Help, I’ve read the book ‘Woman who love too much’ and it’s made me feel worse, not better, anyone else read the book and can relate?

[Ihgnelotto]

This book is often recommended on here...but while I feel like it does explain a lot, I feel that at age 40 something that my whole life has been rubbished.

My ex-partner had a massive drink problem and it was definitely right that he left, but with us all still in semi lockdown, so no visits to self help meetings (and anyway do they really exist in the UK in quite the same way as they do in the US where the book was written) or being able to do any of the other stuff I normally do to get feel better when I am really low, I’m not sure where to go from here.

I'd carry on exploring the feelings that reading the book has revealed to you. Start journalling and write down your thoughts, feelings, incidents that happened in the past, hopes, fears, plans for the future.
The idea is for you to make sense of what you've been through, learn how you can overcome stuff like poor boundaries for example and work out why it is that some women love too much and subsume their identity as a consequence.
Look at your role models when you were growing up.
Look at society's treatment of women and girls and how everyday sexism impacts both consciously and subconsciously.
And get angry.
Not with yourself but with those who've conspired either consciously or not, to abuse you.

@pallasathena very wise. Yes in the same way that therapy brings up raw difficult emotion, this is part of the process, though i know it's not easy. Sorry you feel stuck in it all. I think lockdown forcing you into camp trauma a bit. I read the book sometime ago after having horrific partner choices and it resonated alot with me too. I've had alot of counselling, (co dependency was a big theme in my life) so i got to work through it with them. I remember the saying 'break up, break down, break through' and those stages i totally identified with. Not sure if you have a counsellor but i know you can get online sessions if that appealed to you? Sending love xxx

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It’s taken me a few days to be able to have a think about things and come back. I am having counselling sessions with someone who specialises in co-dependency, this feels life a very big help the moment...I think I had indeed set up in camp trauma and needed to move forward from there.

Funnily enough I started reading 50 shades of feminism this week which feels very apt with regards the sexism. I think I totally threw the baby out with the bath water and saw ALL my nice attributes as a negative form of control...which obviously is not the case, but I can see where it needs to get healthier.