Is it really this simple??
As many of you know my issues began long before I met my stbxah and started in childhood.
During one of my last sessions with my counsellor we were talking about my childhood, As you know my mum walked out regularly, just like stbxah and my dad worked long hours and rarely at home, he had a dangerous job and I worried about him, nothing I did was ever good enough for them. My mum told me once that I should never have been born that if my dad had of had his vasectomy and that she never wanted girls, pretty powerful messages!!!! As a child I developed severe anxiety or told my mum things I did wrong when I hadn't because if I thought I'd done something then I'd become so anxious and tell her, this was the only time my mum showed me any affection or what I perceived to be affection. As a teenager I became a nightmare, But hey I got attention from her, funny though I did this with my stbxah when I had a breakdow many years ago, I became so anxious after we got back together the first time that he would leave again. Maybe I was trying to complete a self fulfilling prophecy that everybody leaves?
Anyway she said to me that I view men as being more important than myself, that growing up nothing I did was ever enough for either of my parents that my brothers were more important so I grew up feeling that I wasn't enough, enough for my mum to stay, enough for my dad to be proud of me and my achievements or enough for either parent to show me any love or affection, despite my attempts at doing so.
Is it really as simple as these feelings became my core belief about myself so I set out as an adult to prove I was good enough.......In walks stbxah, oh there were others before him, I think all my boyfriends had issues.
But with him I don't know what happened why I became so determined to fix him, just to prove I was good enough?? If he didn't leave I was enough, if he stopped drinking I was enough, I was lovable.
Maybe it's because I married him and growing up in. A household with a very unhealthy marriage between my parents made me belief that no matter what you stick it out??
I have spent my whole life trying to be someone who will make those around me love me, go out of my way to change plans to suit males in my life, do things I don't feel comfortable with so I will be accepted, they will want to be with me, see me again etc and if I fear they are going to leave me I become so anxious and obsessive trying to figure out what I've done wrong how can I fix it, what can I do so they won't leave, and on and on the cycle goes.
So after the long rambling post again, is it really this simple is this why I don't believe in myself and why I keep making the same mistakes am I seeking others approval to prove my parents wrong and prove to myself I am good enough I am lovable? wny are my own achievements not enough for me??