keen to hear what you think. Thank you.
On the surface of it, I was being a good wife and housekeeper, managing my money and making it go further. But if you dug deeper as to why I was doing all this, the picture was murkier. Things were very out of control in my marriage. My husband spent most of his free time playing golf and when he was home, he was either; sleeping, watching sports on TV or practicing his golf swing. We were completely disconnected and disengaged from each other. He constantly complained about his job and I kept trying to fix things by moving cities and countries and offering to let him stay home and play golf while I supported us. Anything to make him happy. Yet nothing was working. I was throwing everything I had at it to fix it, but all to no avail. So instead, I tried to get some sense of control back in my life by controlling my money. The more out of control my marriage felt, the more I needed to stay in control of my money. If my husband charged anything at all to our account, I would question him endlessly about it so I could add that to my spreadsheet.
The lie I told myself was if I had complete control over where every cent went, then my life was all ok. It was a big fat lie, my life and marriage was in shambles, but I couldn’t see it. It is only in the last couple of years I have come to realise what lay behind my need to control money. And that came about when I learned that the reason my autistic son lined up his toy cars or had his particular routines he needed to do every day was because the rest of the time his world felt very out of control and being able to control one particular thing in his life made him feel better. It was a coping mechanism.
It is not just money we control when we have stuff going on in our lives that we aren’t happy with. My ex boyfriend said to me after we broke up that driving fast over long distances was how he felt like he was in control. He was confident of his ability to drive the car and pushing it to the limit while maintaining control made him feel better. Another friend of mine who works as a PA and has a busy life managing school activities and t hejob with other social activities is an organising freak. Every activity is written up on a bit blackboard calendar in their hallway and all the shopping is done fortnightly online, everything in the pantry is in labelled containers and even the Lego her children play with is sorted into labelled containers. Yet another friend of mine is obsessed about food. Everything her children eat is organic and sugar free and homemade..
All of these obsessions are harmless as long as they don’t go to extremes. But when they do, they are symptomatic of the fact that you are feeling like something else is out of control in your life. In those situations we need to have the necessary awareness to recognize that fact and examine the other areas of our lives to see why we feel like that. Personally I now know that when I am getting obsessed about my budgeting spreadsheet, I need to step back and figure out what’s going on and if necessary, take action to remedy the situation.
Do you have things you like to feel in control of and if you do, can you think of what you are using that as a substitute for? This is just my personal experience and interpretation..Really keen to hear what you think. Thank you.
Another great post. I read it hungrily so that I could respond. And by the way you have a fan in me who gets excited every time I see your heading pop up. I love it and I think you are really onto something great here.
I agree that we control what we think we can control when we feel out of control. I realize that at times I have tried to control my money when I was in fear of being able to take care of me and my son. I made myself believe that money was the answer to all of our problems. Now, I have a pretty good amount in saving and I am still scared shitless about all the things in my life that I can not control. I think for me my greatest control factor has been about controlling people-including my son. Like the money I believed that if I could get people to act a certain way all the time I would feel no discomfort. My desire equated to trying to get a hundred flies to all sit down at the same time. It was a futile attempt that took me years to stop doing. I have tried to control my weight- thinking that a perfect number on the scale would make me feel safe, I have used my car, the mail that appears in my mail box, and sadly I watch my son like a hawk. Always controlling, always trying to stay one step ahead of the black hole of uncertainty
When I was in my last relationship I attempted to control every aspect of his life, how he raised his kids, how he spent his money, how he dealt with his friends-family. I know I said the words we need to "talk about our relationship" at least once a day. I was unhappy, I was unfulfilled in my own life, I was scared shitless that I was not worthy, that things would never work out for me. I thought that by controlling him I would feel safe and secure in myself.
After my husband died, I wanted my son to be happy all the time- to his detriment and my own. I was unable to deal with any pain including his. Trying to make a small child happy all the time is impossible nor was it necessary but I believed that if he smiled and laughed he would not notice that his father was gone. Now, that I write that I remember how my ex used to try to make his sons laugh all the time. I used to tell him that he was doing that to avoid dealing with real things that were blaring in their relationships. Now, I realize that I was doing the same thing with my son and ignoring it in myself.
I think in order to stop trying to control and aspect of our lives- we have to surrender to the uncertainty that is present in life. No thing is certain- no thing is promised to us there comes a time when we have to believe that no matter what shows up we will be okay. I am not there yet but I hope to have that understanding one day.
