Shame and Worthless were my name,
But now I am called Enough, not perfect,
just Enough.
– Jan Smith
For so many years, I did not even recognize I was living in the land of Shame and Denial. I operated on the idea of “if I could just do __________ better or be better at ____________, then ____________________ (fill in this last blank with: my husband would be happier, my husband would be happier with me, my husband would love me, my life would be better/happier, I would be a better person, etc.)
Now granted, a tidier house would have been nice and had a calming effect. However, if being a better housekeeper is what it would take to make my husband love me or make me a “better” person, then housekeeping is not my real problem. My value as a person should not be based on whether my dishes are done or the laundry is put away. And if that is the only reason you might love me – you need to call Merry Maids. And I need to leave! I could not see that then.
But since I lived my life in daily crisis mode, constantly in emotional overload to keep up with the stress, I was eventually sucked into the whole scenario. I forgave my husband for his faults of insolence and contempt, since that seemed to balance with my “poor abilities as a wife”. None of my abilities seemed to be involved in the equation, only my deficits, and apparently, plenty of them.
Eventually, it seemed useless to even try, since no matter what I did, it would be considered wrong, poorly done or just a useless waste of time. And the crazy thing is, I never believed in “women’s duties” and neither did my husband. He just believed in “what I want to do” and “you do everything else,” which meant pretty much everything was my responsibility.
As I look back, and writing these words, it makes me want to throw up. I did not feel that I was a doormat or a part of the “if only I were a better….” group. But my focus was on “making everybody happy” – a totally impossible goal. And yet I tried. It wasn’t so much that I accepted being “less than,” as it was that I was trying to make others feel “enough or more than.” Fixing their pain was my focus, to the point of completely giving up meeting my own needs. I believed I would validate myself, when I had met all of the items on my mental “acceptable wife” checklist – never getting to the parts of the checklist where I was actually skilled or did something I enjoyed.
I didn’t start out with the “if only I was better, did this better, etc.” focus. That was developed and honed over a number of years. Years of being subjected to statements instilling self-doubt, blaming, and demeaning, had left me, quite frankly, depressed and unable to make decisions, feeling incapable. Once I was out of the eye of the storm, I began to regain my perspective. And my self-respect. For a while, after I was out of the situation, my theme song became “You’re not the boss of me now” from “Malcolm in the Middle” and sung by They Might Be Giants. That one line from the song seemed to sum up my focus on growing back in to my independence. (still humming that tune)
Have you ever had people in your life who made you feel like you were inept, incapable of doing anything right? Or after spending time with them, you noticed a totally different attitude about yourself, and not for the better? How did you/do you deal with them?