97: Counselling Sessions - 2

I was advising a good friend of mine to try for some counselling sessions as mine have been helping me.


As I wrote earlier - http://dear-confidant.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/94-counselling-sessions.html - there has been nothing revelatory. I think about things and work my way through issues and have had an answer for most questions posed.


But, the other day, one bit hit me - a little self-glorifying though it will sound.


We were  talking about the circles radiating out from 'the Self' and who I rely on. Mainly that is me. But I mentioned that, in my perception, it is amongst my closest friends that I feel liked and loved simply for being 'me.' Everywhere else, it can feel as if my value is tied to what I do and provide.


And then she said, 'But what about you? Do you like yourself simply for being 'you'? Or do you feel you have do things to be seen positively in your eyes? Score runs when playing cricket, deliver better than others at work ... can you give yourself a break?'


Can I? Should I?

96: Champagne and Handshakes

Had a very nice evening out last week with a good friend S. – a male, a male, not a female!!!

Dinner mainly consisted of a succession of glasses of champagne. Lovely.

He divorced from his first wife a few years ago and there were startling parallels. She came from a ‘grand family’, she got a good degree from a well known university, then an MBA from an international university. They spent a few years internationally and when they came back to the UK expected to walk into a senior role – which she did not.

Anyway, he did some counselling which he found helpful. In fact they did joint counselling and the counsellor came to the conclusion that the gap was too great. One of the first steps they took was to live in separate rooms. Which is where we are now.

They did not have children and so, could separate easily. The reason I cannot is of course my greatest blessing – our son.

‘It does get better,’ S. asserted. ‘And, if you ever want to talk, I’m here …’

London – where we live – has a new Mayor. He was supposed to visit our organisation last week and I was in the delegation to meet him and shake his hand.

Other friends joked about it and said, ‘wow!’

She asked a series of questions: how many people are meeting him? Are you just in a long line? Bit like the Queen? Not exactly useful …

Of course it would be ‘just a handshake’ but good to be nominated as one of 20 out of 2000 and, at the least, why be negative about it?

95 - Funny (but sad) Little Reminders and Incidents

This will be really petty but things have been a little heavy of late.

Preparing some bagel with cream cheese and salmon for our son. ‘Mama makes it better than you,’ says our son. ‘Fair enough,’ I respond,’but mama is busy, so why don’t you help me to get it right?’ And I made no more of it.

A little while later, She decides to make a point of this.

‘So, I make bagel and salmon better than your dad?’ she asks, looking triumphantly at me. ‘Yes,’ he responds, ‘but (without any prompting from me by way of words or looks), dad makes better bacon sandwiches, Bolognese, chicken …’

I do not respond or react but his response was interesting in that he appeared to be defending me.

She and our son have this very frequent homework drama. She is busy doing something else when he is doing his homework, doesn’t really help him, then corrects late in the evening and ritual drama ensues around, ‘you must take more care, look how long I am having to work because of you etc.’

I would probably let him make his careless mistakes so his teacher could correct them and he would soon learn; now, he knows his mum will correct him. Or, as I usually do when I sit down with him, correct as we go along as I am focusing on him and his work.

So, anyway, he and I work through a work-sheet on Sunday morning and she sits down to correct on Sunday evening. She does notice one mistake I had missed but there are several others in another sheet.

‘Look, I thought you and baba had corrected these sheets but I am finding lots of mistakes. And my show is starting on TV. If I had known you had not, I would have done this earlier.’ (No, she would not have – history attests to that!)

My son and I are both compelled to point out that the sheet with several mistakes was completed under her supervision. There is a half-hearted attempt at laying the blame with, ‘I thought you would check it.’ But she does not pursue that, knowing she was in the wrong.

This continuous need to be correct, better than another rather than oneself, to search for blame … how is that the natural state?

94: Counselling Sessions

So, I’ve been going to counselling sessions for a few weeks now. Nothing revelatory really but emerging is a picture of myself and my life that is repetitive; somewhat alone, withdrawn, feeling not good enough but self-reliant and finding positive reinforcement in a close group and trying to do my best.

It is true that behind this bland exterior, I do commit to things – whether they be friends, family, work or even a childhood hero. And from a young age I have been ‘warned’ about this; ‘you’re getting too close to X.’ Similarly, more recently I have been told that I go overboard, including the childhood (sporting) hero!

It did hurt terribly when my previous employer – with whom I had started as a student and performed well – promised me a global role and then took it away again – thus changing my life and my having to start again.

I have subsequently ‘invested’ heavily in trying to be a good husband and a good dad. That is now being thrown back in my face as I write in 92 - Struggling and Tired . There is a deep sadness in this, just as there was in being made redundant, and the betrayal  that I feel leaves a hole.

But, actually, what is the point in doing otherwise? Of never committing for fear of being rebuffed? Yes, it makes one vulnerable but to half-commit and be polite is to live a half life – perhaps as I am doing now.

The counsellor mentioned that perhaps I was committing a huge amount to my son and that I would have to cope with him moving away. And I was thinking about this on the train into work after the session. Bit of a tangent but a sports writer called Simon Barnes wrote an article once about how boxing should be banned. He countered the arguments which stated that sportsmen also get hurt in other sports by saying that the deaths in them were accidents whereas the very aim of boxing was to render hurt.

