Loving Him Without Losing You (7 page)

It turns out that Michelle had broken up with Carl several times before, but she always went back. When I asked her why, she explained, “I get lonely and I’m afraid I won’t find another man who loves me as much as Carl does. I start thinking about the good times we’ve had and that maybe it is all my fault—if I’d just do the things he asks of me we could be happy. I end up call- ing him up and we end up having great sex together and before I know it I’m over there all the time again.

“I don’t want to keep going back and forth. It isn’t good for my son and it makes me feel like an idiot to keep breaking up and going back together all the time. My friends think I’m nuts. I want to figure out whether I want to be with him once and for all.”

Anna had been married for twenty-six years when she finally got the strength to leave her husband. Devastated, she packed up and moved to another state in an attempt to get a new start. For four months she spent most of her time in bed, either crying or sleeping. She was so severely depressed that she would sometimes spend days without eating or seeing anyone.

Finally, after a visit from her twenty-two-year-old daughter, who was horrified to see her mother in that condition, she was convinced to seek pro- fessional help.

Over the months that followed, Anna told me horror stories about what she had put up with from her former husband—severe emotional abuse, numerous extramarital affairs, and eventually, physical abuse when she finally confronted him. And yet it was taking all her strength not to give in to her desire to go back to him, back to the life that defined her for so many years. “I don’t know who I am now. I’m not a wife, I don’t even feel like a mother anymore (she had three grown children). I feel like just a lump sitting here taking up space. I thought it was bad living with John, but this is worse. The pain is unbearable.”

As the weeks and the months progressed, I discovered that Anna had been severely emotionally deprived as a child. Her mother, an extremely selfish

woman, refused to give in to what she considered Anna’s “unreasonable demands” for attention. Only two weeks after Anna was born, she left her in her alcoholic father’s care and returned to work. What occurred while her father cared for her was uncertain, because Anna had very little memory of him or of their time together. What was clear was the pervasive rejection she received from her mother her entire childhood.

Anna began dating boys when she was only thirteen and started having sex shortly afterward. She remembered that she loved the attention she got from boys, but she knew all they really wanted was sex. It wasn’t until she started dating John during her senior year that she felt loved for the first time in her life. “John was different from all the other boys. He really cared about me, how I felt, what I was interested in.” When he asked her to marry him after graduation, she confessed that she agreed partly because no one had ever been as kind to her and partly because her mother informed her she was no longer welcome to live at home once she turned eighteen.

Although she had done very well in school and could have gotten a schol- arship to nearly any college she’d applied for, Anna didn’t have the emotional strength to forge a life on her own. Instead, she married a man she didn’t really love in exchange for the security of being loved. Predictably, John eventually discovered that Anna didn’t really love him. Through the years his love turned into hate, and he started looking elsewhere for someone who could give him the affection and adoration he craved.

Still unwilling and unable to strike out on her own, Anna clung to the marriage, trying desperately to please John in any way she could. The more she put up with his philandering, the less he respected her, and eventually he began to emotionally abuse and verbally degrade her.

Now, all alone and with no one to cling to, Anna was having to confront her feelings of emptiness for the first time, feelings that had plagued her since infancy. Therapy with Anna was going to take the form of reparenting her, essentially providing for Anna what she had missed as a child—the sounding board, the unconditional regard, and the structure she so desperately needed to develop a true self.

The Real Differences

As you can see, there are some similarities among Susan, Michelle, and Anna. All three women focused far too much attention on attracting or keep- ing a man, making significant sacrifices along the way. Susan sacrificed her female friends, Michelle sacrificed her ability to achieve a healthy relation- ship by staying in an abusive one, and Anna sacrificed her entire identity.

The differences among them lie not only in the type of sacrifices they were willing to make but also in the extent to which their lives have been affected by their tendency to lose themselves in a relationship. Susan lost her friends by dumping them for a boyfriend, but she didn’t lose herself entirely. By all reports she had a healthy enough relationship with the man she was involved with (although she continued to put the relationship ahead of every- thing else). And even though she held on way past the time when the relation- ship should have ended, they did end their relationship amiably. Unfortunately, when the relationship ended, she had no support system in place to help her recover from the pain and the loss since she had alienated all her friends.

Michelle, on the other hand, lost more than the few friends who tired of her vacillating with Carl. Each time she returned to Carl, she lost more of her self-respect. And by staying with Carl and allowing him to emotionally abuse her with his constant criticism, over time her self-esteem was slowly being eroded. Not only this, but also her sense of reality was progressively becom- ing more and more distorted until she wasn’t certain when Carl was right and when he wasn’t.