After re-reading the book recently though, I have a little hope that finally, maybe just now, I am ready to find me. I don't know what this means, but the book outlines what we need to do to become healthy. It lists the steps one by one. That in itself is a blessing.
The one thing I picked out right away was "stop controlling and managing HIM." I caught myself almost every time I wanted to say something this weekend was about what HE was or was not doing. ( The BF). I was amazed at how much I think about him and his life. What I think is good for him. How I can fix him. Make him a better person in my book. It's all about him. Maybe that is because the rest of my life is so out of control. And most of all maybe that is because I do not know how to focus on me.
Why is it that I do not matter? Why is it that I think my way is the good way? Why can I let my kids make mistakes and myself, but not HIM? The need to control HIM in my life is so great that it saddens me.
The book also talked about the "game". By playing the game I can control the situation by keeping it going. Keeping the chaos going. I thrive on the excitement of the battle because I have created no excitement for myself. I NEED to control him to feel useful and worthy. I am realizing just how sick I am.
I controlled my whole marriage. I did whatever I wanted, but all I really wanted was for him to love me. But you cannot control love. I tried to book expensive vacations every 3 months so that WE could spend time together and then he would love me. It was just his work and our daily life that was getting in the way. Then it became...HE is not happy living in the snow so we moved. Again it was all my doing. I picked when and where we were going to live, based on what might make HIM happier and then for sure he would love me. Problem is that where we moved to only made him isolate more and myself more miserable.
It all reminds me of when I was drinking. I would do crazy things and feel so remorseful the next day.I could never understand why I could not control my drinking? Why I did things that were harmful to me? When I found out about alcoholism, I was relieved. There was a cure and I alone could never control it. So I think there is a cure for this loving too much and it starts with letting go of controlling others and things in our lives that we really have no control over. The book also says to BEWARE that when we give up this controlling and managing we could be left feeling very empty. That is how I am beginning to feel. Empty.
xxx
Izzy, I left out controlling people as part of my post because I knew one of you would have been better qualified to comment on it than me and you have given a brilliant illustration. Throughout my marriage I kept asking my husband "are you happy?" I wanted him to be happy all the time very much like you wanted your children to be. He was depressed and whether he was happy or not was his problem not mine, but that didn't stop me trying to fix things. I love your example of trying to get a hundred flies to sit at the same time:)...
I think a lot of this goes back to our childhoods much like the other things in our lives. One, we never learned to cope healthily with that feeling of being out of control and two we thought everything was our responsibility to fix. We are still child like in our behaviour.
Learning to surrender or let go is extremely frightening to us. When I had to let my son go and live with his father and the new partner for part of the week I very nearly had a breakdown. Maybe I did have one, but came through it with the intervention of several people who came into my life just at that time. What I did discover was once I did let go completely, how much better my life was. It didn't mean a switch was flicked and I learned to let go of everything I controlled. But it stopped that awful panicky feeling that sits in the pit of your stomach when you know you couldn't close your eyes even for one moment in case it went wrong.
In my recent relationship, I kept a tight rein on my bf in case he went back to his old life of prostitutes, massage palours and strip clubs and every time we broke up previously, I kept getting back together because I couldn't stand the thought of him doing it. And that was 4 breakups just this year alone. And Shani, just like you when I finally let go 4 weeks ago, I realised I didn't actually like him or respect him. The good news has been letting go completely has given me this enormous sense of relief and my life feels so much better. But I had to go through the process and be ready for it this time around. The most important realisation was it was not my responsibility to keep save him from himself.
Shani, I can understand how lost you are feeling. But you seem to have a very good understanding of why you are feeling the way you are feeling and that awareness will see you through this difficult time. There is light at the end of the tunnel and life is so much better once you get through to the other side. My thoughts are with you as you sit with that feeling of being lost. You are a strong woman and I believe you are more than halfway there already...
Sunny, you bring up a very interesting aspect to this need to control and if you could share a bit more of your story I believe we could all learn something from it..
Also, I would be interested to hear if anyone knows how we can channel this need to control in a healthy manner? A game we could play or a craft we could take up that helps us deal with difficult times. Or maybe the answer is to train ourselves to let go using various exercises. Any and all thoughts are welcome in this space of learning from each other. Thank you.