A
male
age
41-50,
*illyRayValentine
writes:Thank you all in advance for your thoughts.My wife and I have been working hard on our relationship over the past several months. If you have read my prior two post you will have a pretty good understanding of things.Basically tonight my wife and I are talking. She has been reading alot of self help books the past few months. She feels she has always had low self esteem and low self respect for herself. She never felt loved by her parents. Her mom and dad are still together, no physical or sexual abuse that she remembers. She just does not remember ever feeling or hearing from her parents that they loved her, proud of her ect ect.Anyway speaking tonight she said something a little shocking. She said I have something to tell you that I have never told anyone. She said when she was first developing breast (she has always been very comfortable with her body, she is very attractive), she would walk around the house in panties and no shirt or bra?She said her mom and dad would be home, on the couch watching T.V., in the kitchen doing whatever and she would just walk from her room to the kitchen to get something than back to her room. She says her parents never said anything to her about this (and no they did not walk around the house naked). She said she did this from time to time around 14 and 15 years of age.She feels very sick about it now being 37 and can't figure out why her parents never said anything. She feels maybe she has alot of stuff she is not remembering about her past?Any thoughts about this? My thinking was just bad parents? looking for attention even in a bad way?I was very understanding telling her she was just a kid and maybe you were really feeling unloved by your parents, just looking for a response?
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female
reader, Honeypie + ♥, writes (15 June 2012):
 Why didn't her parents say anything? Why should they? She didn't do it for sexual reasons, it was most likely part of her experimenting with her own modesty, feeling secure in her skin and most likely a little rebellion against her parents. Learning her own limits.
There is nothing "bad" about it. IMHO.
If she feels SICK about it I would suggest she go talk to a therapist and sort out why she feels that way.
A
female
reader, Tisha-1 +, writes (15 June 2012):
 In your other post, you describe your wife as an "attention whore." She was sending sexy pictures of herself to an ex fling and hiding it from you.
On the one hand, you say she has low self-esteem and in the very same post you say she's always felt very comfortable in her body. Those two statements don't really mesh. What would make more sense is that someone with low self-esteem acts out in exhibitionist ways to get the attention and adoration she feels she is missing.
Teens often make choices that look questionable to more logical adults. They text while driving, they don't wear seat belts, they sniff glue, they do really stupid dumb things. You cannot apply adult logic to their actions. Of course, adults do stupid dumb things but presumably are more aware of the potential consequences.
Teens also lack perspective, in many cases. They feel as though they are the only ones who have ever experienced the feelings they are facing for the first time. They have some problems with actually looking at an issue from the other person's side of it. not all of them, of course.
Maybe your wife, as a teen girl, was doing her best not to be invisible. Maybe she walked around topless to get a reaction from her parents and what is making her fill sick is that they didn't react. My guess is that her parents have some very different recollections of her at the same time. They probably remember her acting out in various ways, this being one of them.
You mentioned counseling it that previous post. Is she in counseling? Are you as a couple in counseling? Because I think whatever is going on with your wife needs someone with some actual training in counseling. I would suggest a psychologist or psychiatrist, actually, some very advanced training sounds to be in order here.
Things don't sound congruent to me, the cause/effect suggestions you are making, that her parents were lousy parents, doesn't really solve the issue, does it? If she is blaming her parents for her own choices and actions, then she isn't taking responsibility for her own decisions. Now as an adult, she is aware she has some issues, is she trying to find someone to blame or is she trying to find practical solutions to her bizarre patterns of behavior?
Now of course, she could have had purely toxic parents and the accumulated damage they have done to her developing psyche is playing out now as she is an adult. Perhaps they should be entirely cut out of her life and never allowed back into it, they are such awful people. We have no way of knowing that.
The point again is that this is something she needs to be addressing with a highly qualified mental health professional. I would look upon this as money well spent, if there are major problems in your marriage and in her psychological status.
I would not rely on your wife's ability to discern the motivation behind her actions as a teen or as an adult, for that matter. She's got something going on, time to call in the pros.
Good luck.
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A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused +, writes (15 June 2012):
 BFD... she walked around her HOME with no outsiders in her underwear...
I don't see bad parenting... what you do when a kid is like that is if they are comfortable you let them... TEENS will naturally eventually become shy...
I think you are strongly overthinking this and looking for solutions to problems you are trying to fix.
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A
male
reader, C. Grant  +, writes (15 June 2012):
 "... can't figure out why her parents never said anything."
Because as a parent you're constantly having to figure out when to speak up and when to let things work themselves out. In this instance, you could speak up to let the child know that her behaviour was inappropriate. Evidently that wasn't necessary, because in your words "she feels sick about it" -- she knows perfectly well it wasn't appropriate. If her parents had freaked out and told her she was 'dirty' or one of the other asinie things parents can come out with, she might have assumed there was something inherently bad about her body, or nudity, and had hang-ups that took years to get over. Instead her parents chose to just let it go, all the while most likely gritting their teeth. Sounds pretty wise to me.
There may have been stuff going on that your wife repressed, but this one doesn't sound like anything other than adolescent misjudgment, and not very major at that.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (15 June 2012): So a kid is not shy around the parents, so what? Why would you even waste time and energy wondering about this? I used to have no shyness what so ever in front of my parents until I moved out at 18... If you are wasting energy on such small and irrelevant things in the past, then I'm not surprised that you are having difficulties with your relationship. You just need to relax i think.
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A
male
reader, Discovery +, writes (15 June 2012):
Nothing wrong with walking around naked in your own privacy or around people you trust who don't mind it. A lot more people do it than you think. Some even walk around fully naked about their house. Just traditions, level of comfort, and what's considered okay.
And it was in the past. So nothing to worry about twice. It's normal.
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