Anna lost even more. By marrying for security, she robbed herself of the experience of real love. And by staying in her marriage, she sacrificed her chance to develop a true self as opposed to living only through another person.

The biggest differences among the women lie in their backgrounds. Although Susan was not my client, she had shared with me a great deal about her fam- ily background. She grew up in a seemingly normal family as an only child. Her mother stayed home while her father worked. Her mother was a typical housewife of the times, keeping an immaculate house and preparing three full meals a day. While she was attentive and loving to Susan during the day, as soon as her father came home from work, her focus became directed prima- rily on her husband, whom she fawned over for the rest of the evening.

Not only did Susan learn early on that her father’s needs were more important than her own, but she learned from her mother’s example that men were more important than women. We can see why Susan grew up devaluing her female friends and placing the needs of men ahead of not only those of women but also those of her own. Since Susan received adequate bonding with her mother, and since the cause of her disappearing act was primarily cultural as opposed to psychological, she developed only a mild version of the Disappearing Woman syndrome.

Michelle came from a large family in the Midwest. She had three older brothers and two younger sisters. Although her mother was too busy to give

her much individual attention, she appears to have bonded sufficiently with her, and Michelle always felt loved by her. Her father, on the other hand, was extremely critical and domineering. In his words, he ran a “tight ship,” expect- ing the children to excel in school as well as to do extensive chores after school. No matter how well Michelle did, however, her father was never sat- isfied. He always insisted she could do better.

Her father was also extremely rigid when it came to socializing. As a young girl Michelle was never allowed to go to friends’ houses, and the girls weren’t allowed to date until they were eighteen. When she did begin to date, her father constantly accused her of being promiscuous.

While Michelle was saved from having a more extreme version of the problem by the fact that her mother had bonded with her, her father’s domi- nance, hypercriticalness, and possessiveness could be categorized as emo- tional abuse. Emotional abuse eats away at people’s self-esteem, causing them to doubt their perceptions and their ability to love and be loved. The fact that Michelle had chosen an emotionally abusive boyfriend and one who restricted her social interactions is by no means a coincidence. In essence, she had become involved with a man just like her father in her attempts to work out her unfinished business with him. She not only didn’t have the confidence to break up with Carl for fear that no other man would love her, but she was neurotically attached to him in her attempts to work out her conflict with her father. This placed her in the middle of the continuum.

Anna clearly suffers from an extreme version of the problem due to the lack of bonding and severe neglect by her mother. This, coupled with the fact that she was essentially raised by her alcoholic father, who provided no struc- ture, limits, or boundaries, prevented Anna from developing a true identity. Instead, she developed a “false self ” designed to please others and hide her real feelings.

If you are still unclear where you fall on the continuum, the following questionnaire will help.

Childhood History Questionnaire

1. Did your mother tend to be distant or aloof toward you as a small child?
   

2. Was your mother unable to take care of you when you were an infant for any reason (illness, absence)?
   

3. As a young child were you adopted, placed in a foster home, or sent to live somewhere outside the family home?
   

4. Did either of your parents die when you were a child?
   

5. Did your parents divorce or separate when you were a child or adolescent?
   

6. Do you feel that you were deprived of physical affection as a child?
   

7. Do you feel that your emotional needs such as being listened to, being encouraged, or being complimented were not met as a child?
   

8. Did your parents neglect to provide you with adequate supervision, leav- ing you alone for long periods of time in your home or car?
   

9. Did your parents seem to be too busy to bother with you? To ask about your homework or talk to you about your feelings?
   

10. Was one or were both of your parents excessive drinkers or alcoholics, or did either of your parents use drugs?
    

11. Was one or were both of your parents extremely critical or domineering?
    

12. Did you find that it was difficult to please one or both of your parents, or did you get the impression that no matter what you did, your parent or parents would never approve of you?
    

13. Were either of your parents extremely possessive of you, not wanting you to have your own friends or activities outside the home?
    

14. Did either of your parents treat you as a confidante or seek emotional comfort from you?
    

15. Did either of your parents ever physically abuse you?
    

16. Were you ever sexually abused by a parent or other authority figure?
    

17. Were either of your parents emotionally incestuous with you—either by looking at you in a sexual way, asking you inappropriate sexual questions, walking around half dressed or naked in front of you, or expecting you to meet their emotional needs, such as taking the place of an absent partner?
    

