Originally Posted by
duqld1717 
How is it that certain people have power over us like this and others dont??
People-pleasing tendencies aside (and I have strong ones!), in my particular dime-store analysis, I REALLY believe in the whole idea of wanting to rewrite your script. In my mind, it's very clear. While my life was made so much better when my mom threw out my dad when I was 12, I still always hung on to the hope that one day they would get together again.
That dream was dashed when he was found dead on the street in the Bowery--he was 43, I was 18. I was pretty devastated.
Fast-forward 5 years and I meet a guy who looks like my dad, has many elements of my dad's personality, and, surprise surprise, drinks like my dad.
I think I would have done ANYTHING to buy back the abandonment I experienced, and pretty much did that... I gave up my Self to ensure that he would never leave me. Basically, I was a shadow in the film of "he and I together happily ever after."
I think that's why I stayed for 34 years... it's why my counselor told me I had to work through the sadness of my dad's leaving/dying before I could move on. I stopped going to therapy at that point.
So, other guys haven't been the Square Peg/Square Hole match that AH and my father were, and so I wasn't so compelled to give up so much. My life has been a LOOOOONNG movie version of the Parent Trap, where me, the little kid, makes it a mission to get the parents together one way or another.
Session over.