Work in Progress

My husband told me of an announcement made by a friend of his... that his wife has 2 little babies growing in her belly and how overcome with emotion the man was at telling the good news.

He and I both know how much we missed this joy for us because he could not step outside of his alcoholic selfishness long enough to enjoy the awesome creation of a new life. And at that time I could not risk challenging him because I was afraid... not of being physically hurt, but of not knowing what was "right".

He loves his boys. They have wonderful relationships. Even though it's sad for us both to remember how relationally sick we were back then we now have victory in healing. Life is so much better now. I know my husband's thoughts drifted back over these old memories as he told me the good news about his friend. I could sense his heart opening to feel more and I was opening to feel as well.

We talked as I continued to pull up the stray bits of grass that were growing between the rocks in the garden. I told my husband that an older woman I work with was at the hospital yesterday with her son, daughter-in-law and her parents, and the little 3 year old grandchild awaiting the arrival of baby #2 into their family by C-Section. The older sister of the new dad-to-be was coming in with her oldest daughter to see the new baby and to give the new mommy a rose.

My tears started as I told him this story because when my second baby was born C-Section over 20 years ago, my parents did not come to the hospital for the delivery nor did they come during my five day recuperation. My mother did not come and help me after the birth even though she lived only five miles away. And I knew that she would be so angry with me, would lash out with her stinging words and withhold her love from me if my mother-in-law came to help.

At first I wasn't going to say anything and bring up this old history because the past cannot be changed. We can only learn from it and move forward in a healthier way. But... because I know how this deep hurt has affected other relationships, I had to risk and tell him.... intimacy, transparency, said in love, not accusatory.... So I continued....

I told him that because I was so afraid of my mother's anger and withholding of her "love" as her control over me I wasn't able to accept my mother-in-law's love and help at the time of the birth of our children. I had to be "loyal" to my own mother before others. That I was so sorry, that I didn't know what was going on at that time, that I'd been indoctrinated to avoid her wrath from the time I was very small and I knew only that if I accepted the love and help of my mother-in-law, I would "loose love and gain wrath" from my own mother. I was controlled by fear. I'd been "taught" to not trust in my own feelings and instincts so I was afraid of what might happen. The fear of what I imagined i'd loose seemed greater than any gain that I could see.

My head was bowed in such shame. Tears flowing. My husband walked over to me as I cried and he cried and held me until I could stop.

And so I asked if my own mother didn't want to be with me then why would anybody else want to be with me? If she didn't want to be with me why wouldn't she let me go?

She was sick, he said, caught up in her own selfishness and alcoholic sickness.

He's right. Somehow we raised two exceptional young men. So emotionally healthy. How did we do that?

He said "because you poured into them all the love and understanding you never got".

Maybe this is a key to why I am so submissive today. Maybe some submissives are emotionally damaged women who were stripped of the instictive ability to trust their own choices and therefore look for the iron grip of a Dominant so we know what to do and know we are wanted. I dunno. Maybe we just need to be loved and accepted .

But submissive or not, I know that the dysfunctional dynamic that was between my mother and I prevents me at times, even now, from believing that anyone besides my immediate family really wants to spend time with me when they could be doing something else. It makes me needy and standoffish at the same time and why I can't trust easily. I'm a work in progress, just like a recovering addict....