If your mother was a depressed alcoholic have you been able to form successful relationships

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And if you have siblings, have they managed it? Is it hardest for the eldest sibling do you think? Do you have a family where some siblings managed it?

Any ACOCs just accept being single for ever as the best course of action ? Being with somebody feels nice for a while and then quickly it feels like nothing but anxiety and then if the anxiety passes it feels stifling. (Have had psychotherapy btw) On the rare ocassions that I get past the first six weeks with somebody I find I don't know how to do the companionable silence thing. Well, not ''silence'' but just sitting comfortably. I think I panic if it's quiet.

To clarify, I mean romantic relationships, long term ones anyway. I have no problem holding on to friends for years. I have some friends that I've known for 30 years.

No siblings. Lots of unsuccessful relationships (anxiety as you describe above and major trust and insecurity issues). Also had therapy but didn’t think it really helped tbh. Then met the right person, together 8 years and now happily married. Hope that helps!

Not sure you can say that there is a correlation between the two as so many other factors come into play. I can relate to what you mean, I find it depressing sitting around doing nothing. I agree with PP that its comfortable with the right person. Elder DB is single.

How much psychotherapy have you had?

8 sessions but a lot of time in between to think in between which was great. I have thought a lot, read a lot. Have the self-awareness. I understand it all in theory but then the FEELING I have in a relationship is not comfortable. Can you psychotherapy your way OUT of the feeling? i think that every disastrous failure of a relationship that I have is slightly more 'real' and slightly less of a disaster than the previous one. I'm in a new relationship with a man now but it turns out that his mother was very neglectful to his emotional needs and sense of self and the results on an adult are surprisingly similar. I had a relationship a couple of years ago with a man whose mother ''enmeshed'' him (he said) and didn't allow him to be himself until he emigrated to get away from her. So a history of only feeling comfortable with other people with wounds of some description. I seem to feel this resonance only with people whose mothers neglected them or enmeshed them you would imagine the two are very different.

Depressed , controlling personality disordered and anxious mum , alcoholic dad, both perpetual victims and emotionally stunted.
I’ve had umpteen failed relationships and my own mental health issues. Huge anxiety around all relationships, not just romantic ones. Very confused boundaries and low self esteem. Lots of counselling but nobody really clicked except for one amazing woman who had to stop just as I felt we were getting somewhere because her funding was cut and another brilliant one who left for maternity leave!
I’m in a newish relationship right now and really battling with my head monkeys to try not to let my anxiety and fear overtake me and ruin everything!

Okay. My suggestion is going to be counterintuitive, and you possibly won't like it:

Eight sessions isn't nearly enough. And spread-out sessions probably offer little in the way of assistance.

Why?

Because you intellectualise everything. You want to read, and study, and think your way through this. That won't work. It won't work at all. The reason for this is that you have quite understandably done everything you can to avoid what you're feeling.

And why not? It was fucking heart-breaking, having your heart broken over and over again because your mother just wasn't able to be there for you. Slowly, we learn to shut down, and not to feel - until it becomes so second-nature, that we don't know what feeling is anymore.

So my invitation is for you to go in deeper; and regularly. Go to therapy once a week, indefinitely. One of the main reasons you might resist this is the main reason why you are the way you are: avoidance.

We avoidant types will do anything to avoid intimacy, even while we crave it. But to get too close to someone means pain - and to get too close to our therapist, by turning up regularly and over months, not weeks, means getting closer to the source of our pain, and being in an increasingly intimate situation with someone from whom we cannot hide.

By all means try to think your way out of this. That, though, has only got you this far. Instead, risk the mess and chaos of commitment to your own process. The men you find yourself with will change too. They might still be avoidant at heart, but you might find that they are also, like you, committed to the mess and chaos of their interior lives.

Stop thinking, start feeling. It's going to feel strange, and possibly shit at times. Life, however, will change far more than it is at present.

It's hard isn't it?

