Nothing normal about having been a "daddy's girl"

[Notwendy]

Now, as a happily married woman, I still find myself at times struggling with temptation toward other men, wanting them to be attracted to me, etc... I feel absolutely horrible about these thoughts because I love my husband!  but it seems that if there is any hint that a man might find me attractive, my mind latches onto that and I fantasize and crave the attention.

Walk by Faith- this is quite inciteful, especially the distinction between wanting this kind of attention and it being in a non sexual way. I don't think I experienced this quite in a similar way but something related to wanting attention from my father maybe? I didn't want other men to pay attention to me but I had a tendency to idolize a person but also remain committed to my marriage. I avoided any situation that might have resulted in a flirting situation- it's clear I didn't want that. It reminded me of these safe pre-teen "crushes" on a teen idol one would not ever meet in real life. I just assumed I had some unresolved teen age emotions due to being parentified as a teen.

But this can also be explained as wanting attention from a father figure. I idolized my father. He did pay some attention to me but he was also emotionally unavailable to me.

What's interesting is that all of this- any tendency to idolize - completely stopped after doing work on co-dependency. One aspect I worked on was people pleasing tendencies- that was how I got attention from my father- trying to please my mother. Trying to be some kind of "perfect" in order to be good enough? Once I discarded all those dysfunctional ideas, I stopped over-admiring other people. They are human too. Part of co-dependency work is examining what we learned as children and changing our behaviors. Once I learned it was OK to love myself and that I didn't need to have attention and love from anyone else in order to be "OK", I didn't look to anyone else to approve of me.

[Riv3rW0lf]

WalkByFaith, I also struggled with flirting, went as far as seducing one of my teachers when I was 18 years old, who was 15 years older than me.. however, when the seductions lead to overt sexual needs, I would feel incredible anxiety and pulled back from the relationships, resulting in severe guilt, and straining the relationships, which were often co-workers and friends. Writing this now, I can see this all stemed from my father.

I have started reading Silently Seduced and can see how narcissistic I was in my relationships with men, expecting them to fill my needs, to take care for me, to deal with my emotions and to help me resolve them, but without feeling completely comfortable with intimacy. At the same time, I felt deeply abandoned everytime a relationship would end, reliving all the times my father pushed me aside whenever he met a new girlfriend.

My stomach is turning, it is hard to admit to myself how sexually charged our relationship was. He set me up for the molestation that ensued with one of my stepfathers. My mother was likely reliving her own triangulation, continuing the competition, the jealousy toward me with her boyfriends. I remember things my father told me, how I had beautiful legs, how I was shaping up like a woman.. when he hugged me when I was pregnant with my daughter, I remember feeling deeply disgusted, contacted by husband right away to share my distress. My mother touching me resulted in the same distress.

My father called me a narcissist when I was about 20yo. My stepmother looked at him and said : "what? Not at all. I don't see narcissism in her at all." But I was more self-centered when it came to him, and men in general, to protect myself. I can see now how my father used me, and even separated from my mother, how he set me up against her by seducing me, which finally explain all the contempt and competition I feel toward her.

My mother is borderline, that reality remains true. And her rages toward me explains my anger, my rage but most especially my fear of her... Not the contempt. The contempt was his... I see this now. My need to please men, but how I pull back whenever the sexual tension forms overtly, it all makes sense now.

I was used by both my parents, like all of you here.

I have no idea how it is that my current relationship does not seem to fit that pattern though. I did, at some point, following a break up, realized everything was wrong and I learned I could say no to men, that I didn't have to fill their needs, that I could take care of myself... And I met my husband shortly after that realization, and we moved to live abroad for 6 years, away from my family system... The distance, and the way my husband is naturally, seemed to have played a huge part in my recovery... Even without having realized that all those issues stemed from my father and I relationship.

And Notwendy, I wholeheartedly agree with this : Once I learned it was OK to love myself and that I didn't need to have attention and love from anyone else in order to be "OK", I didn't look to anyone else to approve of me.

My main fear right now is to not discharge my own needs on my children,and reading you all this morning helped me very much : my focus if their needs, while I aim to take care of my own. But I realise protecting them will also mean keeping my husband and I on the same page, keeping us satisfied and honest with each other. Taking care of ourselves and of the other, keeping a strong and healthy mariage to protect our children from ourselves, in some way...

Most family I see are completely blind to their dysfunction... My main fear right now is being blind to ours... But my husband seems to think that knowing is key in not repeating. So thankful for this forum and to all of you doing this work !

[Notwendy]

Interesting that I meant to say "insightful" but spell check changed to "inciteful" and one could see this either way.

Riv3rW0lf- your husband sounds like a gem of a guy.

Yes, our fathers probably both loved us and used us, but in my case, it was the best of the two as BPD mother doesn't love anyone really and mainly sees me as useful to her.

I was able to work through some of this- how could my father not protect me- after he passed away. Not by choice though, as I was trying to understand how he could discard his relationship with me but I can't fully understand it as I'd not ever do this with a child of mine. For me the grief cycled between being despondently sad, feeling like an orphan, grief for the loss of the father, and anger at him for not valuing his relationship with me as much as I hoped for.

My main fear right now is to not discharge my own needs on my children, and reading you all this morning helped me very much :

This is my focus too. Another positive of working on co-dependency was that it would improve my relationship with my kids as well. You are correct- families see their dysfunction as "normal"- when we grow up with this, it's the only "normal" we know. Fortunately, I knew that my mother's behavior was not normal but I thought Dad was the "normal parent". There's a lot of work on my part to learn new behaviors, but it can be done. No parent is perfect- and surely I don't do it all perfectly, but I am doing things differently.

