What are you looking for?
Featured Topics
Select a topic to start reading.
After a number of years of problems in my marriage, I have taken the past few months to really work on myself, try to heal from within, and recognize my negative behaviors in order to not repeat them. I consider this a very personal journey and, mostly because of our past problems, have not shared the specifics of what I am doing (mostly reading and self reflection) with my husband. During our three hour flight last night, he again told me that I am incredibly selfish for not telling him everything. He says that focusing on myself is also incredibly selfish and that my focus should be entirely on the good of the family. Ignoring myself and putting his feelings/needs/wants first is a big part of what has gotten us to this point. I am finally understanding the importance of self love (still very much a work in progress) and am understanding that true healing and change start from within. Based on what he is saying, he appears to disagree and got angry/frustrated when I told him that we both need to work on healing from within. So, I am putting this out to the universe - is it wrong to focus on myself? Should I share every part of my process with him? Is it enough for me to tell him that I am trying and working on healing and growth?
Thank you for reading.
If you see a comment that is unsupportive or unfriendly, please report it using the flag button.
More Posts
-
My Unsent Letter
You spend your days dreaming about a certain person. Remembering shared times. In the good moments time flies by getting to know them, yet when you're alone emp...
-
A love letter to you
Dear rockstar, You just had to send me that friend request, didn’t you?!?! I’ve been in a relationship for over a year now, we live together, but I always...
"He says that focusing on myself is also incredibly selfish" full fucking STOP right there.
No! It is not "incredibly selfish" to work on you. That is a MASSIVE red flag and you know it. I won't tell you what to do but were I in your position, I'd be promptly thinking about leaving that relationship.
If the only thing he can do is criticize and drag you down, he doesn't deserve you, PERIOD. That's just my take though.
ReplyThank you. I have spent so long believing that my thoughts were invalid (both in this relationship and in others) that it can be difficult to believe my own intuition. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
ReplyOkay let me start of by saying I have never been married.
Do I believe you taking a time out to figure yourself out and practice self care is selfish? Absolutely not. Everyone should take time to themselves, reflect, and grow.
Do I think you should share that process with your husband? Honestly, I do. I mean that’s your husband. I mean I am not married and never have been married but that is what I would do. I would also want my husband do the same. In my opinion a marriage is working and building a life with someone. I believe you can not do that without being on the same page with someone. Work on yourself, grow, become a better you, but also share that with your husband. He could do the same. You guys can point things out to each other, and grow together. If you learn something about yourself, you could tell him. Maybe if you share your feelings about the situation he could share his and do the same.
Okay so I am not sure what type of person you are, but that is how I see it. I mean your husband could be a huge d**k for all I know. He could be the type of person to put you down as you try to grow. I don’t know, but if that is the case then I do not believe you should be in a relationship with a person like that honestly.
Also I should add I can be kind of an insecure person sometimes so talking things out and being on the same page with the person I am dating is a huge must for me. Honesty is key and I hate secrets. Maybe he is feeling insecure and feel like you are keeping secrets?
ReplyThank you for responding. Throughout most of our marriage, sharing my thoughts and feelings with my husband has not gone well. He has a habit of using my words against me, and loves to bring up past mistakes whenever he is displeased with me. In return, I shut down. It is less painful to hear the anger/frustration for my shutting down than to hear my words and deeds used against me. I have caused him pain and he has caused me pain, and that pain impacts both of us very deeply. In the past, my way of dealing with our issues was to work harder at being/doing/dressing/acting how he wanted. Clearly, this did not work and caused me immense amounts of pain and grief. To be told that I am not enough, and have never been enough, is hard to take. Eventually, I could no longer do that anymore, and I lashed out. It was breaking me. Occasionally in the past, I would speak out and say that something was bothering me. This was not well met by him. This makes it harder to be open with him. He has expressed to me that I "never" open up to him and that I have "never" given him all of myself throughout our marriage. For the first several years, I gave him everything I had, and I told him so last night. He responded by saying that I may think that I was giving him everything, but he knows that I was not. I have no mechanism to respond to that. I am secure in the belief that I gave him my everything (while understanding that placating him in everything was not healthy). He appears to be equally secure in the belief that I have never given him my everything. This is an impasse that I do not know how to overcome. I am trying to find the best way to heal myself and protect myself. I do tell him that I am working on myself and I tell him that I am reading and working on self-reflection, but I do not tell him every book/article I read. Last night he asked me for an ETA on when I will be finished so I can "get back in the game" and focus on my family. I am not baking a cake - I cannot know that I will be "fixed" by a specific date/time. I DO appreciate what you are saying and It may be worth giving him more specific information about my inner process, though I still do not see how I can give him an ETA. Thank you.
ReplyIt's not always wrong to be selfish. But whenever you do something that's "just wrong", it's always selfish in a way. Because it always involves disrespecting others and being very egoic. Even self harming actions are done to preserve what the person doing the actions believes to be right regardless of how others feel or believe. This is the work of the ego. The REAL Satan.
ReplyThank you for responding. In all honestly, we have each done things that are "just wrong" and were extremely harmful to one another. It is those harms that make it difficult for me to open up about how I am trying to heal myself. I just don't feel that he is a "safe space" (I cannot think of a better term right now) to share what I am learning about myself and what I am working to fix/heal in myself. He has used my history against me too many times. I am understanding more and more my own self harm and what has driven me/what I have driven myself to behave that way. I am working a lot to understand where his actions have helped push me and how holding onto the blame helped push me (he says that he did his harmful things because I did not give him what he wanted/needed), while also recognizing and acknowledging that I alone took the steps that caused him harm. In other words, he may have helped push me to the edge, but I alone jumped. I am getting better at letting go of the years of blame that I have held onto, and I have been working to atone for the harm that I caused him. Thank you.
Reply