My boundaries were terrible. They are better now. I always tried to make my mother happy so in a relationship I used to people please so much that normal healthy men were revolted by my people pleasing. That is why SO many men have liked me to start off with and then devalued me and broken it off due to my inability not to people please.
I'm not doing that now. I am over the peoplepleasing (so progress is possible I know!) but I am still finding it hard to just ''be'' (together). He is fine on his own and I'm fine on my own.

My dad was an alcoholic.

I've met an amazing partner but I feel it was luck more than anything. I could have easily fell into an abusive relationship.

Google "adult children of alcoholics" it's a massive eye opener.

It's taken me years to work out my own self via counselling. I'm like you, self aware but then question everything. It's hard as effectively we were conditioned as children to be this way- how do you undo that?

''We avoidant types will do anything to avoid intimacy, even while we crave it. But to get too close to someone means pain - and to get too close to our therapist, by turning up regularly and over months, not weeks, means getting closer to the source of our pain, and being in an increasingly intimate situation with someone from whom we cannot hide.''

So true. I am in my late forties and I wonder if it's worth it. Normal healthy single women without detachment issues can't find a relationship so sometimes I think it's a gift to not need anybody. But then I look at myself and my sibling both of us single and both of us long term single and both of us unable to get past abotu 8 weeks with somebody and I think wow.

I would like to have counselling specifically around relationships. I"m fine otherwise. Resilient, content, self-aware, not lacking in self-worth. So, FINE until I try and be in a relationship. It's always fine at first. I met this guy in November. This is my longest relationship. November 2018 that is.

Both my parents were functioning alcoholics, and both died from alcohol-related diseases. My father was depressive; my mother narcissistic. Neither of them was particularly interested in me.

I have come to understand that I will never be that woman who comfortably settles into a permanent, co-habiting relationship. The battle to accept this was the hardest of all. I can love deeply and well, but that love is ... 'quirky', shall we say. I will not live with a romantic partner again - of that I'm almost certain. It kills me; I give everything away, and mother the men I'm with until I disappear. Strengthening my boundaries means understanding that the one boundary that needs to be there is the one that avoids enmeshing to the point where I lose myself. And that boundary will very probably need to be a bricks-and-mortar one.

I work with what I have. It's not right or wrong; bad or good. It is simply what I have based on my background.

Trying to change, I now understand, was not the point of therapy. It was learning to accept myself.

Yes I have (formed successful relationships).
I am a bit of a cow bag, I guess (mom said as much, sometimes).
I don't get anxious. Anxiety is pretty darn rare for me.

Other things that happened in my life were more damaging to my MH, tbh. Just how it worked for me.

I hear you, OP. I'm not good when it comes to relationships - if I judge my track record on what I'm 'supposed' to be doing/achieving. It really has been about self-acceptance. It's an ongoing struggle.

The funny thing is that I do live with someone: the father of my son. We are not romantically together. I would have far less success co-habiting if we were! But somehow, we are helping raise each other up out of our childhoods. Like you, I chose someone who perfectly met my complexes and dysfunctions. We are committed to seeing that through ... to wherever it leads us.

It may protect me from the intimacy of a romantic relationship, I realise that. But perhaps that's all I can do for now: take it step by baby step. And accept, accept, accept.

Therapy has been front and centre in this, all along, for more years than I care to remember. I wouldn't give it up if you paid me :)

I don't want to live with a man either. I don't need a relationship to be that conventional but I would like the friendship of a relationship iykwim and I'd like there to be respect and affection and intimacy. But yeh, settling in to a permanent co-habitation for the forseeable future seems incomprehensible to me/

I think if a really conventional type of relationship (which I see as long term cohabitation was still paramount to me) then I would plunge back in to psychotherapy but although I haven't ruled out a bit of relationship counselling I don't know if I CARE enough. That sounds bizarre given this thread!

I've just thought, my closest friends (my female friends) we all seem to have one depressed / narcissistic & /abusive / alcoholic parent. I don't have any friends who grew up with both Ma and Pa Walton meeting all of their needs responsibly whilst supporting them in their journey to adulthood. I can't get close to perfect people !!

Afistful, how much therapy do you have? And is it expensive? Are you sometimes wondering ''what will I say?''

I can't get close to perfect people !!

