Pride vs Brain

It has come to my attention that the last 6 months of my life have taken a harder, more profound toll on me that I'd realized. I do not usually condone the bottling of emotions or the subsequent eruptions because I don't see them as healthy ways of dealing with . But somehow since moving back in with my parents in January... I subconsciously started to commit that very offense.

Two of my very best friends asked hubby & I to have dinner with them at a swanky sushi joint in DC, so if course I wanted to be there. Upon realizing how much it would cost, I politely declined and informed them that it just wasn't in the budget and thanks for the invitation. I was doing what I thought was the most responsible thing to do. Of course there was a plethora of other hurdles that would need overcoming but the budget constraints trumped them all.

My friends, being the wonderful people they are, tried to help me overcome each obstacle. No money? We'll pay! No car? We'll pick you up. No babysitter? The place is kid friendly. We can change to a different restaurant. We'll just have a BBQ instead. We'll make it work. We'll find a way. One right after another, my reasons were shot down and left and right and before I knew it there was nothing left to do but to admit to myself and to them what my real reason for declining was: I was tired of feeling like a mooch. Every nice, considerate thing that my friends suggested ended up feeling like a knife blade, digging a deep hole for me to crawl into and feel like a rat. Though I fully understand that they just wanted to be able to hang out and be together, they inadvertently reminded me of why I felt so terrible in the first place.

My parents (& in laws), my sister, my brother, my best friends.... they've carried me through the last 6 months both emotionally and financially. Being away from my husband is challenging all by itself but now I feel like I've reverted back to this state of dependency that is flat out depressing. I mean, how am I supposed to feel when I can't even afford to buy my son's milk?

My best friend had to pay for my bridesmaid dress for HER wedding. My other best friend (who is going on vacation and is saving money for that) is constantly giving me rides and paying for my food. My little brother is my right hand man when travelling with my son and my sister had to sign my name on our mother's day gift, even though she paid for the whole thing. My cousin's girlfriend has to give me free haircuts and she EVEN drives to my house.

YES, I understand that these are people who love me and don't mind it but there's still a big part of me that whimpers every time someone goes out of their way to be nice to be... mostly because I feel like I've taken advantage of it and that I can't give anything in return. I couldn't even call my best friend and admit this to her... my husband had to do it for me like in that crazy movie with Ashley Judd playing a mentally ill mother. I was so overcome with shame and guilt that I fell into a fetal position on the floor crying... broken hearted and saddened by the fact that this is what my life has been reduced too.

My brain tells me that these people help me because they care, but my pride as woman is shattered and I'm having trouble shaking this wretched feeling that I'll never be anything more than a leech. Yeah, I KNOW better... but is it so hard to believe that even with that knowledge my emotions have exerted a little more control over me?

Blah blah... messy, disorganized rant.

Bruce Wayne

Now and again, even the sturdiest buttress can succumb to the weight it bears and crumble. Today is one of those days. Sometimes I find myself with no stronger desire than to see my hopes for love and happiness for my mother and father come to fruition, but other times I feel as though I am unfairly burdened with the intricate details of my parents’ deteriorating marriage and that, as the oldest sibling, I have some unspoken obligation to help them work out their differences. I suppose that’s how I stumbled upon my ambition to be a marriage and family counselor.

The truth of the matter is, I’m starting to doubt that they even want for themselves what my siblings and I want for them: the joy of being in an emotionally fulfilling relationship. For nearly 20 years, they’ve tried everything that they’ve known to make the relationship “work” and for nearly 20 years I’ve seen the results culminate into the same sorry state of affairs as the time before. Isn’t there some kind of idiom that says if whatever you’re doing isn’t working to change what you’re doing? Obviously, whatever they are trying just isn’t as effective as they think it is, so shouldn’t they try something different?

Oh and I am SO FUCKING TIRED of hearing that “in the Philippines we don’t get help with our marriage problems,” because 1. You are NOT in the Philippines anymore and 2. Is the love of your life not worth going outside of your comfort zone and taking a chance? When people come here from the Philippines and leave behind the only life they’ve ever known it is usually because they are seeking a better life with more options than they previously had. Off that principle alone my parents should be taking advantage of all forms of assistance, be they familiar or not. Also, if there was still love between them then they should be nurturing it, not burying it under their unaddressed frustrations and communication catastrophes.

I’ve tried to tell them that their problems have a ripple effect on us, their children, and even that isn’t a strong enough motivator to at least attempt to do something different. We’ve tried to suggest seeing a priest, different ways to communicate, different ways to perceive their situation, and still our desperate requests falls on deaf ears. If we are so wrong about therapists then just go see one and PROVE US WRONG. Not to mention, their refusal to see a therapist is an ironic mockery of my personal career choice.

We grow weary of trying to hold our parents’ increasingly polar relationship together. Even more so, I’m growing tired of trying to play referee to their constant tussles. Why should I wish happiness for two people who don’t seem to want it for themselves? What more can I do or say that will push them in ANY other direction than the one that they’ve been going in for two decades? Where am I going to find the energy to sustain the effort to keep them together?

There are rare, staccato’d moments when they still seem genuinely in love but those moments are too often clouded by the tumultuous quarreling and unceasing frustration. What am I to do? Am I ever going to heal the first married couple that I’ve ever tried to counsel? I’m starting to feel like I’m going to become Bruce Wayne – since he couldn’t save his parents; he made huge personal sacrifices and spent his entire life trying to make up for it. That isn’t a price that I’m sure I’m willing to pay…. Not even for my parents.