Ahhhh....therapy!

Once again our couples therapist guides us to someplace we'd never have gotten on our own.

Today I started to put together more of the pieces of who I am in my life and in our relationship. At one point she described my sense of self as brittle, meaning that it's not so solid that I can bend with what happens in life. She helped me understand how threatening I find being deemed "bad" and how easy it is for me to hear that I'm bad. I've always felt that if I don't meet expectations I'll be abandoned (left, fired, disliked, etc.) And today I realized that probably has to do with how suddenly my father left us when I was young.

And I have so much invested in me being "good" and "right" and things being smooth and harmonious because the absolutism I've used as a coping method for my fears of abandonment leaves no other possibility for "good" except bad; no other possibility for right except wrong; no other possibility for perfect aside from awful. And the payoff for not seeing problems is that I get to keep on the right side of things. Problems, for which I must be responsible in my world view, mean that things have gone to shit and that the end is near. Very threatening.

I'm just starting to explore all this, so it's not very clear. But it's good to have an opening.