by anxietybucket » Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:37 am
I'm back in the bathroom again, 3 years old, telling my Mum that I love her much more than I love Dad. I can't remember the response or why I was saying that, but I clearly remember my Dad walking past at that exact moment. I remember the guilt I felt that he had heard me say this.
I remember that I felt I had to love my Mum more, because she demanded more, but I didn’t want my Dad to feel left out. I wanted them to feel equally loved. And when they didn’t love each other, I felt I had to make up for that love by providing them with more.
During my relationship, I have always felt a need and anxiety to balance up my love for everyone - to spend equal amounts of time with my partner and my family, to ensure my Mum still feels just as loved as my partner, even though the love is different. To make sure my Mum feels as though I am happiest with her, not with anyone else.
I have felt anxious about spending time with friends, because what if my family or partner don't feel loved enough? I associate time with love, and love with time, because I felt I needed to be with my Mum to make her feel loved and less lonely.
Does love=time? In some situations I don't think so. Friends understand that I don't see or speak to them all the time, but then I keep them at arms length, and perhaps I would feel differently about this if I had close friends.
I don't expect people to give up their time for me, in fact it makes me downright uncomfortable when people give up their time for me.
I think the belief that love=time goes back to my relationship with my Mum - she was, and is, so lonely. My Dad doesn't spend time with her, and never really has, so I would spend time with her to make up for it. Concert after boring concert, years accompanying her to church, sitting with her hour after hour to make her feel that she had company. To make her feel that she was loved when my Dad certainly doesn't show any love to her.
But that isn't a realistic belief. Yes, you need to spend time with those you love, and yes, you might sometimes need to go along with something that isn't really your thing, but the key is quality - an hour spent having a chat with someone is better than spending three hours sat silently by their side. And I think it's also about mutuality - I gave and gave and gave to my Mum, but only received when what I was interested matched what she was interested in. Anything outside her interest - I was on my own.
Love is not measurable - you can't take a ruler or a test tube to love, and you can't maintain a set level of 100%. You can love everyone, but not equally.
Right now I feel that I have to prove my love for my partner by being there with him and only him. I don't want to see friends, I don't want to do anything except be there for him. Perhaps this is an echo of my relationship with my Mum.
I know this isn't something my partner would want or encourage - he wants me to see friends, to have my own interests, and my own happiness away from him. That's what gives us conversation and energy - that I can share my experiences, my interests and joys with him, and he can do the same. I know that spending all your time on one person is not healthy - I learned that with my Mum - so I need to challenge that belief.
I'm starting to - I'm meeting work friends for coffee, I'm looking at courses and activities which interest me, and these things pull on my anxiety. I think 'what if I do this and I enjoy it, and I'm enjoying myself more there than with my partner?' - what a bizarre train of thought, and one which isn't true. In fact, the reverse is true - it's easier to feel love for my partner when I'm doing something for me.
I really worried about not spending enough time with my partner in the run up to all my anxiety spilling out. A heavy workload and family troubles meant that I was constantly running about, and I felt that I wasn't giving my partner enough love. I felt guilty, just as I felt guilty every time I wasn't with my Mum. Again this isn't something my partner instills in me, and he would be horrified that I even thought like that - it comes from my own warped belief that I need to give everything to everyone I love, and divide it all out equally.
I started self-consciously punishing myself - negative thoughts about myself, not allowing myself to be happy in different situations. It's made me realise that I'm shrinking myself down because I feel ashamed that I haven't given him equal amounts of love. I know in reality that he doesn't expect this - far from it - but my previous experience of trying to give my Mum everything has made me follow a similar pattern, because I shrink myself down for her. It's made me project the resentment I feel onto my partner, when in fact he loves me just as I am and encourages me to grow. The complete opposite of my Mum.
I have cut out so much of my life for my Mum. I don't want to feel that I am happy anywhere else, in case she feels that she isn't enough, or in case she feels lonely. I treat time away from her - whether on my own, with my partner or with friends - with great guilt. The guilt has been there for decades, but it has come to a head now that I am moving out.
I won't be spending hours of the day sitting with her. I won't see her everyday, I won't be able to check that she is okay in the flesh. If she is lonely, she will have to find a way through, if she feels trapped and attacked by my Dad then she will need to find her own way through. I can't be there to make her happy any more, and that fills me with guilt.
I can't give love equally, because love is immeasurable. I can't give time equally, because demands on time are always shifting, not just for me but for everyone. With regards to my partner, I can protect one evening a week where it is just the two of us, shutting the world out for the evening and talking and watching movies and just being together.
I wish I could say the same for my Mum - that I will spend a couple of hours a week with her enjoying our time together. but I can't do that. I'm too hurt by her, and have concealed myself from her for too long to just switch back to having a healthy relationship again. I have more work to do here.
Things I need to work on:
- Accepting that I cannot love everyone equally, nor can I give everyone equal amounts of time.
- Accepting that whilst I can't love everyone equally, it's okay to love more than one person in my life.
- I have to love myself too - allow myself to enjoy my own interests without feeling guilty.
- Exploring the feelings I have around my Mum
- Stop projecting my resentment onto my partner, who loves me just as I am.