Tweet

Relationships: Giving Yourself Up Can Kill You

Written by: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Article Overview: Are you giving yourself up to attempt to make someone else happy and secure? If you are depressed, you might be abandoning yourself to care-take another, which is not loving to either of you.

Relationships: Giving Yourself Up Can Kill You

Years ago, when on a book tour for our book, "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?", my ex-husband and I had dinner with a couple on the East Coast with whom he had become friends. I connected with Allison (not her real name) immediately. Warm and open, I could see that she was a deeply caring woman. On the other hand, her husband Ken, while overtly charming, had a huge black hole inside that felt like a vacuum cleaner sucking the energy out of everyone. His need for attention was overwhelming to me.

A few months after that dinner, I heard that she had committed suicide. I immediately understood why.

It was evident to me in that dinner that Allison had completely given herself up to Ken, giving him all her attention and constantly trying to fill his empty hole. She had completely abandoned herself in her attempts to take responsibility for his feelings. The result was that, instead of Ken healing, he had become more and more dependent on her over the years, and Allison felt more and more trapped and drained. I don't know why she felt she could not leave rather than kill herself, but apparently she did not see leaving as an option.

I understood because I was in the same situation - with my husband, my parents, and my children. I was the caretaker for everyone, and I was slowly dying from having completely abandoned myself and given myself up to others.

I chose, after 30 years of marriage and many attempts to break the taker-caretaker system, to leave rather than die. I wish Allison had made the same choice.

Today I work with people all over the world, both men and women, who feel so trapped by the neediness and demands of their spouse that they are in deep depression, often wanting to die. They feel guilty if they take care of themselves rather than care-take their partner. They believe they are selfish if they take responsibility for their own feelings and needs instead of giving themselves up for others, and their partners reinforce this by telling them how selfish they are if they attempt to change the caretaking-taking system.

What they don’t realize is that continuing to take responsibility for others' feelings and needs - others who are fully capable of taking care of their own feelings and needs (excluding babies, the ill, and the elderly) - is enabling, rather than loving to others. When we do for others what they can and need to do for themselves, we disable them, causing them to feel even more empty and insecure. While love heals, caretaking does not. Love means supporting ourselves and others in our highest good, which never means giving ourselves up to care-take others who are capable of taking care of themselves.

If you feel trapped and depressed, and you think about dying or you wish your spouse would die, then you are giving yourself up rather than taking responsibility for your own feelings and needs. If the pull on you to care-take those around you is too great for you to find your way through to taking care of yourself, or if your guilt prevents you from taking care of yourself, then the loving action may be to leave until you can break the codependent system between you and your spouse or you and others.

It is your right to have life, liberty and happiness. It is your right to take responsibility for doing what brings you joy, while supporting others in doing what brings them joy. You are not on the planet to fill up another's inner emptiness and trying to do so is not loving to yourself or to them. If you feel trapped, consider beginning to free yourself.

Related Articles
  The risk of business relationships being personal
  How to Succeed as a Recruiter
  5 tips to successfully sell your business
  Keys for Success and Wealth (part 5) Giving
  Create WE for Success

Article Tags: allison, attempts, black hole, caretaker, depression, east coast, empty hole, feelings, husband ken, marriage, men and women, neediness, parents, suicide, vacuum cleaner



Related Forum Posts
Re: SES Toronto Next Week - In that case, how about the following? Track: Get Me Up to Speed * State of Search Marketing in Canada Track: Practical & Actionable * Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions Track: Advanced * User Search Behavior * Social Media Success * Web 2.0 & Search Engines * Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Which Campaign Sold What?
Connecting with Influential People - Thanks Martin! In "The Little Black Book of Connections", Jeffrey Gitomer suggests the following ways to connect with influential people (page 106): -Third-party introductions (best method). -Writing and publishing content. -Giving seminars/speeches so you can be perceived as an expert in your field and leader. -Attend social and business events. -Say or ask something powerful by doing research ahead of time. -Engage them by offering something of value first. Gitomer also stresses the importance of making more friends as well.
Your Intial Mistakes Business - Hi, When I started my business I had made a lot of mistakes initially. These helped me in learning the art of the trade and today when I look back, I feel that these mistakes were quite silly. I had made my learnings then and those learnings have helped me time and again. Some of the mistakes I made were - i. Wrong Time Management ii. Wasting money on glossy Brochures and Business cards iii. Believing what they taught me at school was 100% correct iv. Giving too much when it was not required...... I would like to find out what have been your faltering moments in Business when you had started and what/how did they help you grow. Regards
Partnering for the wrong reasons - Well I guess the 2 biggest fears/mistakes are: 1.) Partnering with someone just because you trust them (i.e. a close family member or friend) and more importantly, need his/her money to implement YOUR unique idea. 2.) Giving away too much (in terms of company shares) too soon. For instance, let's say you gave away 50% of your company shares to a friend who was mainly just an investor who paid for more than 70% of the initial startup costs. You do more than 70% of the work, and the company becomes successful and you're able to repay all of your debts. Then going forward, you're stuck doing the majority of the work still, while you investor friend has been repaid in full and sits on his/her laurels because of the initial written agreement didn't require him/her to help out as much. What would you do then?
Re: Social Networking Site Endorsements - [quote="orxan":2qtwn5i5]Hi Shri, If you don't like the person who sends you request to be friend, then you shouldn't add him as a partner. Try to be away from bad neighborhood. It is general for all social networking sites (DIgg, Stumble Upon etc.), not for only Linkedin. There will be a lot of requests for becoming partner, but you should watch that person's past activity carefully and stay away from sucpicious guys, especially spammers.[/quote:2qtwn5i5] Being a friend on a social site is one thing and that's not what I was talking about. Giving a personal or professional endorsement (which is done on Linked In) is a different situation. When you give an endorsement, you are recommending that person and that's much more serious to me than just being a friend. Shri


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Ten Things You Can Do To Be a Better Leader

Remind Me...

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.