In-Like, In-Love, and learning how to trust
I really liked how Teddy was discussing "friendship" in the thread called "Let's talk about sex, baby", so I'd like to focus more on the comments she made from here: http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/1417#comment-6223
Like: to me, is to admire qualities about a person; to be able to overlook some deficiencies because other things mean so much more. I've never even liked a man all that much.
It struck me how deeply true this sentiment goes, because I have a lot of trouble liking women, and I think a lot of that has to do with my inability to trust them and their feelings towards me. After all, I had two mothers, and both chose not to keep me, for whatever "adult reasons" they had, and I believe that feeling of being abandoned, twice, really hurt and scarred me in ways that left me not liking women, in general.
Now in my case, when I put like/love into full context of a relationship, I look back at the time after I was abused within my Afamily. I remember when I began to see my amother differently... (yes, there was a time I loved her deeply, and yet I clearly remember when my own feelings for her changed). I remember when I saw her with nothing but complete contempt and disgust in my eyes, and looking back I know that was caused by my own sense of "family betrayal". She became the person I could no longer trust or like, and yet because she was "mommy", I was forced/obligated to show and tell her how much I loved her.
....
My amother promised to love and protect another woman's child, instead she ran and hid like she always did during times of stress. I really hated that about her, because her hiding and shutting-down caused me to become the victim of many circumstances she should have/could have prevented. How can a needy lonely child like or respect a person who does something like that? I grew-up not liking anything that reminded me of a coward's behavior, which is funny in that weird-pathetic sad sense, because I have learned there are indeed very few strong and steadfast heroes living around me.
Maybe in a very old-fashioned way, I have always been looking for a hero to love... which makes me think, does that mean I have to be a hero, (strong, steadfast and true), too?
[All this before my morning coffee? This "love-stuff" IS for the insane!]
- Add new comment
- 106 reads
Comments
The changes we go through...
Is it so much that we change our feelings toward our mothers, or the fact that children change as they grow up
and mothers have a hard time seeing us not so dependent on them that they lash out irrationally?
When I went through puberty, my mother could not accept me... One time I asked her why she treated me differently
than when I was younger and she said, " YOU'RE the one who has changed; not me!!! I was so hurt. I thought there
was something really awful about me and that it was all my fault for her coldness toward me; and that's exactly
what she wanted me to feel: IT'S ALL MY FAULT!
I do not have two women who betrayed me as you do, but the one was enough for me to understand how you feel
about women. I find myself detesting their whimpering over some trivial testing they are going through. I finally
have found a woman who admitted to me, last week, that she has it all. I really admired her for being able to
confess this as truth: good husband, nice home, children and grandchildren she adores, plenty of money, status
in the community and the church, the ability to laugh and have fun. It is out there...
The mother that shuts down and hides. That puts me to shame that I deserve as it was my way from five years ago
until a few months ago. My children suffered for this! When I found out about my other son molesting the little kids,
right under my nose, I went into deep depression, which, like you said, "because her hiding and shutting-down caused me to become the victim of many circumstances she should have/could have prevented." I feel I could/should have
been there and I wasn't. You've taught me things no one else could.
" looking for a hero to love..." I don't think heroes need to have their partner be (strong, steadfast and true), too. I could
be wrong, but to me, a hero would appreciate someone that truly like them.
I don't especially like women because most of them are what I am not or can not be; they have what I do not have and
do NOT appreciate what they have. They disgust me...
"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy