I mean, it sounds good, in theory.
But in practice, it doesn't always work that way.
You love your people. Of course you want them to be happy. And if you can just flex what you want so they get what they need, well, that's easy enough. You're already good at it.
Years pass. Decades. And now maybe you're not even sure what you like, want, or need anymore, because you've spent so long preoccupied with what they want, like, and need.
I worked with a woman years ago whose sister lived overseas and they shared long phone calls every Saturday morning. My client loved her sister, who was single and childless, and even though my client had kids, a partner, a full-time job, and a packed social calendar, she always made time for their weekly ninety-minute call.
Until my client started to notice something. It started as a slight irritation. The feeling grew. The calls she'd once looked forward to started to feel depleting. Obligatory. But her sister relied on her, and had come to expect their weekly catch-ups.
"I know she loves our chats, but I just, I'm starting to feel like I'm tethered. She doesn't have anyone else and I feel bad for her. I'm the only one she has."
Over time, my client was able to listen deeply to her feelings and allowed them to inform her about her changing needs.
She became aware that the time and energy she was giving to her sister was too much. She felt a desire to reclaim her Saturday mornings as time to be alone, or with her kids, or as a space in the week to follow her own impulses on her day off.
Eventually, she was able to communicate this to her sister, and tolerate the discomfort of her sister's disappointment, which was not easy. She was used to being the peace-keeper and avoiding conflict at all costs had been her default relationship strategy for as long as she could remember.
These types of self-sacrificial patterns run rampant in women. They've been a part of our cultural conditioning and they're a way that we have adapted to stay safe and connected, from a young age, often with caregivers who were emotionally unavailable or immature.
I wrote more about the schema of self-sacrifice in this week's Substack "Selfless Feminine Perfection. Are we there yet?"
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