[Couscous]

Taking care of ourselves and of the other, keeping a strong and healthy mariage to protect our children from ourselves, in some way...

These are my thoughts exactly.

I have realized that up until now, my strategy for protecting my kids, as well as myself, has been by keeping at a bit of distance emotionally — but this is so not the solution. Clearly my inner child still has a LOT of healing to do.

My situation is complicated by the fact that my H is enmeshed with this mother, and I actually got Silently Seduced for him to read… But it does help for me to understand that it was my father set me up for this so that I don’t beat myself up for this. But thankfully my H is aware of the problem and is beginning to set boundaries with my MIL. Hopefully we will be able to heal together but is not going to be an easy road.

I have to say that all the drama and hysterics in my family has definitely served as a huge distraction from the elephant in my own living room — which is the enmeshment.

This video on breaking the cycle of enmeshed parenting really hit home for me, and was rather quite painful to watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X63Dkcbl2oE

[Couscous]

For me the grief cycled between being despondently sad, feeling like an orphan, grief for the loss of the father, and anger at him for not valuing his relationship with me as much as I hoped for.

It’s not that he didn’t value the relationship — it’s that it wasn’t his highest priority. His highest priority was protecting himself.

I have heard it said that fear is the opposite of love, and I think this is so true. When we operating from a place of fear and are in a self-protective mode, we cannot be loving at the same time. I have seen firsthand how this works in my own life. One of my biggest triggers is when my kids ignore me when I am trying to get them to do something. It is such massive fear response that I skip over anger (fight response) and go straight to overwhelm/shutdown (freeze response). When this happens, it’s as if all the love for my children drains away. Fortunately, I can now catch myself when this is happening so that I don’t respond the way my mother would have.

[Notwendy]

It’s not that he didn’t value the relationship — it’s that it wasn’t his highest priority. His highest priority was protecting himself.

Interesting because our primary feeling towards BPD mother has been fear. We can't feel love when in fear. I don't think she loves us either, and I think it's because her own BPD keeps her in victim/fear mode.

I think my Dad feared her too and perhaps his response came from fear of not going along with her when she was angry at me. And he had good reason to fear her, unfortunately as she was abusive to him- sadly, I think he experienced the worst of her behavior.

I understand he was in a tough spot, probably acting in some way to protect himself. What this probably was - was one of their anger cycle episodes. Some time later, they'd have called me up pretending it didn't happen, but for him, he passed away. BPD mother kept up the emotional abuse- usually we were expected to just tolerate it, but I was also grieving. On her part, she was probably oblivious to that, it was her usual state, but it was so much to sort out and deal with on my part. I don't hold on to resentment for her about it, it's not something I want to do, but all this led me to question the relationship with my parents- I don't think I can see it the same way I did before this happened.  I see how affected she is with BPD. I have empathy for her for what she's she's dealing with. I also see what my father was dealing with as well and I have empathy for his situation as well.

However, I know none of this had anything to do with me.

[Couscous]

The thing is that they both have the same fear — the fear of intimacy — which is fundamentally a fear of rejection. If you open your heart to someone you have be willing to risk getting hurt.

Drama triangle dynamics exist for the purpose of avoiding intimacy, and unfortunately our fathers are just as emotionally phobic as our mothers and possess as little capacity for emotional closeness as our mothers do, otherwise they wouldn’t have married our mothers in the first place.   

[WalkbyFaith]

This all makes so much sense and I think things are finally starting to come into focus a bit... starting to understand the dynamics better regarding my childhood relationship with my father as well as why I struggle with this attention/temptation issue today. It isn't all crystal-clear yet, but I'm making progress, I think...

It’s not that he didn’t value the relationship — it’s that it wasn’t his highest priority. His highest priority was protecting himself.

I can see how this is true of my father. My mother was verbally and emotionally abusive to my father as well, and our household was miserable if she wasn't happy. I have vague, foggy memories of her spiraling into these horrible episodes where she would yell & scream and then sink into a depressive state, sitting in her bed in the dark. She would shout our names (sister & I) from upstairs, one at a time, for us to come up and talk to her in her dark bedroom. I was only probably 8 or 9 and remember this being terrifying. Yet my dad made us do it -- go upstairs to face her, one at a time. I can vaguely remember wishing he would protect me and not make me do it. Why else would a loving father make his scared child do that, outside of his own self protection and/or enabling her victimhood?

So my dad, though I always thought we had a good relationship, I realize as an adult that he failed to stand up for me and protect me. He still fails to do that.

I don't know if I felt like I needed to be "perfect" for him or not. I don't remember that specifically.

[Couscous]

I think it is a very important step in our healing to acknowledge the truth about our fathers. And our inner child is going to want to resist knowing the truth because it has a false belief that if our fathers also didn’t love us, then this can only mean one thing — that we are unlovable. But this is a false belief, and one we must finally confront if we are ever going to be able to take responsibility for becoming our own loving parent.

I know that my T has been hinting at this from day 1 in therapy. It only took 16 months (plus my entire lifetime before then) for me to finally get it. 

[Notwendy]

I think it's true about the inability for emotional intimacy, but I think my father was capable of it at first. I think he genuinely fell in love with my  BPD mother who, as affected as she is, is able to be charming and hold it together when she needs to. Part was the culture of the time. The main expectation of women in her era was to find a husband, preferably one who made a good salary as women didn't work outside the home at the time. Also - people married quickly. She was very beautiful and charming and he was smitten. I don't believe my father had a clue at the time what was going on after that.

