You're all hitting on points that ring very true for me (…I say this typing from my bed with both kids in it watching cartoons…5:45 AM wake up call anyone, we'll go bake breakfast and get our day started at 7:00 like other non nocturnal creatures).
When a child gets used to you running to them every time they want something oh boy, that's a bad place to be in.
I'm in this place right now with my 2 year old and it is something that I have been so completely against since I became a parent. I just was so exhausted from dealing with the alcoholic drama and then baby DD was born and since then I've been letting DD2 have her way more often than I should. I'm trying to back peddle with her now, but that takes much more effort than letting her have her way. Even worse, when RAH is here he really lets her walk all over him because he feels guilty for being away. We're in some bad cycles in this regard.
Then, if that person did something nice or generous toward me---I felt oddly uncomfortable of responding with gratitude--like I was angry that they had poked a hole in my strong image of them as completely and thoroughly "bad".
This is also me, and I'm struggling with this. My husband, for all intents and purposes, is being a really good guy lately. I'll be honest though, I'm afraid to enjoy and take advantage of it. It's leaving me with this weird feeling now though that he's getting a lot better and now I'm stuck. I think I need to just take advantage of things as they are - good - and stop being afraid that they're going to change - bad. The only bad in this family at the moment is from me, to me, caused by me.
Firesprite, last night I actually found a bit you wrote that was spot on for me:
"So why do I seem to NEED this justification? All that does is allow me to move forward in anger.... It's completely unfair to RAH at this point - it's the equivalence of holding a resentment until I'm good & ready to use it as ammo against him. Not cool. Not the way I live my life consciously. And on top of it, he totally supports me doing this. Then it hit me like lightning - of COURSE!
In my healing I have acknowledged that I do not deserve to be treated badly, but I haven't quite gotten far enough to feel deserving of the good either. I'm caught somewhere in the middle - and it occurs to me that taking this thought a step farther - feeling "deserving" is a hair off from feeling "worthy". This has happened every. single. time. that I am faced with a situation that allows me to indulge in something frivolous, no matter how big or small of a "thing" it is... and as soon as I can't "justify" it in my mind I start self-sabotaging & poor-me'ing all over the place. I can't seem to accept good things without strings attached (especially if they are indulgent) OR that sometimes things don't need to be rationalized - they just ARE. I don't have all of the pieces worked out just yet - it's really just coming together in my head since this morning, but I know it ties in to my FOO issues as an ACoA as well….."
I am poor me-ing like crazy right now. Poor single mom me. While it is challenging, I do have some opportunities here to give myself what I need and I am just not taking the opportunities.
I was reading a little bit about self sabotage and to my MAJOR shock and revelation, shopping is a huge self sabotage theme (I shop and "treat" myself with shopping all the time, funny that all that shopping isn't really making me feel any better even though I tell myself it is. I'm just stuffing my closets grossly beyond capacity) and I feel no hesitation about buying myself "stuff" but I feel guilty at the idea of getting a $20 pedicure. [And I've kind of previously noticed earlier this week that I've been shopping more than really necessary this week and last and funny how I'm feeling like crap right now. I'm trying to feel better in a way that doesn't help anything at all and completely ignoring what I really do need. Self sabotage.]
Today, I'm going to go force myself to go get a pedicure and then go take a yoga class and then sit in the steam room. Because I KNOW that happy mom = happy kids but I'm not practicing what I so often preach. Time to make some ch-ch-ch-changes.
Thank you again, peeps. Seriously don't know what I would do without you guys!