In the same way, perhaps we invest in work, friends, family sometimes to draw them close and get love and support in return but sometimes to help them move away. At a mundane level, many of my old team developed professionally and grew out to bigger roles – that is a good thing; I had no wish to bind them to me. Similarly, the whole objective for our son is that he grows up to be a confident and kind young man who goes out with desire, ability and support.

With our nearest we should feel secure and loved and trusted – I do not, and there is no blame in this really. Perhaps I am a rubbish person but I cannot be any better.  For my son, I hope I shall retain his love always, that he will remember me as a positive influence and that I can always be the trampoline on which he can depend.

93: A Common Story

 True words from several people on a newspaper article - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/26/how-to-heal-your-family-from-petty-resentments-to-affairs - that seem to tell of a common story.

92 - Struggling and Tired

Do you know what I am struggling with, the most?

For all sorts of reasons I have never considered myself to be particularly good at anything. When I was made redundant from a large organisation I lost a huge amount of confidence but discovered early in my career that loyalty runs only one way.

I remember being in an airport lounge once and determining, or, rather, hoping that when my time came with a child or children that I would not be an absent father. As chance would have it, work allowed me to be a fully supportive father and husband. My priority was home, I was never one whose importance or self-esteem was tied up at work. My reward was my time with my son and, now and then, my wife.

Now, that time is being thrown back at me. ‘Are you a Head of .. like before or just a Manager?’ ‘What about your friends?’ ‘How old is your boss?’

I know that trains and power stations will be built without me, that the organisation will survive if I do not strive fully. But what I thought was in my hands, where I could make a real contribution, one that might even leave some positive memories, would be at home.

And have I provided such a bad life really – despite being a failure? I am finding it really difficult to concentrate at work, suddenly to give importance to and be serious about issues that really are trivial in my eyes and utterly boring. But concentrate I must so I can create the environment and situation which will allow me to escape.

91 - Bollocks to it all

Been a hard few days – mainly out of frustration rather than direct confrontation.

It began with some friends who were due to come to stay for the week-end. Clearly, I needed to move out of the guest room. ‘I’ll clean it,’ she said. ‘That’s ok, I will,’ I replied. It then transpired that the room had not been cleaned / vacuumed since December. I had noticed dust but assumed that on lax work by the cleaner that we have – not as if M. actually does the work. Is that reasonable behaviour given that she does not pay in any way separately for the cleaner.

Over the last several months, perhaps out of some insecurity or maybe just coincidence, our son, though 10, has asked for a story every evening. Nothing special, just little snippets around Star Wars or football. Yesterday evening, without consulting with me beforehand, she said, ‘No more stories, you are not a two year old – go to bed.’ I did not protest. Our son said I could tell a story secretly but I said that we could not lie – though maybe stories just on the week-end? ‘But that’s four nights without a story?!’ I went to kiss him good-night and he was sobbing away. So I went downstairs , told her he was crying and, angrily, she said I could tell him a story. A small incident maybe but purely a vindictive one.

Earlier on, over the week-end, on Sunday morning, while I was cutting the grass, I could hear her berating him because he was being a bit slow in his homework. ‘No one else has a mother who takes their kid everywhere. Do you want to live their lives? Next time, I’ll tell your friend A. he can’t come. You can do all this because of my sacrifices.’ She has clearly built a narrative of sacrifice when she has had all the choices she could desire.

The other day I had my Hotmail open and was also working on another screen. I had it on the latter when I went upstairs and came back to see it on the Hotmail page – she had clearly been looking. Later on, to test, I left my phone and wallet on top of each other, aligned in a particular way, in an area where there would be no need to move either. Later I saw that the wallet was still on top but in a different orientation; had she had to look at the phone for an innocent reason, she would not have been careful to place the wallet back. She clearly wanted to check messages and photographs. There is nothing to find and so nothing was found.

I wrote earlier about a previous e-mail: http://dear-confidant.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/90-while-browsing.html - I work, she enjoys and then, in addition, I am treated like shit.

The friend that came to stay obviously gave her the oxygen that I do not.

• Another friend who posts frequently on Facebook and Twitter was made fun of – even though he does that that to help with his professional profile
• A parent from school who is moving to a small town from the big city was mystifying her – ‘why on earth would someone do that? How stupid.’
• She washes her hands after going to one particular supermarket – you never know who shops there. Other supermarkets are ok.
• A house being built in a nearby street will be for young professionals – assisted buying. She is worried about the sort of people moving in – though all will be professionals.
• She used to make fun of an overweight boy in class. Usually this comment is directed at me but she did not seem to understand that the friend she was relating it to was also probably overweight when young.
• Also a story about how someone was made fun of because he was dark. Her friend is also quite dark – does she not realise how she could hurt someone by saying these things?

For weeks our son has been saying that he wants me to spend the night in his bed. I have resisted. But he asked again on Sunday night and I said ‘ok.’ I was told off for it. It is over-indulging him. I have also been told not to tell him stories. I responded that I had said ‘no’ for weeks and an exception now and again is not an issue. ‘No has to mean no,’ she said. Should I have said that checking e-mails, phone, throwing away cards are also nos?! I did not.

I did say, however, that stories are fine so long as he also reads books and contributes with his imagination.

‘He does not have a brother or a sister,’ I am told, ‘and you cannot be a sibling.’

Perhaps I do over-indulge but I am also strict and, after all, he is only a child seeking affection. She provides him with lots of gifts, he looks for affection to me, but is that my fault?

Does life remain unsatisfactory until someone is made to cry? I have gone to sleep in the past crying at her words – is that what she wants from both of us?