I recall a time when my father was emotionally available to us kids. I think over time though the continuous stress of my mother's severely disordered behavior whittled this down. I think his fears were not just about protecting himself. I think he also feared what she would do if she was upset because she had self harming behaviors and suicide attempts as well. I think he feared for her.

I also think this is why he would put her needs first. She is emotionally fragile and relies on him even for household tasks. I was a self sufficient teen and could support myself as an adult. I didn't need him to protect me or provide for me in the physical sense but emotionally I don't think we ever stop needing a father to be a father to us- not to do anything for me but to just show he cared about me. But there was only so much of his attention he could give- and it was all for her.

[Couscous]

I think it's true about the inability for emotional intimacy, but I think my father was capable of it at first.

I recall a time when my father was emotionally available to us kids. I think over time though the continuous stress of my mother's severely disordered behavior whittled this down.

Yes, I have heard that even people who grow up in healthy families can get hooked into abusive relationships. Is your father’s side of the family generally emotionally healthy?

[Notwendy]

Yes, they were loving and accepting and we are still close to that side of the family.

For my Dad, if there was trauma it was from his family being from a different country and culture and he got bullied for it as a kid from other kids. His family was of limited means but he was intelligent and was able to achieve the American dream at the time- a good education and a good job. BPD mother's family was better off financially. I think he assumed her spending was just part of that experience. His family was more frugal and down to earth.

[Notwendy]

This is why I think he didn't figure out something wasn't right until way after the marriage. He was intelligent but didn't grow up in the same social circle my mother was in. And nobody knew about BPD at the time- or spoke of any mental illness. A woman who didn't get married was out of place at the time and there's no way she would have managed if she wasn't. Likely even her parents didn't know why she behaved the way she did sometime.

I don't think he had any idea and was probably very puzzled at her behavior.

[Riv3rW0lf]

I don't think he had any idea and was probably very puzzled at her behavior.

I was discussing the other day with my husband about the US special forces training, how they desensitize them via small surprising triggers, different every time, to slow down their nervous reaction and allow them more control over their amygdala. It somehow reminded me of my mother, and how it seems that becoming enmeshed with a BPD is via the same kind of process, except the amygdala is hijacked. When I went back to my mother's house in November, her reactions seem to come in waves. At first manageable, until total emotional dysregulation. Took us about two weeks to get there, but I reckon it would take more time with a completely new relationship. We were just falling back into old shoes, so the process would be faster. I lost myself progressively. It wasn't : "Ho she is very weird, acting like that !" There was much more confusion.

All this to say: I could see how someone would first be puzzled, but because of the waves effect, they end up 'desensitized' to it, and it becomes the new normal. The confusion doesn't stay, they aren't puzzle anymore, they are just scared and in survival mode. Looking at my stepfather, he sees no dysfunction in my mother. He is mainly scared and within a very deep FOG. Fear was his main emotion. Scared when I put something in the dishwasher that didn't belong. Scared when I left a light opened in the laundry room. He tried to protect me by showing me the rules, which I discarded laughing, I didn't remember how she was. But then I remembered when my mother came back from work to those triggers. I can only imagine what their life is like when we are not around and I feel for him.

I don't know if I felt like I needed to be "perfect" for him or not. I don't remember that specifically.

I started thinking about my perfectionist tendencies a few weeks back, trying to find where they came from, when is it that I started identifying so strongly with my inner critic... I don't know if you can become a high perfectionist from a borderline trauma. Maybe but the source of the trauma, to me anyway, feel more, stress related and in line with emotional dysregulation (C-PTSD). I could be wrong though, but I felt, inside me, that my perfectionism is related to my father, without knowing why exactly. Are you a perfectionist, to the point of dysfunction I mean? That could be an indication. The other thing that struck me was when Couscous relayed the quote about feeling contempt for mothers... It is true that contempt wouldn't be a natural reaction to the crisis, which are directly linked to my fear and rage toward her... Yet, I feel true contempt for her, and I know I always tried to be better... now I realize it was all to please him.

I think it is a very important step in our healing to acknowledge the truth about our fathers. And our inner child is going to want to resist knowing the truth because it has a false belief that if our fathers also didn’t love us, then this can only mean one thing — that we are unlovable. But this is a false belief, and one we must finally confront if we are ever going to be able to take responsibility for becoming our own loving parent.

I know that my T has been hinting at this from day 1 in therapy. It only took 16 months (plus my entire lifetime before then) for me to finally get it.  

You have a good T!

My husband told me a few times that my father was "a weird guy", that he certainly never met anyone like him before, that he couldn't see himself ever abandoning our daughter for a girlfriend, like my father did to me. Those were all fair and strong indicatives that something was wrong in the relationship. However: I was deep in denial until your thread ! So thank you, Couscous.

I think after mourning and grieving my mother, it was just too much to bear to see my father for who he is. I've had many issues with him, went no contact a couple times, held onto rage, but I wanted to believe I had move past all of it. And I think I did, because I emotionally disconnected from him at some point. Coming back to my home province, it's like I am looking to reconnect with him, but THANKFULLY, this thread appeared first (talk about strange synchronicity). I am much safer emotionally disconnected from him, than enmeshed.

Now though, that I know what happened and how he treated me, I can maybe finally heal its impact on me... I realized yesterday reading the book that I am a love addict. Like a punch in my stomach, who I am was written there, through the story of the corporate business woman. I didn't have any affairs outside my marriage...  yet. I think this would have all been a real possibility over time though. I can't seem to let go of an old flame, and I mentioned it to my therapist, how I thought about this specific guy. He picked up on it, but I moved the conversation elsewhere right away... Now I see why. This whole pattern is the root of my addiction. Always dreaming of someone else, of something else, of real connection, yet unable to connect to the person I am closest to. There is always an ambivalence in my commitment. I've even written on here about how I wasn't married to who I wanted. Yet I looked deeply at my husband the last couple days and he is nothing short of amazing. He helps around the house, he supports me, he is curious, he opens up my world, he trust me, pushes me forward, he loves his children, he respects me. I mean... How could I ever even doubt him?

