What Therapy Hath Wrought II

One of the roles that therapy plays seems to be making you
look at things that you don't want to. Sometimes they can be
things you never knew were happening, but sometimes they
are things that are obvious but you never really thought about
them. This installment deals with the latter.

I am a caretaker. I have been as long as I remember. Some of
my earliest memories have to to with providing emotional support
to my mother. I was always taught "Children should be a blessing
and not a burden." BTW, I agree with this but I think I would
handle it a little differently. As soon as possible my emotional
support was expanded to financial support. Again, I think that
children should help out but it really shouldn't have been such
a focus. I learned well that taking care of other people was
far more important than taking care of myself. As I grew older
and moved into creating my own relationships I have found that
I continued to play that role. Subconsciously (or not) I sought
out relationships that put me in the caretaker role. After almost 40
years of this first person singular pronouns have been almost eliminated
from my vocabulary (for those of you who are grammatically challenged that means your author has difficulty with the little word "I"). My entire
existence becomes wrapped up in making sure the other person in the
relationship is happy. And this is without regard to the type of relationship.
Love, friendship, work... even acquaintances are treated this way. Imagine
trying to be "the best little boy in the world" to practically everyone
you meet for over 40 years! That's drawing a lot of water from the well.
A parallel issue with this is that while there is a lot of drawing, there is
little filling. If I want to make other people happy I can't complain,
I can't express my own wants or desires. Always smile. Don't be selfish.
Put other people first. Let them make decisions for what they want. Always
be helpful. Into this mix throw in my previous post about therapy and add
in the problem about my own self-image issues and you have a deadly mix
(relationship-wise). So let's see... I have to make people happy regardless
of the personal cost, I have to make my partner happy or else he'll leave,
and I cannot give a voice to my own desires and wants. It's scary for me to see that in print typed by my own hands. Now... given that I seem to have picked up along the way the unique ability to compartmentalize, it becomes a little more clear how I can select one area, sex, and break it off from my relationship.

I never, ever once thought about leaving the relationship, I just separated the acts of indiscretion from my feelings for Alex. But with sex I could
feel again wanted, even desired. I could fulfill a physical need (which is very powerful), and thus "let off a little steam" (kinda like Vietnam was for the US and the former USSR) as well as fulfill the aforementioned psychological needs. I could feel, even if for just an hour, like I was a focal point, a "center of attention" as it were.

And so, now you have a little more of the story. Stay tuned,
I seem to be processing more and more every day.