“I got tired of pretending to have accepted my father’s new wife, a childish, stupid, arrogant woman who ruined my life and in the end she managed to separate me from him.” Elena di Cioccio replies

Welcome back to the room of Secrets.

Last week we published the letter of a reader who confided the profound malaise and inner scars that having lived with a verbally violent man He had left her on her. A man who continues to devalue it, therefore to make her suffer, through their children even today who are separated.

Following this confession The secret room was literally flooded with letters similar (to comment, or to send your secret, you can write hereis an anonymous channel). Suffering women, who have been or who are still immersed in destructive, marital and non -destructive bonds, but who continue to bear for various reasons ranging from the “for the good of the children” mainly, up to the fear of being alone. All the same stories: although I do my best, he treats me badly, criticizes me, diminishes me, is verbally violent, sometimes physically, he has shots of anger and is unstable, but I stay with him for “x” number of reasons who make me an unhappy person. I will say something unpopular, you don’t want to, but this kind of relationships are in fact enrolled in the macro world of affective dependencies And, as such, they are as dangerous as “classic” addictions, considered as real diseases, like alcohol, drugs or gambling. They call them “new addictions” in fact, because they present the same characteristics as the “classic” ones but are caused by “invisible” emotional substances, such as the extreme dynamics of dysfunctional relationships.

Affective dependence leads, among other things, to stagnate in “problematic” relationships With abusing partners, because the person (unconsciously) dependent needs to maintain that bond, even if unhealthy, to feel complete. Thus the emotional employee sacrifices himself to manage the partner, or the context in which he lives or the needs of the children, giving up his autonomy and happiness. It is difficult to understand and above all to admit to being emotional employees. But if you even recognize yourself in this dynamic, please take the danger of this affection seriously and to do as much as possible to restore and escape a sea of ​​inevitable suffering. Don’t do it alone or alone, contact professionals On the subject capable of helping you! Asking for help is an act of love for themselves and towards the people we love that they will benefit from our newfound serenity. I wanted to write these lines for all the women who have written in these days and who hope to choose to say enough how other women have done and who testify to black and white that it is possible to find happiness:

“Good morning Elena, meanwhile congratulations for this beautiful column, for the calm and wise words that you know how to express! I write for the woman who left her husband abusive and feel guilty for this. Here I am, very similar situation, only that my husband (we are not yet officially separated) has not redone a life and instead hopes my return. That there will not be because for me in my heart and I am now over Therapist to finally let go of 30 years of marriage.

“I wanted to respond to the woman who wrote that after 20 years she separated because she never felt loved. I did it, it takes a lot of courage, but in the end I am sure that you will win and you will find someone able to accept you for what you are. Stay and defects, right or wrong. A hug”

“I would like to respond to the woman who still suffers from the judgment of an arid man of feelings and stingy of that sincere good that she deserves. Well not allow anyone to do this, do not provide him with the means and not give him that power. Certainly he has never deserved you, and you have a world to discover with people far better than him. Try to give you confidence and surround yourself with people who make you happy! solidarity “

“I gave you everything, you took everything and you destroyed it all! After twenty years together, thirty, if we count those before the wedding. I don’t want to blame anyone, but I don’t want to take them anymore! Now enough. We are many, in too many. I served you, relieved. What? For whom? For a wedding? A faith? I believed it, yes!
In us. But there was only you. And the boys only learned this. Your aggression, your anger. I’m so tired now. Bankrupt? Maybe but now it’s me. I. I have many friends, found, new. IT’S ME. Tired, insecure, but it’s me! My story is similar and I discover that there are many. It is very painful, I hope my children, male, do not do the same. Dearly, I tried to stop the chain of what cannot be called ‘love’. And today I am again! “

“Hi Elena. Comment x the story of the lady who separated after 20 years by a man who never loved her. I separated after 30 years of non -love, offenses, of both physical and verbal violence. I had so addicted to this life, that I thought it was normality. After 10 years of therapy, I understood that I deserved anything else, but I had neither the courage nor the desire to get back into play. I meet the real love, what I had always and only have separated in 3 months.

These are just some of the many letters of encouragement that have come! Friends in difficulty strength! Try to us, don’t be ashamed because you too can make it to find serenity!

And now we completely change the subject with today’s letter where a friend asks us an almost Disney question “But are the bad matrigne in reality really exist?”It seems so. I let you read and I wait for your secrets and comments here, in our anonymous room open 24 hours a day.

With enormous affection
Elena

Hi Elena. Nobody talks about it but there are terrible women, manipulative and narcissistic ones willing to win. Also to divide a father from his daughter and nephew! Like what my father chose herself as a wife after my mother. Saying stepmother is little. A childish, stupid, arrogant woman who ruined my life and in the end she managed to separate me from my father. That I have to say, even if I love him, is a weakless spine without spine. It hurts to say but he did nothing to defend me from that bitch who wanted everything for himself, attention, money, spaces, in perennial competition with me for the love of my father, but above all to win. Be the firstonna of the house. What a bad to the heart was to see my chapter father every time under his whims. Always tell me to do the mature one and that if I loved him, I had to accept it and close a eye. Since my daughter was born, and she started to tell me what to do, I got tired of pretending to have accepted her and told her to make her own business, that she was not my mother, much less her grandmother! A liberation for me but a disaster with my father who found himself for the first time between two fires. Now my father has moved away from us because she made him aut aut “or I or them”. I don’t know how it will go, but I can no longer accept to swallow lies to make him happy, even if he is my father. I love him, but I don’t want my daughter to learn from me to “pretend” for the good of a man … even if he is the father. I will not allow it. It’s not right. I want to be free to say no. Thanks for listening to me.
With esteem.

Dear friend I assure you that the esteem is mutual! Your letter has an almost cinematic power: The bad stepmother, the uncertain father, the daughter who becomes a mother and decides to stop the chain. When we talk about cruel matrigne it is impossible not to think about the green eyes of Lady Tremaine who, for envy, had reduced the beautiful Cinderella to serve as a servant in his own home. But if in the Disney fairy tale, as in all fairy tales, the happy ending is guaranteed, unfortunately this does not happen automatically in real life, and sometimes the ending is completely different from how we would like it. Even if in your case, I want to underline it, Everything is still to be seen Because you’ve not yet reached the credits. I would say rather that the second act has begun. My dear, in your words you feel all the effort, the pain, the anger accumulated over the years. But inside that anger – let me say – There is also enormous lucidity. You looked in the face of a wrong family dynamic, which worn you out, and you said enough. I don’t know how many really have an idea of ​​the timing that is needed to do what you are doing, and how bitterly it is to discover your father unable to fight for his own blood. What you tell is the classic poison triangle: a second competition in competitiona not very courageous father who moves the responsibility of the here to live on his daughter and you, in the center, forced to pretend that everything goes well for love and not to “disappoint” his father. But if on the one hand your father makes me a certain tenderness because I believe that underneath he suffers a lot for his own cowardice, of the stepmother except for nothing: immature, unresolved, and allow me to say even a little pathetic. A woman who has activated toxic dynamics in your life, evaluating borders, demanding and invading spaces that were not his through the cowardly tool of blackmail. Putting yourself on the same plane as her husband’s daughters and intruding into the sacred father-daughter relationship is a symptom of a deep malfunction and rather childish selfishness. You, on the other hand, You did something giant and sacrosanct: you broke the game, you said enoughbut above all, you freed yourself from that unhealthy idea that “for love” must do what you don’t want to, that you have to pretend nothing, swallow, smile, bear. You did it for you, but above all for your daughter who is receiving a great example as a gift. Loving does not mean silent. It does not mean mutating to keep someone else’s pieces together. You have chosen to be an example, not a martyr. You have chosen to be true, even if this has a very high price, like the distance from your father. But do you know one thing? Better a sincere distance than a poisoned closeness. Your daughter grows with a mother who knows how to say “no”, who does not sell off her peace for quiet living. And it’s not a little to learn to say: “It’s not right and I’m not there.” And it will also learn that respect is not to begged, but demands with the dignity of being yourself. I am very sorry for the relationship with your father and of course I hope that in the future he can improve. You always leave him the door open and be ready to welcome him, but remember that his task remains responsible for finding a solution which restores the roles and puts an end to unacceptable requests. You are his daughter and you have the right to put all the boundaries you need. Maybe one day he will understand. Maybe not. But in the meantime, continue to choose your integrity and protect that of your daughter. As always, the truth – even if it loses something – makes you earn a lot of coherence, proper love and mental health. Thanks for sharing your story.
I hug you strong.
Elena