Has therapy ruined me?

[ThatLilacReader]

Good Morning lovely people,

I was wondering if anyone has been through the same sort of thing as this and if its healthy and normal. I am going to sound rambly, so I apologise in advance

I decided last year at the ripe old age of 39 to embark on therapy. I had a horrible childhood with an abusive mother who I am no contact with. I had two kids at 17 and 19 with a man who went onto physically assault me and I had 8 years of this before I finally left. I nearly died around 5 years ago from a stress related incident.

I have always worked since my first born was 6 months old, started off in a pub and worked my way up to where I am now in a well paid office job (their dads parents are superb and babysat for me so I could work- well into them finishing primary school as well). I always had enough money to cover rent, bills and whatever was requested on birthdays and Christmas (I took some ad hoc cleaning jobs as an extra for a couple of seasons for when games consoles were requested lol), but never enough for holidays etc. We were just ok.

I am super proud of my kids and my oldest is in uni and the second is going in September, they both also have part time jobs and live at home.

I was always a massive people pleaser and I have had to admit to myself that I kept some really toxic people around me just to have people around because my family were so shit.

Four years ago I met a man who is now my husband. His personality (think calm, logical and bluntly honest coupled with therapy has completely transformed my life and it is causing carnage with my 'friends'. We have bought a house together and he goes above and beyond to provide for us (his daughter also moved in with us as she found a fantastic job nearby). The house we bought is one I can afford myself should anything happen, which was a big boundary for me that he made sure happened.

I am now as well within the last two years alot more financially better off with two of us sharing the bills and the kids contributing a tiny bit of rent and also doing their own food shopping. I am now able (as pathetic as this sounds) to stay in and do things like actually make the extravagant cakes with ingredients I couldn't afford before. I can pop to the garden centre and fill a trolley with plants and spend the afternoon in the garden with a bottle of wine doing some gardening. We are now also both in a position financially for holidays and have been away with all three kids about six times in the past three years, something which I am VERY grateful for. I have fully relaxed into this new stage of my life.

I still see friends, but I am now unavailable for constant mid week calls about how the married man they are sleeping with hasn't left his wife etc. I feel completely selfish because I was available before but now I am in this new headspace that I have been working so hard to get to and I am fully finally happy. Just for some context as well these conversations would be rants- then a how are you? If I said anything the conversation would quickly end or move back to what they were talking about.

In turn to all of this I have been told I am now changing, I am boring, I'm never about for anyone and my husband must be controlling because of all the holidays I am now going on he's trying to buy me? No, I can just afford them now we both have spare cash as the household expenses are shared. Or after sharing photos of cakes or dinners i've made replies saying who are you? You've changed. Again no I haven't, I just couldn't do it before and now I can I am enjoying it.

One friend is constantly still telling me I shouldn't have got married because she wouldn't do it again- but incessantly.

It's all driving me insane. I've been let down alot over the years but always made myself available and now I am not it's upsetting everyone.

I genuinely feel like telling everyone to piss off at the moment. I know it sounds selfish, but when my friends have married or moved or whatever I am happy for them and just move into their new phase with them. For me, it seems to be so different.

They are not your friends.

These are not friends you need in your life.

Writing things down can be helpful, I get that, but it’s strangely worded.

To cut through it, you’ve had therapy and now don’t want to be constantly available for friends who are behaving in morally dubious ways and on top of this you’re busy making cakes and gardening; is that correct?

I guess so. My life now is the one I always hoped to work to and now I have everyone insults it constantly and I can't be bothered to listen to it.

No need to be sarcastic about making cakes and gardening, I've worked my way up from not being able to give myself dinner after I made sure my kids had theirs so gardening and making cakes is a big thing for me, however pathetic it may sound to others.

Why do you consider these arseholes to be your friends? They aren't.

Block them all and move on with your nice new life in peace, and without their poison holding you back.

Nothing wrong at all with making cakes and gardening if that's what you like doing. Hobbies they may be, but that's not to be dismissive of them. They can be very therapeutic and helpful to your mental health. Ignore anyone who mocks or disses them. They are creative, and not remotely pathetic.

So 'friends' who used you before, can now no longer use you because you have your own hobbies, boundaries and aren't as much of a people pleaser? Surely that's a good thing?

The only people who complain about you having boundaries are the ones who benefitted from you having none. Who cares what they say? Just because somebody says something doesn't make it true. Live your contented little life with your husband and children and stop giving other people's opinions so much power over you.

I’m not being sarcastic <— genuinely baffled face - your OP says that you are enjoying making cakes and gardening and this takes most of your time. Or have I got something wrong?

You need to make some new friends. You sound happy and settled, true friends would be celebrate it.

This is what my gut is constantly nagging. It's kind of like I was always the friend that was struggling along and now I'm not its a big issue for them.

No, most of my time is being at work, making cakes and gardening is strictly for weekends.