I just identified this pattern : no relationship is ever enough, and then I look elsewhere, in my fantasies at first, in old flames, sometimes going as far as contacting them (!), but where will I look next? I've ended up doing it to every men I've been with... Really struck me hard... And I am scared, but also deeply grateful that I can finally see one of the patterns that has been controlling me life up until now. And I vow to myself to control this addiction before I hurt the one man that has been there for me none stop for the past 6 years. I might have to join a 12-steps, but not for the trauma I thought was the worst I've had when I joined here. So... C-PTSD, perfectionism and love addiction : what an interesting combo to heal... Goodness. I am glad I know at least... and ashamed, but hey ! I am sharing my realization here in the hope it might help someone else see themselves. Denial was a real b*tch to beat.

And I just wanted to add that what made it all very hard to see, for me, is also because the way I acted was so normalized in today's society, and I thought I was just "having fun" when I was single and dating around. Yet I would cry myself to sleep and feel deep shame, but never put two and two together somehow.

[Notwendy]

 Riv3rW0lf- that was very insightful. I think the fantasy on old flames is a trauma reaction. It's good that you recognize it and don't want to let this keep you from connection to your H, who sounds like a wonderful man.

What fantasizing or daydreaming about something else, someone else, could be is a form of dissociation when someone is being abused. It's a coping mechanism. If you ever saw the film "Precious" ( it might be triggering) where this poor girl was sexually abused, they show her doing this in the film- dissociating as a way to cope with what was happening to her.

Teachers often commented about me day dreaming in class. Some of my friends described me as "spacy".  There are events in my childhood that I can not remember. If someone is angry at me I still can do this and it's a fear response. Likely my father did this too.

I think it's good you recognize this and won't act on it. But also don't beat yourself up for it. We can't really control what we think about but we can control what we do about it and not act on it. I think our actions define our ethics. Maybe you wish you had more money but you don't rob a bank. Maybe you think about an old flame but you leave it at that. You don't become a thief until you rob that bank and not contacting old flames protects your marriage.

I recognize the fantasy "someone out there loves me in the way I want to be loved". Marriage is complicated and doesn't ever live up to a fantasy person because we are all not perfect. When you start thinking about an old flame, you know he isn't perfect either. It's an escape from uncomfortable feelings. All addictions are that. Now that you see it, you know what to work on.

[Notwendy]

I also think the fantasizing is a defense mechanism, perhaps due to having been let down by the people we have trusted the most- parents. Fantasizing keeps us from getting too attached, because if we got attached and they let us down, it would be just too much.

[Riv3rW0lf]

I also think the fantasizing is a defense mechanism, perhaps due to having been let down by the people we have trusted the most- parents. Fantasizing keeps us from getting too attached, because if we got attached and they let us down, it would be just too much.

I agree. However, for me, the attraction and pattern goes above fantasm. I have been in many relationships before I met my current husband, I guess you could say I was a "serial monogamist". However, I cheated on the first one, left the second one for the third, and emotionally cheated on the third with someone else. The only reason I didn't go all the way is that the guy was not in my city.

So... I have a pattern of checking out of my relationships emotionally and physically, especially when they don't "meet my needs". The problems though is that : I didn't know my needs back then, and still find it hard to care for my own needs, as I tend to care for others all the time. I also have high, and unhealthy expectations of others, which I now know and have worked on for the past few years, especially for my husband.

So... For me, I think it truly is an addiction for love. And it seems from my father abandoning me when I hit teenagehood. I now realize the relationship prior to it was sexually charged as well, so I do think I acted it out by becoming very "seductive"... All of this was unconscious up until now.

Since getting married however, I do feel I put up a wall between my mariage and other men, which truly helped me stay focused on my mariage. But sometimes, some fantasms seems to peek in, and I am too aware of how dangerous it is for my relationship today. I wouldn't act on it, but I realize now I also will have to manage myself.

[Notwendy]

I can see why you were seeking love through these sexual relationships. This is common for people subjected to sexual abuse growing up. Each one could not meet your needs probably because you had to ignore your own needs growing up. Glad you are able to see this and work on it.

I think I went the opposite. I had crushes on guys but taking the step from crush to real person was somehow too much for me to face. I was afraid of a relationship with a real person. If I was in one, I was afraid to be myself. I was afraid to rock the boat and very afraid they'd get angry at me over something. They didn't get the real me. They got a people pleasing version of me. I see now how co-dependent that was, but it was all I knew to do. I wanted them to like me so I did what I thought I had to do to get approval from my parents and be the people pleaser too.

I did not have serial relationships. They were occasional with lots of time between where I was alone.  If I could cross that line to be with a real person, it wasn't something I would want to let go of. But I do recall some were emotionally unavailable and also didn't treat me the way I wished they would. None were physically abusive thankfully.

But I think you and I went to opposite ends of a similar problem. Wanting to be close to someone and being afraid of it at the same time. Each dysfunctional in its own way. 

[Riv3rW0lf]

I think I went the opposite. I had crushes on guys but taking the step from crush to real person was somehow too much for me to face. I was afraid of a relationship with a real person. If I was in one, I was afraid to be myself. I was afraid to rock the boat and very afraid they'd get angry at me over something. They didn't get the real me. They got a people pleasing version of me. I see now how co-dependent that was, but it was all I knew to do. I wanted them to like me so I did what I thought I had to do to get approval from my parents and be the people pleaser too.

