It's All About You
The first question I was taught to ask myself was never "Do I want this?" It was "What will other people think?" That reflex got planted early. Somewhere in my childhood I absorbed the idea that other people counted for more than I did. My parents belonged to that privileged category too, the ones whose opinions I was supposed to bow to, and yet even they ranked below the vague, ever-watching crowd called "other people."
The habit followed me straight into adulthood, and it stuck as long as my parents were living. When I finally told my mother I was getting a divorce, her first worry wasn't me. It was how divorce would mark me in the eyes of her friends and relatives. The stigma mattered to her more than whether I was okay.
There's a small memory that sums it up. Early in my first marriage I drove to my parents' house on my own, wearing a brand new bright red maxi coat I was crazy about. The next morning, with church coming up, my mother looked at me and said, "You are not going to wear that." She expected me to put on one of the old coats I'd left behind at her place instead. I held my ground. I told her that if I couldn't wear the new coat, I simply wasn't going to church.
Years later, remarried and with children of my own, I'd bring the kids to visit her. The other grandchildren would show up at the same time, and she'd train her criticism on my children while leaving the rest alone. We were relieved every time we could pack up and leave, out from under the weight of coming up short next to the family. Here's the strange part: after she died, my cousins let slip that she used to brag about my kids behind our backs, when we weren't in the room.
I understand where it came from. She was raised inside that same way of thinking, and her own childhood was rough. My grandmother, her mother, was frequently ill and pulled away from the family, so my mother and her sister were largely left to manage on their own while their father went off to work. When people asked what was wrong at home, I doubt she ever knew what she was supposed to say.