I had amazing support on here 3 or 4 years ago, when I was plucking up the courage to leave my not very pleasant ex-h.
My children and I have been in our little cottage for 3 and a half years now. My youngest daughter is in her last year of school, she’s got an unconditional offer to study biomedicine at uni next year, so she’ll be off for sure next September, even if she doesn’t get an offer for her first choice, dentistry.
My 19 year old son’s been working in a pub and supermarket for a year, but decided a few weeks ago that he’d like to give uni a go, so he’s now studying Chinese and French and plans to be an interpreter.
My 22 yo son is in his last year of his dentistry degree.
And my 24 yo daughter (who suffered at the hands of her dad all those years ago) has moved back home with me to save some money, is now a manager in the mental health support team she’s been working in for a few years - and she’s bought a Rottweiler pup. Who is very much part of the family :)
And me? I’ve changed jobs a couple of times, moving up the pay grade each time, and I’m in a good job that I love. It’s been a weird couple of years hasn’t it - I’m kind of used to working from home now, I like being able to work in my pjs lol, but I miss people.
I’ve been with my lovely boyfriend for 2 years now, he’s kind and thoughtful and encouraging and loves seeing me smile and is so different from my ex.
We’re planning to move in together next year, to a bigger place with space for my children too when they’re home from uni.
I’m realising things about myself though, slowly, as I have space to think.
I realise that I still don’t really know what I want or like.
I still fit in with what everyone else in my life wants.
I very rarely say no, or offer a different suggestion.
And I am absolutely, totally petrified of ‘not being needed’.
I have spent so much of my life dedicating myself to looking after people and making them happy (starting with my mum, as a very young child), and then my ex… that I’m terrified of being alone, not looking after someone else, doing ‘my own thing’.
My boyfriend has just started a new job, working away for 2 weeks at a time. It’s a great job and he’s so much happier than he was, and I’m genuinely so pleased for him.
But I’m realising that his new job means that I’ll be alone a lot of the time, while my children quite rightly get on with their own lives, and my bf gets on with his.
I’m really worried that I’m becoming ‘co-dependent’ on him (is that the right word?) - I’m so used to putting others first, that I’ve basically become reliant on other people to define my identity.
Does that make sense?
Do we ever break free of that, and become our own person?