Saturday Night
Day 3 of 365 - Man Break
Weekends are usually tough for me because those are the nights I associate with dating and being with someone. Fortunately for me this Saturday night I'm okay with being with me. My son is at a sleepover and my daughter is at the movies with her friend and it's peaceful having some time alone. I plan to curl up with a movie and relax. Something I definitely need to do. I'm okay being with myself. I enjoy my own company so sometimes I wonder why I am so needy for a man.
Is it society? Is it pressure from friends and family? Is it pressure I put on myself?
Being alone is not that hard for me but FEELING alone is different. I would like to understand where that loneliness inside myself comes from. Why do I think a man will make it better? I'm trying to figure out what it is missing within myself that I so want to fill.
Weekends are usually tough for me because those are the nights I associate with dating and being with someone. Fortunately for me this Saturday night I'm okay with being with me. My son is at a sleepover and my daughter is at the movies with her friend and it's peaceful having some time alone. I plan to curl up with a movie and relax. Something I definitely need to do. I'm okay being with myself. I enjoy my own company so sometimes I wonder why I am so needy for a man.
Is it society? Is it pressure from friends and family? Is it pressure I put on myself?
Being alone is not that hard for me but FEELING alone is different. I would like to understand where that loneliness inside myself comes from. Why do I think a man will make it better? I'm trying to figure out what it is missing within myself that I so want to fill.
Replies
Yeah I think it is just an emptiness within that was never fulfilled by parents in our childhood when it was supposed to be. So now we are still seeking someone to fill that void for us. At certain stages of our childhood, we require certain things from our parents. One of those things is love, affection, and approval from our parents. I\'m not sure about your childhood but I never received that from my parents. So I constantly tried and tried and tried to get them to love me. I\'ve always been a people pleaser, going out of my way to attempt to get ppl to accept me.
When parents give that to children, children grow up into healthy adults w/ a healthy sense of self esteem. They received that esteem from parents and then learned that they were worthy and loved themselves as adults. When we don\'t get that from parents, we continue to go through our lives trying to get it from others. Unfortunately this leads to being drawn and drawing in very unhealthy men who are preying on women w/ low self esteem. Until we break the cycle by learning how to love ourselves the way our parents never did. And that takes a long time. Think of how long during our childhoods we would have gotten that. And we have to go back and re-parent ourselves now, as adults. It\'s a lot of work. Slowly, we will fill that hole.
I think it is all 3 of these:
Is it society? Is it pressure from friends and family? Is it pressure I put on myself?
I do not think it is possible to seperate ourselves from societal expectations and being read fairly tales from the time we were small.
It takes a lot of conscious effort to understand and stop buying into all of hype. You will never find happiness within a relationship until you are fine being alone.
AS I did always try to get my mother to love me. It always seemed like I NEVER was able to please her. So I tried to please everyone else and not rock the boat. I am certain that my lack of self-esteem is what led me to all these horrible men. I was desperate for love. For someone to look after me and tell me I was okay. To feel like I belonged somewhere. That\'s important to me...a sense of belonging.
Susy I have been doing lots of work and sometimes I\'m not sure which direction to turn. How do I get to that place? It is not enough to just have knowledge...something has to be done with that knowledge so that it becomes a feeling rather than a thought.
I will keep on keeping on. I know one day I will get there.
Such good stuff in here, I think.
This - \"I do not think it is possible to seperate ourselves from societal expectations and being read fairly tales from the time we were small.\" - from Susy. So true.
For me, it takes a truth, not just an understanding of the lie. I can\'t seem to gain much ground until I have both in place. I have to learn what\'s true or else I find I\'m just replacing one lie with another. I also have to understand the lie, why I bought it, and what is false about it. Then, repeat with seemingly endless areas in my life :)
On this, \"How do I get to that place?\" I feel that way sometimes. Pageo talks aboutt being more focused on the process rather than the end. Codependency liturature talks about focusing on progress rather than perfection. There are other ways of wording it. I seem to forget it often, but it\'s refreshing when I remember and keep that perspective. Right now, I\'m enjoying the journey a lot more than I was enjoying the journey 6 months ago. If my journey does nothing but gradually become more enjoyable overall, I think I can be happy about that. I\'ll never get there. Instead, I\'ll get to lots of there\'s along the way.
That\'s good. I think I need to remember that. As perfectionistic as I am I often think I have gotten nowhere until I am perfect again but I like your thinking there. It\'s a little like enjoying the moment. One day at a time. It\'s a good thing to remember. And I have made a lot of progress....thanks for reminding me!