It is strange, but reading this, the face of my stepmother came up... She never talks much about herself, I am actually starting to ask more and more questions about her. And she told me recently she is basically unable to ignore others in a room...  One example is when she plays piano. She knows I like minor, and she prefers major. Yet, I am there, she will keep herself from playing any songs in major.. which is strange because 1) I never asked her to do this, and 2) I prefer minor but do enjoy change and variation. And last time she looked at me and she said: ain't it funny how I cannot seem to play what I truly want to play, just because I know what your preferences are.

She also told me, for her, her inner life was a sum of what everyone else felt, and she has a really hard time separate herself from the other person. Is it how you feel? I thought that always feeling what every else was feeling would ergo make her a people please... which she was for a long time. Interestingly enough, she became a therapist.

Anyhow... she told me what helps a lot for her, is to acknowledge the other person is sad/happy/angry, and then she would ask herself how SHE felt seeing the other person sad/happy/angry... just to separate herself from the other and regain her own sense of self. Going from empathy to sympathy and compassion, in a way...

Comparatively, my struggle is to identify my own emotions. If I feel an emotion, I will question myself as to who's that emotion to... even when I am alone. Like my emotions are a different entity than me, and I have a really hard them understanding what they mean.

I did not have serial relationships. They were occasional with lots of time between where I was alone.  If I could cross that line to be with a real person, it wasn't something I would want to let go of. But I do recall some were emotionally unavailable and also didn't treat me the way I wished they would. None were physically abusive thankfully.

But I think you and I went to opposite ends of a similar problem. Wanting to be close to someone and being afraid of it at the same time. Each dysfunctional in its own way.  

In the end, it does all seem to boil down to the same thing : a deep fear of intimacy, which really should be physical, emotional and rational. It is as if, by missing the emotional level, we have to compensate on the other fronts, resulting in the dysfunction.

[Notwendy]

I struggled with not knowing my own feelings or even who I was or wanted. I used to wonder why I wasn't like other girls, so comfortable socially. I put on a good front, even appeared to be "popular" but didn't feel secure in it. I knew I was straight but somehow felt I wasn't as pretty, or as likable, or lovable as other girls. It had nothing to do with my outward appearance. Guys were attracted to me but I was mostly afraid to reciprocate. Eventually I outgrew this some but if we don't know who we are, it's hard to be authentic in relationships.

I tend to isolate which I know is a protective mechanism. But working on co-dependency has helped a lot with feeling my feelings and knowing who I am. The thing is- people will let us down, as nobody is going to be that perfect person who can meet all your needs. We have to accept that we don't have to be perfect people all the time, and maybe we can expect our friends and spouses to be pretty good people but not be perfect either.

[ZeroSumGames]

I struggled with not knowing my own feelings or even who I was or wanted. I used to wonder why I wasn't like other girls, so comfortable socially. I put on a good front, even appeared to be "popular" but didn't feel secure in it. I knew I was straight but somehow felt I wasn't as pretty, or as likable, or lovable as other girls. It had nothing to do with my outward appearance. Guys were attracted to me but I was mostly afraid to reciprocate. Eventually I outgrew this some but if we don't know who we are, it's hard to be authentic in relationships.

I tend to isolate which I know is a protective mechanism. But working on co-dependency has helped a lot with feeling my feelings and knowing who I am. The thing is- people will let us down, as nobody is going to be that perfect person who can meet all your needs. We have to accept that we don't have to be perfect people all the time, and maybe we can expect our friends and spouses to be pretty good people but not be perfect either.

First, thank you all for your posts on this thread.  I have learned so much on this board and from conversations between Notwendy, Riv3erwolf, Couscous and WalkbyFaith.  I married and divorced a uBPD and have two children with her.  It took trying to fix an unfixable relationship, and years of therapy to understand what in the world was going on with me.  My biggest aha moment of clarity was when I realized that I, unconsciously, was teaching my kids not to trigger their mom.  We were all working in concert not to anger her, and I realized I didn't want to raise them that way any longer.  Fear drove alot of that cycle for me and I still see fear driving the kids.  Unfortunately that is co-dependent behavior.  I was raised by parents that emotionally manipulated and I missed red flag behaviors.  My parents were both codependent on each other, and I learned that as my baseline of a relationship.  At times it confused me as a child. 

In reflection, they both looked outward for validation that they were lovable, but didn't understand they should love and care for themselves.  They didn't know to love themselves or teach self love/care to their children.  It seems that this codependent view of self is a magnetic match for a BPD/NPD person who looks outward for self worth.  Both looking outward to feel loved, and neither feeling safe to be loved.  Both safely unavailable to each other. 

Your fathers were likely wounded people too and were passing on their trauma to you.  It isn't fair and I wish it didn't happen to you.  You have/had one parent with a personality disorder, otherwise you wouldn't be here, and your other parent may have been safer, but was emotionally immature and both parents had poor boundaries. 

[Notwendy]

ZeroSumGame- thanks for your post and also, I think your decision to protect your children is admirable. While I know that my father's expectations of us to be co-dependent on my BPD mother wasn't fair, I also recognize that he provided for us and kept stability at enormous expense to himself- whether it was for him or her, or us, and probably all of it. It wasn't fair to him either.

The shift from seeing him as the victim of her behavior to recognizing his co-dependency included people pointing out that I had co-dependent behavior as well. I didn't see this as this was the "normal" I grew up with but I wanted to work on my own behaviors and understood them better.

