Personality Prostitute

The other day, a friend lamented to me:
“My husband is starting to complain that I am no longer the sweet and compliant women I used to be” (as she put her hand on her thrusted forward hip with a sassy look on her lips and raised eyebrow)
I smiled and said: “ Thank goodness…”

His statement was partially true; she had been changing. What accounted for this shift?
Well, for starters, she spent the last two years gradually reclaiming her life…one small cat paw at a time. And, this past summer she really confronted, head on, the monsters in her closet, and healed that painful portion of her childhood.

The irony was: when they first met 7 years ago, she was sassy, clear; assertive…that’s partly why he liked her. But slowly over time, she started to shift away from her real self. Why?

Mate selection is not random. It is a subtle dance of the un-conscious to attempt to gain and heal damage from our childhoods…. and exists in symbols and metaphors. And, because our lives are so complicated, we travel on this journey on multiple planes simultaneously.
In Barbara’s case, what she found appealing about Bob, in part was a familiar piece of her Dad, who had been kind and loving to her. But her Dad had some managing money issues, which she stepped into helping him when she was 17. She was the rescuer. Hmmm..let’s red flag this. Bob had personal budgeting issues; let’s red flag this too.

They had other issues too, but let’s flash forward the really big one:
The judgmental and angry mother. Her Mother did not allow her little girl to be herself. Her rage and narcissism came first. So, Barbara’s life went off track.

The message Barbara received by her Mother’s selfishness was:
“I come first.” So, Barbara’s goal growing up was: get everyone to approve of me, like me, hide my real feelings so I don’t alienate anyone, hunker down and be a ‘good’ girl.

Barbara’s first marriage was to a well-known actor. Who was self-centered (see the pattern starting?) and of course no room for Barbara.
Marriage #2 seemed very different on the surface…caring, easy going guy who could not get out of debt, took financial advice and then did nothing with it.
Marriage # 3 seemed the ideal; affectionate, wanted children, seemed devoted to her and yet, as time went on, and they started having children, she saw the split between words and actions. And, his temper controlled her. During their early years together, as he became more comfortable, and she experienced his rage on a different level…so it took her a long time to see in fact she did marry her Mother, again. And in those early years she started to surrender her true personality in the attempt to ‘buy off’ the rejecting qualities of her Mother. And, there were things about him that genuinely healed her and gave her a place from which she could start to reclaim her life.

Complicated. We are all so complicated, and yet living can be and should be so simple.

So, as her life is becoming more authentic, more ‘her’, he is feeling increasingly more ineffective in controlling her with his moods and temper….and it feeds his insecurities. Will she leave him? Clearly she has eclipsed him. Will he change? People can surprise us, but true change comes from our own desire to heal, not from fear of losing someone else.