{"id":29433,"date":"2015-10-16T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=29433"},"modified":"2016-05-23T02:24:31","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T09:24:31","slug":"help-i-feel-like-i-dont-deserve-my-husband-and-hell-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/dear-gt\/help-i-feel-like-i-dont-deserve-my-husband-and-he-will-leave","title":{"rendered":"Help! I Feel Like I Don’t Deserve My Husband and He’ll Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think you have quite a bit of insight about your problem: your childhood experiences and past relationships<\/a> have shaped your worldview in such a way that you don\u2019t trust your current reality.<\/p>\n

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Find a Therapist for Relationships<\/a><\/h2>\n\t
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You have made yourself vulnerable by committing to not hurting your husband\u2014and that feels scary to you. We all carry some baggage from our formative experiences into current relationships. It seems, however, that your fears are preventing you from enjoying your relationship as you could. I imagine you find yourself in a pretty constant state of anxiety<\/a> or fear<\/a>\u2014watching and waiting for evidence that you might get hurt. That\u2019s exhausting. It also can be a self-fulfilling prophecy<\/a>. We expect someone to tire of us, and we push for reassurance or we accuse them of not caring enough until they do tire of our behaviors and disengage from the relationship. That then confirms what we believed all along\u2014that people will hurt us and leave us.<\/p>\n

Most people will leave us if we push them away hard enough. The challenge is not to push when we feel scared or vulnerable, but to engage and connect.<\/p>\n

To accept love, you must feel worthy of love. It sounds as if that may be a significant part of your struggles. <\/span><\/p>\n

There is no quick fix or easy answer to your question. I recommend that you find a therapist<\/a> to work through your relationship fears and feelings of self-worth<\/a>. There is quite a bit of healing that will likely need to happen before you can fully embrace being in relationship with another person.<\/p>\n

To accept love<\/a>, you must feel worthy of love. It sounds as if that may be a significant part of your struggles. You can talk with a therapist about how to bring your husband into the work you do together\u2014as he can likely be a great support for you. If he understands your triggers and how to respond most effectively to you, that can only enhance your relationship. However, I do not suggest focusing on couples work<\/a>. I think you would benefit first and foremost from individual work<\/a> to address your concerns.<\/p>\n

Best wishes,
\nErika<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erika Myers, MS, MEd, LPC, NCC, responds to our latest reader-submitted Dear GoodTherapy.org question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2592,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[229,522,390,25,41,235,383,414],"class_list":["post-29433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-goodtherapy","tag-anxiety-psychotherapy-issues-2","tag-dear-gt","tag-fear","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-marriage-counseling-relationships","tag-self-esteem-psychotherapy-issues","tag-self-love","tag-worry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}