One of my main motivations was to not pass this on to my kids by working on my own behaviors. These patterns are intergenerational- unless we decide to change them. They may not even be conscious behaviors- if a child grows up with them in their family, it's the "normal" they know. There isn't a reason to change unless the behaviors cause them issues as adults.

I don't know the origin of either of my parents' dysfunction or trauma. Families didn't discuss these things in their day and little was known about them. People tend to choose partners that match them in some way. I think, and hope, we are making a difference for our children by changing the family patterns.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Your fathers were likely wounded people too and were passing on their trauma to you.  It isn't fair and I wish it didn't happen to you.  You have/had one parent with a personality disorder, otherwise you wouldn't be here, and your other parent may have been safer, but was emotionally immature and both parents had poor boundaries.  

Yes indeed. I am starting to realize that my father actually has strong narcissistic tendencies, he is not codependent... I feel like a co-dependent parent would have been a bit safer (but maybe not, ) !

For my father, I felt recently that he is quite glad that I cut contact with my mother, he offered no empathy, just : "ho yeah she is very toxic !" Without any kind of : "how do you feel about it though? how are you doing?" And when we saw each other, it was all about him... Even after I opened up about one of my stepfather molesting me as a child, my own father replied with : "you know it happened to me sister..." I focused on the fact he did not invalidate my story and he confirmed the signs, it felt like he knew, there was no surprise... But I don't remember him showing real empathy or remorse... He said something to the effect that if he could, he would do things differently, that this was all a process. Fair enough. But it is weird that he wouldn't... react more? or offer more support? I didn't blame him, I am past blaming others right now... But I see that he is somewhat emotionally immature too, yes. He also always held great contempt for my mother, and didn't hide it, so he didn't teach me to be empathetic toward her... But he did request a lot of empathy from me toward him though.

A lot of memories have resurfaced, that I processed back when I was deeply angry at him, shortly after moving away. How he would :
- Take my bed because one of his girlfriends didn't like the one he has, resulting in me having to sleep on the floor for more than two weeks until they got their new bed
- Stop talking to me whenever I disagreed with him, or tried to stand up to him
- Had to battle him to get money for the dentist, when I was legally still dependent on him (he wouldn't add me on his insurances), and this, despite him being well established and comfortable with money
- Had to defend myself upon learning he declared I was living in one of his houses to save on taxes (this wasn't true and resulted in me losing money and help from the government while I was in university). He guiltripped me because I had made my taxes myself for the first time... He couldn't use me this way. And this is when I was basically covering all me expenses myself, he didn't give me anything.  
- Tell me all about this problems with his girlfriends, with my brother, with my sister, with everyone, and would leave the door whenever I felt myself emotionally dysregulated, offering no support

Today, he is married to a woman who is amazing, but who I see now is highly codependent... Even recently, he told, in front of many people, that he was leaving the next day with my sister to visit my brother in another city, and she didn't even know. She looked at him and said : "really? couldn't you at least tell me? "To which he didn't even answered... It is always all about him, truly... And I can see she is slowly building resentment, but she won't ask anything of him.  And he told me, behind her back, that she was disorganized and couldn't do anything. I was appalled, how he would belittle her like that.

As for the sexually charged relationship, I see now this was a by-product of his narcissism. Whenever he didn't have a girlfriend, he expected me to be his surrogate girlfriend in everything but sex, and would discard me whenever he found someone else, resulting in a deep feeling of abandonment on my end, and me feeling jealous and competitive of his girlfriends. Very unhealthy.

I held deep rage toward my father for a long time, and for my mother... My mother was neglectful and dysregulated, resulting in us tiptoeing around her, trying to keep her from the next outbursts, while my father used me. None of them cared who I was and what I needed. In truth, I had to find my own way around both my parents. No one asked me to act a certain way, they both hated each other and made me the messenger between them. They just manipulated me to match their needs and ignored who I was. I didn't matter, except to please them. I ended up enmeshed with them on and off... On with dad would mean off with mom, and on with mom would mean off with dad... In the end, maybe all this hate saved me, made it easier to disconnect completely from both of them.

My relationship with my father improved when I stopped mixing money in it, and when I stopped having any kind of expectations toward him. Recently, I asked him for help toward a business matter, and he still hasn't come back to me about it, and I now know he won't... And I won't ask. The closer I am to him, the less he will do for me, so I will manage by myself and remain distant. I will still see him, and he is safe enough to have a relationship with my kids (he doesn't care much about them), but I will not ever listen to him again though.  He is not malignant, he is just highly self-centered. As long as I uphold clear, strong boundaries, it should be fine. I can manage him more easily than I can manage my mother, who triggers my C-PTSD.

Ho well... and Yes Notwendy ! Working my best to break that cycle here as well ! My daughter started school this morning... I cried. But hey, seeing her jump in the bus, at 4yo, happy and proud, with no fear at all, completely comfortable in the world... Just after crying in my arms, discussing her mixed emotions, and me validating them all, telling her it was all normal, that it is a big change, but that I would always be here and she would be fine and have fun... I am doing it ! With LOTS of self-doubts and anxiety, but my children seem fine so far. I am learning about my own emotions with them.

In the end : we are all here to do our best. No one if perfect... And maybe life would be boring without a bit of trauma to work on 

[lm1109]

But this can also be explained as wanting attention from a father figure. I idolized my father. He did pay some attention to me but he was also emotionally unavailable to me.