18. Was a sibling ever emotionally incestuous or sexually abusive toward you?
    

19. Did you ever run away from home?
    

20. Did you ever feel so enraged with one of your parents or siblings that you seriously wanted to kill him or her?
    

Give yourself five points each for answering yes to questions 1 to 5, and 15 to 20. Give yourself three points each for answering yes to questions 6 to 14.

If you answered yes to
any
of the above questions, the cause of your prob- lem is not confined to cultural conditioning and biological factors. You may,

however, score as many as eight points and be on the border between a milder version of the problem and a moderate version.

If you scored more than eight points, your life experiences have differ- entiated you from those women who suffer from a milder version of the Dis- appearing Woman syndrome brought on by cultural and biological factors. This means that you will have to work a bit harder to overcome your tendency to lose yourself in relationships with men by doing the work suggested in part

1. It also means that unless you have already done so, you need to focus on healing the damage caused by the loss, neglect, or abuse you suffered as a child by joining a group such as those offered for adult children of alcoholics or survivors of sexual abuse.
   

   If you scored more than twenty points total or if you answered yes to more than two of questions 1 to 5 or 15 to 20, it is probable, but not absolutely cer- tain, that you suffer from a more extreme version of the problem and there- fore fall at the extreme end of the continuum.
   

   How to Distinguish between Moderate and Extreme
   

   By far the most significant factor in determining whether you fall at the mod- erate or the extreme end of the continuum is whether you had an adequate bonding experience with your primary caretaker and whether you received what is referred to as “good enough” parenting. Basically, good enough par- enting means that as an infant and toddler your emotional and physical needs were adequately met, your primary caretakers were reasonably consistent and available, and you were given adequate supervision, protection, and nutri- tion. Without these important stepping-stones a child cannot develop the nec- essary foundation to develop into a healthy adult. A child who is neglected in this way doesn’t develop a coherent, enduring sense of self. She is filled with a feeling of emptiness that can only be filled with external sources of support. For example, those whose mothers had several other small children to take care of or who became pregnant again while still caring for another infant are often shortchanged when it comes to nurturing and attention. This
   

   is the case with Roni:
   

   “When I was born my sister Carrie was only a year old and my mother had three other kids to take care of. She just didn’t have time for me. My older brother Mark told me he remembered me lying in my crib crying all the time. He said he’d come in and put a pacifier in my mouth and try to soothe me but Mama would just let me cry myself to sleep.”
   

   As it was in Roni’s situation, it generally isn’t only the fact that the mother is too busy to care for each child adequately, it is also the attitude the
   

   mother has toward her children that determines whether they feel loved and cared for:
   

   Roni said: “I don’t ever remember my mother holding me when I was lit- tle. All I remember is following her around, tugging on her skirt, trying to get her to pick me up or pay attention to me. It was as if I was invisible to her.”
   

   Even if you did indeed receive adequate bonding and parenting as an infant and small child, suffering from the loss of your primary caretaker, particularly in early childhood, due to illness, divorce, death, or other factors, can cause problems serious enough to place you on the extreme end of the continuum. Finally, severe and/or prolonged emotional, physical, or sexual abuse can also cause you to suffer from an extreme version of the problem.
   

   In most instances there are multiple factors contributing to an extreme version of the problem—an inadequate bonding experience with at least one primary caretaker, the long-term absence or loss of one or both parents, severe neglect, a pervasive feeling of being rejected by a parent, and an expe- rience of some form of abuse during the early years of development.
   

   This means that some of you who suffered from neglect and abuse in childhood will fall within the moderate range on the continuum, while oth- ers will fall in the extreme range. The reason is that it is not the neglect or the abuse alone, whether it be physical, emotional, or sexual, that determines how damaged you were as a child. Some people who experienced especially trau- matic abuse are less affected than those who suffered less abuse. For this rea- son, knowledgeable therapists emphasize the entire context of the experience of childhood trauma rather than isolated actual events.
   

   Despite the impact of abuse on a child’s psychological development, other contributing factors are of equal or more importance, namely whether you got off to a good start developmentally, the environment in which the abuse occurred, and the support or lack of support you received from others following the abuse experience.
   

   While it is often a neglectful family environment that allows sexual abuse to occur, those victims who were also neglected will inevitably suffer more adverse effects from the abuse than those who were nurtured both before and after the abuse experience.
   

   For example, if your mother was unable to emotionally bond with you when you were an infant and you were then sexually abused by your father from ages five to ten, you not only were traumatized by the abuse experience but you also did not have the emotional foundation to help you cope with the experience. In addition, because you were not emotionally close to your mother, you would be less inclined to tell her about the abuse and feel that you were on your own without any hope for rescue.