Page 65 of October
"So why shouldn't you love it?" they asked gently.
I swallowed, frustration building like a lump in my throat. "Because how am I supposed to holdthisversion of him—the thoughtful, sweet one—next to the version of him who forgot me? Who forgotus? How do I reconcile both without feeling like I'm betraying myself? I keep thinking I should be furious at him, and part of me is—but honestly? I'm angrier at myself."
"Why at yourself?" she asked, soft but steady.
"Because I know myself," I admitted. "I know I would've accepted that necklace that night and forgot about the missing birthday, missing dinners, andher. And I hate that about me."
She nodded like she'd seen this before,"Why do you think you didn't tell him whenever you felt hurt by him during your marriage?" she asked, her tone careful, like the question itself might splinter if I pressed too hard on it.
I stared at a little crack in the wall by her bookshelf. It branched like a dried riverbed, or maybe a vein. I hated how exposed I felt in that room, hated how the silence waited for me to confess things I wasn't even sure I understood yet.
"I don't know," I finally said. "Maybe... maybe I was scared. Like if I said something, I'd be the bad guy."
She nodded, thoughtful. "Why do you need to be the good guy?"
I gave a hollow laugh. "It's easier to be loved when you behave."
Her gaze was steady. "Do you not believe you're already loved?"
I shrugged, but the motion felt hollow. "I am, by many people, mainly my parents... They are amazing."
"But?" she prompted gently, tilting her head like she already saw the shape of what I was circling.
"but at the risk of sounding arrogant, I was easy to love, I was a good kid," I said. "Quiet. Polite. I didn't cause trouble. Got good grades. Did what I was told."
She let that sit for a beat. "And if you hadn't been that way?"
I swallowed. "I don't know," I admitted. "I don't think they ever made me feel unloved, exactly. But... they had me late. They were already tired. I didn't want to be another thing they had to manage. I wanted to be easy."
She nodded, thoughtful, like she wasn't just hearing my words but everything beneath them. "That makes sense," she said gently. "A lot of kids in that position learn to shrink themselves, not because anyone told them to, but because theyfeltit. That sense of needing to be low-maintenance, of making yourself smaller to keep the peace."
She leaned forward slightly. "What you're describing is actually something we call afawn response. It's when people learn, often really young, to manage love and safety by pleasing others. By being what others need, even if it means abandoning parts of themselves."
I blinked. "Fawn?"
"It's a term used in trauma therapy, especially in relation to complex relational patterns. Along with fight, flight, and freeze,fawnis another response to perceived emotional threat. It's a kind of compulsive appeasement. People who develop fawning behaviors often do so in environments where love feels subtly or overtly conditional. Somewhere along the way, you internalized that being good, being easy, being 'low maintenance'—that's how you keep love close and avoid rejection or emotional abandonment."
I opened my mouth to object but found I couldn't.
"So, I'm a people pleaser? I said instead, the words brittle but true. "I always have been actually."
She nodded again, slowly this time. "People-pleasing is exactly that—a learned relational strategy. It often develops in children who unconsciously perceive that love or acceptance depends on how well they can meet others' emotional needs. Even in healthy families, this can happen subtly. No one needs to say it aloud. The child just... notices the unspoken rules. 'Don't be a burden. Don't make waves. Keep everything smooth.' It becomes emotional self-protection."
I felt like she'd cracked something open that had been stuck for years. "It's like I thought... if I was just easy enough to love, they wouldn't regret having me."
She nodded again, this time with more softness. "Exactly. And when that belief embeds itself early, it tends to generalize outward—to partners, friends, even strangers. You become hyper-attuned to others' emotions, anticipating what they need before they even ask, often at the expense of your own needs."
"It's exhausting," I admitted, voice low.
"Of course it is. Because it's not connection, it's performance, and over time, that leads to emotional burnout, chronic resentment, or even anxiety disorders. You're essentially training your nervous system to believe that safety equals self-erasure."
That hit too close to home. I sat very still. "It's like... I don't even know what I actually want half the time. Just whattheywant."
She smiled gently, but it wasn't patronizing. "That's very common. Emotional attunement to others becomes so automatic that you lose connection with your own emotional reality.
is this true in your marriage and ever when you were dating Thomas?"
I rubbed my palms together, cold despite the warmth of the room. "Yes," I said, staring at my knees. "It's like... as long as I'm a good wife, a good mom, as long as I don't cause trouble... maybe he'll keep loving me."