What's interesting is that all of this- any tendency to idolize - completely stopped after doing work on co-dependency. One aspect I worked on was people pleasing tendencies- that was how I got attention from my father- trying to please my mother. Trying to be some kind of "perfect" in order to be good enough? Once I discarded all those dysfunctional ideas, I stopped over-admiring other people. They are human too. Part of co-dependency work is examining what we learned as children and changing our behaviors. Once I learned it was OK to love myself and that I didn't need to have attention and love from anyone else in order to be "OK", I didn't look to anyone else to approve of me.

This resonates very deeply... I am working on this...

This thread is very eye opening! My inner child work has inevitably led to some really painful and disheartening truths about my father as well. I also admired my Dad, mostly because he wasn't outwardly mean to me the way my Mom and Brother(as a kid) often were, however, he never protected me from any abuse...ever...period. I've come to realize that my idolization of my Dad was me latching onto a few good memories. Sadly, some of my happiest memories as a child were from the year and a half that my parents separated. My Dad moved out. My brother and I would go to his one bedroom apartment and have the best time. There was no yelling, fighting, or walking on eggshells...it was a reprieve from my Mom but it was also forced interaction from my Dad...he was forced to spend time with us. Little me was beyond thrilled to watch old TV movie reruns, eat gas station hot dogs for dinner, and just be...in an environment that wasn't volatile. It was a time in my life that my Dad was forced to notice me. The second that my Dad moved back into our home...it all went back to normal. He went back into hiding and escaping from his sick wife and kids who were being abused. I now believe that my brother and I were intentionally "sacrificed", so to speak, by him. He encouraged my Mom in being angry at us and encouraged my brother and I to shut up and "take our turn" being painted black so that he could get a break.  I realize now that the things that I "idolized" him for were mostly just him giving me breadcrumbs of love to keep me compliant in the sick family dynamics.

After reading this thread I asked myself some questions. There was never anything that felt sexually charged coming directly from my Dad...however...my Mom treated me like a jealous girlfriend any time my Dad showed me ANY attention. It's as if we were not ALLOWED to even like each other...let alone love each other. My Mom emasculated my Dad constantly and encouraged my brother and I to do the same...we were not allowed to respect him. I suppose this is a layer of triangulation, but looking at it now...it did feel sexually charged...as if every time my Dad ACTED like a Dad towards me...my Mom felt that I was some sort of threat...to her "man!"

[Couscous]

Something that has been extremely eye-opening for me was hearing my (much younger) half-sister’s experience of being raised by my father. She said he was extremely controlling, which is not all how he was when I was a child, and this makes me realize that his seemingly loving and engaged parenting style with his first brood, me and my siblings, had just been an act in order for him to win the competition for “favorite parent”.  

And when I started noticing how little interest he actually has for my kids and how he really doesn’t engage much with them, and seems to mainly want my attention when we visit, it further re-enforced this suspicion.

I think our parents probably did love us unconditionally when we were babies. But once we got old enough to start triggering whatever childhood wounds they had, it was Game Over, and the dysfunctional family dynamics were activated.

I hope I will be able to “re-negotiate” my relationship with my father, but I am not going to be holding my breath. Our pattern is that distances himself when he feels “hurt” and then I pursue him, but I will no longer be doing this. I imagine our relationship is going to be very distant in future. But this might actually force him to look to his wife to meet his intimacy needs — a shocking notion indeed…

 

[lm1109]

I just realized that the second part of my post got cut off and didn't post

To summarize...I feel like the abuse I endured by my Mom was sexually charged...she was hyper focused on my body, made comments about it constantly (in front of my brother and Dad), TMI about sex, and did some very abusive things to me when she felt like I was getting ANY attention from ANY male...including my Dad...which is SO very twisted! She treated me like a jealous big sister rather than a Mom...but also made me feel like I was HER mom!

I wondered if the book is still worth a read if the emotional incest was from the same sex parent rather than a father? This thread was really eye opening to me...this is a layer to her abuse that I never really examined before now!

[Riv3rW0lf]

I think our parents probably did love us unconditionally when we were babies. But once we got old enough to start triggering whatever childhood wounds they had, it was Game Over, and the dysfunctional family dynamics were activated.

That's also what I think. As long as my mother isn't triggered, she can seem normal and loving... But she gets triggered a lot and her episodes last a very long time... and the more history to the relationship, the faster she gets triggered, twisting everything around.

I got triggered this morning... when I picked up my daughter at school. She had so much fun, she didn't want to leave ! And like a 4yo does, she just stood there, partly ignoring me, then saying "No I don't want to go with you and brother ! I want to stay here and ride in the bus !" And... as a healthy, rationale adult, I get it. So I answered : " Ok, yes I understand, you wanted to ride in the bus, but no worries, you will ride in the bus tomorrow ! You will come back here tomorrow ! But now we have to go home because the day is over." All the while managing the rejection and the trigger of my abandonment by my parents. and the shame of being rejected by my daughter, even though it isn't rejection. Just a four year old expressing grief. I thought I managed it well...

Then in the car, I got so, so angry. And I didn't want to release it on her, trying to manage my emotions. She wouldn't stop arguing and I was like : Ok I get it... But then I snapped: "Ok I just don't want to hear another word from you right now !" And I think I might have guiltripped her in not welcoming me, despite going to the playground afterward, that she left without me, that she was disrespectful, that it wasn't a proper welcome... And it all makes sense, but the anger was too much for a four years old, and I don't even know if we even should tell them that... When are we educating VS berating? I sometimes have NO IDEA. This morning though, I was berating, and the guilt on top of it. Goodness, hated every second of this ride home.

