How to stop wanting something i can never have. it is desperate now.

[420kitty]

I'm the same way when it comes to women because my mom left when I was young. I eventually vamw to the same conclusion - it just is not going to happen for me. I've come to accept it and I focus on the great people in my life I do have and thst give a shit about me. I guess I also redirected my thought process to one day I will be the mom I wish I had. Good luck, hun. You're amazingly strong and will get through it. Xoxo

 

[Rose White]

@Fadeaway thank you for verbalizing this. I also felt like you were writing for me, of me. I realized that I hid from this for decades—men were easier, simpler. I even fantasized about being a gay man, to remove all female connection. But now that I am accepting my recovery, I am faced with the reality that I desperately want an older woman to hold me tight and say that she wants me to always seek her, to always find her when I feel I need her. My child part wants it so bad that she has tantrums about it and then we have to soothe.

I agree about inventing one inside you. I know I have one in me, and she is usually present when I’m falling asleep. But the need roars up sometimes in the day, consuming my attention.

It’s not that I want a mother to fix anything for me, or enable me, I just want her presence, her spirit, her “here-I-am” quality. If I focus on it inside myself it does wash away some of the raw burn.

 

[grit]

weird your therapist thinks it is not you and it is them? That is really weird. Does this therapist think every single older lady you wanted to be like your mother was at fault being older lady coming close to your life's path? Wow!

I think at least reading your post there are two sort of related issues:
One is your husband is not helpful to nurture this relationship. and this probably creates the atmosphere you find yourself.
The second issue your unresolved mother issues (which you acknowledged) but you are not willing or you are not given opportunity to go deep into this to resolve and process in therapy.

I do not know the solution but if I was in your shoes: after 5 yrs of marriage and having in-laws who do not care, I would let them go. I would be super polite, respectful and even go as much as to imagine how much my neediness is destroying any chance but I would move on. Sometimes if when we let go things, they come back to us.

The second issue is something you should challenge your therapy to go deeper. It sounds core issues and unless it is resolved psychologically, you will keep repeating and it will get bigger and bigger because it involves force desire to have another person to give you love which obviously is not for anyone to demand.

Good luck

 

[Fadeaway]

@grit well all I can say to your first statement is that it has been more than one therapist.

Aside from anxiety causeing me to hardley speak, I cant say if my actions came across needy.

I don't blame my husband The problem is his dad, not my husband. I do believe there have been misunderstandings on both sides. I will say I was wrong about the story beong b.s. it was infact true and i appologise for that. There are factors that prevented me from meeting them prior to that day.

I have been more than willing to do deep trauma work, but I have been to more than 10 therapists in the last 15 years due things like moving or therapists retiring or bad fit.

 

[Friday]

I HAVE TO stop wanting a mother so bad. It is never going to happen. The desire just causes me unnecessary pain.

The only way I’ve been able to stop wanting things I can’t have is to find something better, that I actually (come to) want more. So it’s no contest. In a choice between the two things I want? I want what I already have. Hands down. If it’s not better? It just makes me want what I can’t have x10, as this poor substitute just twists the knife in deeper.

So I have to be really purposeful about my decisions and choices around certain big ticket things.

Sounds like you’re running into that in trying to supplant “mother” with friends/mentors/etc. None of those relationships can possibly rise to that level, so your anxiety in attempting to make them, or the pressure you put on yourself/on them dooms them to failure, creating an ever worsening cycle.

Is there anything out there that you might want MORE than a mother? That can surpasse that want, so that your friendships and relationships can move back into their natural standards, and being reveled in / appreciated for what they are...nstead of being poor substitutes for something they’re not?

 

[Fadeaway]

Anything I want more? Nothing that I can have. Siblings, cousins, and most of all to be a mother. It isnt my fate to belong to a family in any capacity. I heard "you dont have a family" too many times from my grandmother growing up and even as an adult. That is the tip of the iceburg.

 

[Friday]

Anything I want more?

MIGHT want more.

It’s a subtle thing, but it takes an absolute, & opens a door.

When I’ve done it, it’s one of those things that tends to take a long time. Every once in awhile it’s instantaneous, a sudden jolting “Oh! This!”, and one time it happened before I was aware of it at all... I simply looked up one day, realized I had everything I’d never wanted, & couldn’t be happier (and fiercely wanted exactly this, more than anything else). But I usually count on it taking awhile.