You're wired differently. You're on a different circuit. Still: it's the quality of your own friendships that are important - not how perfect they are. But you know that :) Also, anyone who is 'perfect' is lying

''I have come to understand that I will never be that woman who comfortably settles into a permanent, co-habiting relationship. The battle to accept this was the hardest of all. I can love deeply and well, but that love is ... 'quirky', shall we say. I will not live with a romantic partner again - of that I'm almost certain. It kills me; I give everything away, and mother the men I'm with until I disappear. Strengthening my boundaries means understanding that the one boundary that needs to be there is the one that avoids enmeshing to the point where I lose myself. And that boundary will very probably need to be a bricks-and-mortar one''

just identify with this SO much.

''

I have once-weekly therapy, and it's £60 a session (which is very reasonable for where my therapist is based; and I know other therapists who are more like £40 per session).

I used to wonder or worry about what I was going to say. I now realise that was a defence - the fear being that if I had nothing to say, then the truth would sneak out. Now, sessions self-direct. I usually stall with surface stuff at the outset, delve in deeper as the hour progresses; and come out with the very juicy stuff just when I don't quite have enough time to discuss it.

As I say, acceptance .... :)

I'm meeting a friend tomorrow and she was looking in to relationship counselling, specifically for relationships. I will ask her if she found somebody. She is very like me. We are both outwardly very normal, strong, capable, content, good company, well-liked at work, and we both outwardly have it all sewn up.
Thanks

:)

All the very, very best!

Yes, both my sibling and I have very successful marriages now. But before we met our spouses we both had long term relationships with partners who were emotionally abusive.

I had a good year and a half of counselling to help me sort my shit out. My sibling hasn’t had counselling (to my knowledge), but was on anti-depressants for a while.

I was the oldest so I feel like I shielded my sibling from a lot of the toxicity. Also my sibling was favoured by my alcoholic parent so didn’t have to deal with quite as much crap as me.

Weirdly we both met our spouses quite soon after our alcoholic parent died. We were in emotionally abusive relationship, replaying the alcoholic parent/child dynamic with our partners. Then our alcoholic parent died and it was like we were ‘free’. We both almost instantly left our EA partners and within a year each met the people we’re married to now.

Afistfull really amazing posts. It is totally about reaching down to your gut “feelings” and not dissociating by intellectualising and spinning narratives in your head.

OP you don’t need “relationship counselling” you are barking up the wrong tree there. Cart before horse and all that. Proper deep psychotherapy (not counselling) committing for a couple of years will bring you real enlightenment and emotional freedom. You will be re-wired and the relationship stuff will fall into place. Even with your long term friendships - they will be enriched.

Relationship counselling is exactly what I need! I am so content in my own company. I'm not hiding from my own thoughts. I feel content. I'm brave, independent, optimistic, resilient, generous, rational, I keep things in perspective. So at the risk of sounding defensive I know that I can sit with the feelings on my own. The feeling of not being enough. The feeling of being different. I've dealt with those feelings. Put them behind me now.

It is relating to somebody in an intimate relationship that I can't do. I don't need to go right back to the drawing board here! I'm in a really good place except for relationships. I don't need to take the whole car apart just to figure out how to switch on the windscreen wipers.

Sitting with the uncomfortable feelings was a real eureka moment for me a few years ago (but that was in relating to my mother). Just letting the discomfort sit there and not racing to do what my mother wanted me to do in some bid to ease the discomfort of not having her approval.

I can completely relate to this. My mother was an alcoholic and it has definitely affected my relationships. I have them okay, but they seem to make me highly anxious.

Thanks for posting.

Both of my parents are functioning alcoholics. I remember finding bottles of spirits in bizarre places when I was growing up, laundry basket, in the towel cupboard etc. Life was hard, parents fought daily, agression and even physical with each other on occassions.

I have never considered before reading this thread that this had such an impact on me. I googled it and it is like a lightbulb moment.

I have gone through a string of disasterous relationships. Married twice, first one was an alcoholic, still married now and feel trapped in this marriage. I definately end up with people who I can rescue to the detriment of myself.

Really glad I read this thread, sorry I can't contribute with a positive answer op.