I managed to get it back together, only to unleash it again on my husband later on ! I had to say sorry to him as well... Goodness, I KNOW I didn't lose it as much as my mother used too, and I got it back together fast enough... but still... Parenting truly is the hardest. I am however very grateful that I can SEE myself and at least manage myself better. And I know I am improving my self-control everyday... I see many people around me who's eyes are completely shut to their own behaviors... But somehow, it makes it still hard to notice each and every single time I messed up, was too angry, said too much, didn't say enough... Sometimes I wonder if all of this fine tuning all the time is maybe unhealthy in and of itself. A defense mecanism I developped as a child, micro managing myself all the time, not allowing myself to be imperfect too... Anyway... A story for another thread maybe.

Someone on here once said parenting is a zero-sum game. I think it was Methuen. I repeat that to myself every time those kind of things happen...

So anyway... All this to say : yes and it is scary to realize, when those things happen, that I have all this power and this abuse trapped inside me, to control every time to not repeat. I really contacted it today. How incredibly hard it can be sometimes to fight the urge to unleash this stress on someone else, to assume it all. Some of it always seem to spill around me... But I guess that only makes me human..

It helped to write this. I felt sh*tty.  

I wondered if the book is still worth a read if the emotional incest was from the same sex parent rather than a father? This thread was really eye opening to me...this is a layer to her abuse that I never really examined before now!

I think so. If your mother saw your relationship with your father as incestuous, then this kind of bias could have spilled over onto you as well, even if your father didn't pay much attention to you. You might not remember everything as well. Also, there is a section about being the mother's friend and confident. I think, like anything, if you don't recognize yourself in this, the tools can likely still be useful, as it gives a lot of tools to manage codependent behaviors, which I think all of us kinda developped with a BPD mother...

I also think that just witnessing such unhealthy relationship between parents might even result in feeling more mature than we were and thinking we could be better spouse, mother, even if a relationship wasn't sexually charged. For me, I am pretty sure my father didn't desire me, he just treated me as much more mature than I were and made me compete for love and attention against his many girlfriends, even at a very young age, resulting in an unhealthy dynamic. It is not that he wanted to be sexual with me, it's that he put me in a position where I didn't feel like his child, but like an equal. The absence of my mother in the house, and how he held contempt for her also created some kind of weird feeling of competition, that I was better than her.

In a healthy household, the parents aim to stand by each other side. They don't triangulate a kid against the other parent to fill their own intimacy need, to feel valued and understood. This is the spouse job. If I don't feel good with my husband, I talk about it WITH HIM, not with my child. Turkish can correct me if I am reading all this wrong but from the book, it seems any parent discussing those kind of marital issues with a kid is bringing what he calls sexual energy into the relationship, even if it is unconscious. Writing this though, I think every parent who forces a child that is not yet emotionally mature to carry the weight of the emotions of their parent is setting them up to act as victim of covert incest later on.

[ZeroSumGames]

I managed to get it back together, only to unleash it again on my husband later on ! I had to say sorry to him as well... Goodness, I KNOW I didn't lose it as much as my mother used too, and I got it back together fast enough... but still... Parenting truly is the hardest. I am however very grateful that I can SEE myself and at least manage myself better. And I know I am improving my self-control everyday... I see many people around me who's eyes are completely shut to their own behaviors... But somehow, it makes it still hard to notice each and every single time I messed up, was too angry, said too much, didn't say enough... Sometimes I wonder if all of this fine tuning all the time is maybe unhealthy in and of itself. A defense mecanism I developped as a child, micro managing myself all the time, not allowing myself to be imperfect too... Anyway... A story for another thread maybe.

It truely is the hardest.  It sounds like that was hard to experience.  It also sounds very human.  A big hug to you for doing your best, recognizing what else was going on, reflecting on it, and making amends to those around you. 

[Couscous]

Riverwolf, the first time my son ran off and didn’t say goodbye to me when I dropped him off at school because he was so excited I have to admit that my wounded inner child popped up, quickly followed by my inner critic who said: “See? He obviously hates you because you’ve failed at motherhood”.

Be kind to yourself — the first day of school is very hard for childhood trauma survivors. And I can almost guarantee you that your daughter was feeling a bit abandoned by you, and she most certainly was feeling disconnected, so she likely gave you the cold shoulder because of that.

Being the perfect mother is not how we break the cycle. We break the cycle when we make repairs with our kids after losing our sh*t. Our mothers never did that with us, and that was the part that was so damaging. Sending you a big hug.  

 

[WalkbyFaith]

dreaming of someone else, of something else, of real connection, yet unable to connect to the person I am closest to.

Riv3rwolf, this is similar to what I've realized about myself too, which I posted earlier on this thread. The tendency to feel attraction or fantasize...even though I don't want to act on it! It is certainly something, for both of us, to be very aware and careful but also to focus on our healing so that we don't harm our marriage.

But I also 100% identify with Notwendy's description too..

I was afraid of a relationship with a real person. If I was in one, I was afraid to be myself. I was afraid to rock the boat and very afraid they'd get angry at me over something. They didn't get the real me. They got a people pleasing version of me.

Yes. I think I was also conditioned to be wary of guys and to not pursue relationships. Very much raised in the religious "purity movement" that was all about NOT dating, NOT kissing, NOT having sex. There was a lot of rules and shame around it all. And we didn't talk about sex in my home growing up. I got "the talk" at age 10 and nothing after that. I believe that contributed to my fear of dating (as well as just having no idea who I really was) and consequently, feeling undesirable because no guys actually wanted to date me.

Anyway I guess that's a bit off-topic, but it's all part of what I've been processing this week. I've just started reading the book Unwanted by Jay Stringer. It's all about how our "unwanted sexual behavior" stems from childhood /FOO trauma. It is a Christian-based book, just FYI, but three chapters in, I am getting  a lot from it and would recommend it!