I'm not convinced this is causing anyone carnage tbh

Obviously you don't need to engage in anyone else's drama though

Not sure why my reply was immediately hidden but definitely tell them to do one. I'm glad you found your peace.

As I said, it's constant messages to me telling me I have changed and how I am being a bad friend, which in turn is stressing me out.

No, I think the cakes and gardening are just examples of things she would always have liked to do, but didn’t have the money, moral support, time, and headspace to do. She is now enjoying a normal life she would always have wanted, but people she had thought were her friends are mocking and criticising her for it. So now she is wondering if she is the problem, or whether they were never really her friends.

So you wouldn’t have been able to take mid week calls anyway then I guess.

I think people are confused because the title led them to expect you were going to complain about your therapist, not complain about offering therapy informally to friends.

Look: you have achieved stability, love, and companionship at this stage. Your old friends need you yo stay back in your box, slways available for handholding and moaning. You need new friends.

Tell them that you're happy and to knock it off.

I found when I found a nice stable life, all of those friends who used to take the mick ended up drifting off and do their chaos elsewhere. Stick them on restricted on your SM for the minute. So they can't see what you're doing.

What's your point?

I’m catching it on this thread! I don’t really have a point, just that if the OP is at work during the week I wasn’t sure where the mid week calls fit in!

Congratulations! You, a people pleaser, have done the hardest thing a people pleaser can do. You set boundaries and you are living life on your terms! That's exactly what you need to be doing so that you can take better care of yourself and enjoy your life. In the States, where I grew up, we used to say, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. If you're stretching yourself, trying to accommodate everyone else's nonsense, you aren't supporting yourself at all. You have learned this and you're in a great place, being true to yourself!

I think there is a stage, as we approach our 40s, where we feel this great need to finally live our life. Most girls and women are caught in a system that makes us, by default, caretakers of the world. Because we are biologically designed to be the mothers of the world, we really are the heart of the world. Whether we choose to have children or not, we are designed to grow, birth, feed, and nurture humans. When we raise our children, we are not only mothers, we are teachers, therapists, doctors, play mates, entertainers, orators, leaders, sometimes dictators (if and when necessary). And then we have partners to share space and life with. And we also have parents who need our love and support, more so as they age. And we have colleagues and friends who also need our love and support. Women wear so many hats. How our social battery gets us to 50 is beyond me. We give, over the course of our lifetime, an enormous amount of emotional support to the world around us. And so many of us are people pleasers. I think we're pretty fucking awesome. We have fortitude in abundance. But I do think in mid-life, we sort of learn to say "Ok. Enough. I need some of me now. You've all had a lot of me. It's my turn now."

Maybe now it's time to go on a retreat and hang out with you and give to yourself some of the love and nurturing you've been shelling out for years, OP.
Boundaries are a gift to yourself. Boundaries aren't a wall. But it's totally ok to think, "You know what? I'm going to pull up the drawbridge, go inside, be with my family, and make a cake."
It's ok to release some friendships to the wind. Some will totally survive. Others won't. Everything is finite and many friendships won't follow us to our grave. That's just the way of things. Focus on what you're feeling right now and what you need in order to have peace in your day.

I'm going on 55 and honestly, my free time is all about just baking, cooking, sitting at the table and shooting the breeze with my kids. Snuggling the cats. Walking the dog. Seeing if things will grow in my garden (which does not like to grow things but tries to, nonetheless). These are the things that really give my life meaning.
You've discovered meaning in your own life. Hang onto that! You've discovered meaning and healthy boundaries. I think your therapy worked, by the sounds of it!

I work from 5am until 4pm. There is a whole evening? I don't understand what you are trying to achieve?

There was thread on here worrying that the OP's parents was spending their time gardening, walking the dog and in the house. I remember thinking that they've found contentment. I've cut ties with a former friend who accused me of having no life because I've more or less stopped drinking. I'm sick of the, woe is me and negativity from a few others. I do a lot of childcare and caring, but I long for days in my DD's garden. We should grow, mature and pinpoint what we want from our life, at the different stages. There's nothing worse than other people's conflict and drama, especially when there's no end and it's self inflicted. Put your boundaries in place and if they don't like it, let them drift off.

Why did you read that as sarcasm? I would love to bake cakes and do gardening! I have a postage stamp for the kitchen, a boiling hot flat and no garden of my own.

Anyway, I think these people you’re mixing with must be completely wrong for you. They should be pleased for you.

What I was ‘trying to achieve’ was a reply to a thread.

I posted initially checking I’d understood correctly, got my head bitten off for apparently being sarcastic, then you explained you didn’t garden or bake cakes in the week as you were at work and I said that you wouldn’t really have been able to have midweek calls from friends anyway, then.

What is so bad about anything I’ve said there I really, genuinely don’t know.

Is it possible you’ve put adverse intentions onto your friends’ messages? I didn’t initially get that impression but you have been very hostile to me and I really haven’t been sarcastic or trying to make any sort of ‘point.’