"I'm Not Your Mother, I'm Your Wife!"

"I feel like I have another child here. I'm fed up, Dudi. I feel like your mother, not your wife," Zehava said angrily to Dudi.

"I honestly don't know what that means. I'm doing everything you want," Dudi replied uncertainly.

"That's exactly the problem. I'm tired of you pleasing me, and I'm tired of having to tell you everything. When will you take ownership of this relationship? This home? These kids? I feel like a single mom, and you're just another burden I have to find a way to entertain.

"I've been trying for so many years to connect you to the role of being a husband, being a father… You just don’t want that role, I understand," her angry tone began to soften into despair.

"Zehava, you're not just tired of this role for no reason. This role ruins the couple's relationship. It creates a distorted dynamic of mother-son instead of a spousal connection."

"What can be done?" Dudi asked helplessly.

"First of all, the situation you’re in within the relationship is indeed a tough one. On one hand, you cannot continue like this, and on the other hand, there is no other way."

"What’s the other way?" Zehava asked.

"It's the corrected structure in which a spousal relationship should exist. The man needs to be the influencer who gives his wife strength, authority, and security."

"And what does the woman need?" Dudi asked impatiently.

"She needs to be connected to her feminine needs and communicate them properly with her man."

"So basically I need to stop being his mother, and he needs to stop being my child," Zehava said.

"Yes. And I wish it would just work out that way, simply by decision.

"Let’s try to understand what the root is that motivates each of you and causes you to fit into the roles of mother and child. Without understanding the root and learning to work with it, the work will be very superficial, exhausting, won’t last, and will only increase the despair in the relationship. Zehava, what makes you take on the role of mom?" I asked her.

"Because he acts like a child, so I have no choice and I must be the mom," she answered.

"Let’s try to understand your psychological structures and the connection structure that resulted from it. You both entered the relationship with a very deep feeling of lack, and that should also be your central point of connection.

"In the psychological structure of the man, the feeling of lack exists when a man is alone and searches for his lost object. Once he finds it – as long as she is happy in the relationship and doesn’t undermine him in various original ways, he no longer feels the same sense of lack. He includes his wife in the spousal relationship, feels she is part of him, and this way, his point of lack is filled."

"I don't understand, is it not the same for Zehava? Isn’t it enough for us just to be together?" Dudi asked.

"Her psychological structure is different. She continues to feel a sense of lack within the relationship. She doesn’t feel that you are included with her in the relationship; she feels a separation. Therefore, Zehava needs, periodically, in various doses and intensities, the affirmation and proof that indeed you are together.

"During the time you were pursuing her, you had a very deep sense of lack and wanted Zehava very much; you knew how to provide her with that affirmation, that precise focus on her. That’s why many times she tries to undermine the relationship, threatening divorce or separation, because she is trying to bring you back to that point where you felt the lack, in a kind of wishful thinking that maybe you’ll also feel her lack and be able to fill it like you did in the past."

"But how does that relate to us positioning ourselves as mother and child?" Dudi asked.

"Zehava's disappointments with your inability to provide her with the affirmation she needs, and your disappointments with her for constantly undermining and threatening separations, have created a complete system of distrust. Distrust in yourselves, and distrust in each other. This distrust has created a reversal of roles.

"When you, Zehava, become Dudi’s mother, you actually include him within you. He is now your child, and then you don’t need him to prove to you that you are together, and thus you surely won’t be disappointed and won’t feel that difficult experience of loneliness.

"And you, Dudi, when you are in the role of the child, you don’t need to provide affirmation to the relationship every time, and this frees you from dealing with a very difficult point, where you feel that you cannot provide Zehava with the affirmation she needs so much."

All details have been changed to protect privacy.

Hannah Dayan [email protected]

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