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Reply to Donna
You wrote:
But what happened was I felt I was responsable for everyone elses happiness and it just made me so conflicted
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Responsibility for someone else's happiness has been an issue in our family. My husband was always told by his grandmother not to add to the unhappiness of his mother because of a difficult marriage (that neither woman helped relieve.)
As a result he grew up thinking he was there to make his mother happy. It was quite a realization to him when he had children of his own to know that he did not expect them to make him happy so he should not have been responsible for his mother's happiness.
We thought we always made clear to our children that while their choices might negatively effect them, they were not responsible for making us unhappy about their choices. They weren't to live their lives for us.
Imagine our surprise when our daughter needed some counseling and after the first session said she had a breakthrough. As the youngest child she had always felt responsible for trying to make everyone else in the family happy! She felt a duty towards us and her brothers somehow to come to our rescue in all situations. I guess these feelings can't be escaped.
I'm an only child but grew up next door to a family with 7 children. I was in the middle of them all and very close to them and their mother.
One of my best memories is when I was 6 or 7 I called their grandmother "Grandma." One of the older kids said "she's our grandmother, not yours."
Their mother came to my rescue (I didn't even know the grandmother's name, how was I to refer to her?) and said I could call her "Grandma" if I wanted.
I feel as though I had two mothers. The neighbor mom had much wisdom and nothing I did reflected on her! How much more could one ask of a close friend!
I did feel disloyal to my own mother during my teenage years when I was so close to the neighbor family and trying to grow more independent of my own. They knew first of my pregnancy and had to tell my mother when I ended up in the hospital. That was devastating to my mother. That family was more accepting of the father of my baby than my own family was.
It's so possible to love two mothers and value them both so very much. Maybe my experience is unique. I have never understood situations where two mothers fight for custody over a child to the detriment of the child. Solomon's solution seems stupid and shortsighted as well to me.
You can't have too many people in your life that love you and want only the best for you. I'm on the same side as my son's amother, cheering for the same team. I have fewer rights but I'm not less passionate.
Julie
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