For this installment of “The Y Factor” I’d like to take the opportunity to respond to feedback provided by a couple of readers. My intentions in responding to the feedback aren’t to rebut or “correct” anyone, but to internalize the comments and incorporate them into my own healing process.

In the blog titled “I’ll Hurt You Before You Hurt Me,” I wrote about my family’s unhealthy behavior of deflecting our internal pain into nasty verbal barbs towards each other. A reader named “Weiss” reflected on this saying, “It seems like you naturally mellowed. The fighting may have helped you along.” I think it’s entirely possible that I may have started to “mellow” with age (although I’m only 35!), but I don’t think that I would have begun the mellowing process if I hadn’t been jolted into it by circumstances that I brought on myself (offending a boss one too many times with my nasty attitude and getting fired). I suppose that the mellowing began when I started putting all of the pieces together in therapy. The concept that the “fighting may have helped (me) along” is hard for me to wrap my mind around. The fighting actually worked to drive us more apart before I became conscious of why I was doing it.

Weiss also commented that “you used to nag, criticize, and insult … now you talk about the good things in life … how boring does that get?” I have yet to shed all of the nagging, etc. It’s been really hard to stop doing that with my father. While I was home for Thanksgiving this year, I asked him a question and he responded with “Yes dear” in a patronizing tone of voice. I turned on him and said, “Don’t you dare use that tone of voice with me. I am not your wife.” Okay, so my journey from vitriolic bitch to slightly jaded may seem uninteresting to some, but someone else might see my writing edifying as they find themselves on a parallel learning path.

My post titled “Married to My Mother” elicited a comment from a reader identified as “TPG.” In the post I talked about how when I was a child, and I would argue even still as an adult, my mother leans on me and my brother for the emotional support, love, and respect that she doesn’t get from my father. I also wrote about my relationship with long-time boyfriend Russell and how we attempted couple’s therapy as our relationship crashed and burned around us. TPG asked about what happened with me and Russell, and if Russell was a recreation of a mother-figure and if that is why we broke up. It’s a long story that will probably reveal itself in pieces through future blog themes.

The abridged version is: after not talking for 4 years I ran into him on the streets in the town where we lived together (I had moved away three years before). He had since been married and divorced. We spent hours together during my brief visit, and even attempted “reunion sex.” Yeah, I did say, “attempted,” as he was having some performance anxiety. Anyway we reconciled our anger and broken hearts. I had pushed him away and broken up with him because I didn’t want to be the one to get hurt (see a theme here?). He’s now married, for the third time, with a six-month-old daughter whom I met over the summer. I’m very happy for him. As for the second part of the question, Russell was the father-figure that I had always wanted in my life, someone to love me, appreciate me, and guide me.

TPG’s third question is very interesting: What did you get out of providing the emotional support for your mother that your father didn’t give? Thanks for asking this question because I’ve never thought about it. I suppose that at a very base level I learned that when you give love unconditionally you get love unconditionally. Love comes in many shapes and forms – that the heart of love is caring about someone. In other words, “giving a damn,” something my father never seemed or seems to do. Love is about being selfless and sacrificing for the other person. My mother was always there for us, whereas my father begrudged us if he had to give up his time to attend a childhood ice skating show, play or Scout meeting. It even shows in my father’s Christmas-present giving. He treats shopping for Mom’s Christmas gifts as a burden – a chore only done because he has to – he doesn’t even buy gifts for his own children (Mom does all the “from Mom and Dad” shopping). He looks to me for assistance with the shopping, even though Mom gives him a detailed list. Our annual Christmas shopping trips are excruciating because he doesn’t find any joy in selecting things that will please her. This year I tested his generosity and willingness to think beyond himself. While shopping for Mom, I mentioned that I would like a cast-iron frying pan. As expected, there was no frying pan under the tree.

I’m so over my parents’ marriage. It’s so hard to be around them – but that’s just the way it is.

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (February 8, 2010)

    Last reviewed: 8 Feb 2010