Posted by Dinah on May 9, 2005, at 20:40:26
In reply to Re: Taking a break for couple of days. » Dinah, posted by pinkeye on May 9, 2005, at 20:24:19
Pinkeye, have you talked to your therapist about this? If not, could you bring in your post?
I often find that obsessions distract me from the very real things in my life that are painful, even if the obsessions are also painful.
You are taking way too much on yourself, and you'll make yourself ill. I had a lot of the same problems with my parents before therapy. (Believe it or not from how I talk about them now, they are no problem at all to me now as compared to before therapy.) My therapist helped me learn to create boundaries. To sort out what was their stuff from what was my stuff. If you don't cook as regularly as your husband might wish, he won't die. He could learn to cook himself. He could choose to have fun learning to cook. Instead he chooses to starve himself. That's his choice, and has little to do with what you do or don't cook.
You don't have to please either of them. You have to decide in your own mind what a wife or daughter should be, and then you can please yourself by living up to your own reasonable expectations. Because you *can't* please other people. You just can't. Because if you try to please other people, the results are out of your hands. It is *their* decision whether to be pleased or not. You can't *make* them be pleased. You could do everything wonderful, and they could *choose* to be displeased. And you could be as horrid as you like and they could *choose* to be pleased.
Decide what you need to do to satisfy yourself as a good person, and let those be your boundaries. If you *choose* to do more, let it be your choice, knowing that you are doing more.
And this comes from someone who truly enjoys pleasing others. So it's not that I think it's an unworthy goal. It's just an impossible one. So when I choose to please others, it's a gift, and a playful part of me. And I know that there are those who will be pleased and give me the response I enjoy, and there will be those who won't be pleased. And that's ok. Because it has more to do with their ability to be pleased than my ability to please.
You just need to find a few people in your life, friends or therapist or us, who are much easier to please than your husband or father, and can give you the feedback about being pleasing that you quite understandably wish to recieve.
poster:Dinah
thread:495224
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050504/msgs/495761.html