WHY DOESN’T SHE EVER PUT HERSELF FIRST?

How can I stop my wife giving too much of her time to others? On Christmas Day she is insisting on visiting her aunt – the last of five siblings – in a care home. Her aunt is in her 90s, with no children and advanced dementia. My wife was not very close to her aunt and the latter doesn’t even recognise her now. She will be gone no more than an hour, but she will miss out on time with our children and our first

Qgrandchild while we make lunch. I’m not one of those husbands who selfishly wants his wife to spend every minute with him; her kindness is one of the reasons I love her, but she is always putting others first at her own cost.

W hile the popular Christmas image is one of happy families, many of us feel quite torn and frazzled by the pressure to attend to everyone.it may be

Athat duty is not the only reason your wife visits her aunt – she might feel it is a link to one of her parents that she finds hard to let go.however, it sounds as if this is not an isolated incident and that she does have a deep sense of responsibility, rooted in that complex and destructive emotion, guilt.as you sound kind and empathetic, perhaps you can help her look at how this developed. Almost certainly her need to please will stem from a controlling or critical influence in her past: a strict or absent parent; a bossy or dominant sibling; bullying at school or from an employer etc. Or she might have had a parent who was very similar, from whom she learned this behavioural pattern.if you can help her look at these factors (possibly with counselling help), you might be able to steer her towards giving her own needs higher priority.