I am flooded with responses to my column about women who “lose” themselves to being a wife and a mother. Here are some broad suggestions to begin to resolve the issue:

Get a life before you get a relationship. Avoid any relationship where you are asked to compromise long-term goals, skills, and interests in exchange for the relationship.

If you have already “lost” yourself begin to claim your life back in small but meaningful ways: get your own bank account, establish your own passwords on your own email accounts. As an act of LOVE, do anything it takes to establish some independence.

Make a ruthless inventory of your skills, talents, and your interests, all of which have nothing to do with your being a spouse or a parent. This might be very difficult if you have been “lost” (plundered, dominated) for a long time.

Gather a small group of women friends and suggest you meet weekly in order to talk about everything BUT husbands and children. Spend the time listening to what other women want from life (not from husbands or children!). At first the group may experience long periods of silence as women learn that there is indeed a difference between what they want from life and what they want from their spouses or children.

Posted on February 24, 2011 at 6:36 am in Difficult Relationships   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL