I am not sure if this relates to an actual step. Tonight I saw Momma (focus of my codependency) post on Facebook a picture of her with her 3 biological daughters. They all live a good distance away now. She said she was missing her daughters so bad it makes her cry. Know what I did? Immediate feeling of rejection. Wishing I was enough to fill most of the void. (I'm what she refers to as an adopted daughter, though I wasn't officially adopted).
I want her to love ME as much as that, to be equal in importance as her real daughters. If I moved away, would she miss me enough to cry? No. I don't think so. But I want that. It's unfair, logically I realize, to expect that because she didn't raise me, didn't give birth to me, etc. But inside I want to say, but here I am, you can love me. It always feels like nothing will ever be enough to fill the emptiness. Probably because I'm the only one who can. Sigh
Ape130, I am sorry that you are hurting. I am totally understand some of what you are talking about. My parents got divorced when I was young. For years I constantly tried to reach out to my mother and have a relationship with her. I didn't know what I did wrong for her to not want to be in my life. When I turned 20 I reached out to her one more time. she welcomed me, let me live with her. Things seemed to get better and then I moved out and she barely talks to me. I live about 3 miles from her, I have a daughter and it seems like I am always the one reaching out for time with her not the other way around. Why doesn't she still want to see me, does she not approve of me? I think that all the time and then finally I had to realize that I cant control how she thinks or what she is feeling. I can control how I react to it. It is hard and it hurts that I still want her love and acceptance. I am not sure how to break away from that, hence why I am here to get help with my codependency in all areas of my life. I know this might not help your situation but hopefully knowing that someone else is going to something similar, it might make you feel a little better. thanks for posting.
Have you tried talking to her about how you feel? sitting down for coffee and just let it out. She might not realize that she's hurting you.
It's so hard when we have trouble letting go of our grip and desire to be accepted. But sometimes it really does seem, looking back, that nothing from others will ever be enough to fix that. I don't know exactly how we break away yet either, as I'm just starting out too. But it is nice to feel understood and not judged. As for whether I"ve talked to her about how I feel, the answer is sort of. I talked to her a few weeks about about the fact that I'm codependent. She was the one who helped me see it, and then I talked to my therapist about it. So she does have a basic understanding, but I did not go into details as specific as the one described above. I guess I feel like that would not help because either I'm technically guilting her into doing something else, or making her feel bad for loving her biological daughters, etc. IT seems unfair, because really what I'm saying to everything she does is "hey, what about me?" I need to figure out how to embrace all that I do have and to be okay with her loving other people too--need to somehow get myself to believe that it doesn't mean she cares for me less just because at the moment she is misses somebody that isn't me.
