Naming That Hollow Feeling in My Heart

I have been thinking about the bad old days a lot the last few months. Not from dwelling. More as reflecting. Curious if there's anything more to learn, heal, grow, love on.

The thing that feels so true for me is this constant thread of showing the world I had it together, while feeling invisible underneath. And somehow, to stop felt like I'd finally have to admit just how irrelevant I felt. The one person I really wanted to see me, my husband, seemed indifferent so much of the time.

I killed myself to be good at everything else, to fill the hole. Career. Overgiving to everyone. Kids in every sport and activity I could name. Degree after degree. Certification after certification. And not really for career advancement after the first few. It was constantly trying to help myself feel relevant. Good enough. It really never was enough to accomplish that. Always pushing, always striving. But every accomplishment only felt good for a few minutes. Then that hollow feeling would return, and I'd find something new and try even harder.

The entire time, I was trying to fill the hole I didn't quite know how to fill in my marriage. I tried. Boy, did I. But the more I tried, the bigger the hole got, and the farther away he felt. I thought I was failing. And if I'm honest, all the trying was to prove to myself that I wasn't. I never quite got there. It still always felt like failing.

I'm not usually living there now. But that version of me is always there, asking for a little more love after so many years of feeling invisible.

And this morning, as I was reflecting, I felt that familiar feeling of being in the presence of others and still feeling completely alone. Invisible. So I went into that space, and this is what I found.

My guess is, if you are reading this, some of you may feel this sometimes too. If that is you, this entry is dedicated to seeing you the way I know I needed to be seen.

I See You

I see you. The real you. Not the version you show everyone else. The put-together, capable, strong, nothing-ever-completely-knocks-you-down kind of strength that everyone else sees. The version many people even envy. They don't know how you do it. How you balance all of it. The kids, the house, the job, the life.

But I see the layer under it. The one that feels like if you don't walk the tightrope, it is all going to fall apart. The one trying to convince yourself that everything is okay. The one that can find a ton of evidence that things really are okay, for the most part... except where they aren't.

The part you don't let anyone see is the real you. The tender part. The one that wants to be fully seen in all you are. Not just the capable, powerful woman, but also the tired, exhausted, lonely woman who just wants to collapse in his arms and have someone take care of you the way you care for everyone else.

You think you deserve it. You know how hard you try. You would do the work to change something in a heartbeat, if he would only tell you what to change. But he doesn't.

When you come to him and ask for help, reassurance, comfort, or really anything at all, he sees it as extra. Optional.

You see it as oxygen.

So you go back and forth. The only way to peace is not to ask. Not asking makes you feel completely invisible. Asking breaks your heart a little more each time he can't meet you there.

So you feel stuck in the impossible place between hope, possibility, love, and disappearing.

Maybe you think no one sees you. That you are alone. That you are the only one.

But that isn't true. I am her. And there are so many more of us.

I Am Her

I've been exactly where you are. Within inches of losing my 25-year marriage, six years ago. Doing everything I knew how to do. Trying everything anyone suggested. And still feeling like I was walking through my own life without ever fully arriving in it.

What I didn't know then, and what changed everything when I finally found it, is that the missing piece was never more effort. It was never the right words, or the right approach, or the right version of myself performed well enough to finally make him see me.

I used to think it was about fixing what was wrong or broken in me. Then at some point, it became coming back to who I actually was underneath all the trying. I don't believe that anymore. I see it differently now. It's more about ReMembering who I have always been, and daring to go down and find her.

That's not a concept. It's a process. And it's what I've spent over 30 years learning.

Since I started leading teams in 1994, I've seen things in people they didn't see in themselves, and helped them live the life they had convinced themselves they weren't good enough for. That led to deep training in human behavior, attachment theory, nervous system work, and relationship dynamics. It is fascinating how we humans can find such comfort in our own limiting beliefs, when they simply aren't true.

My marriage breakdown made me confront those beliefs, but this time in myself. I finally had to face them. My marriage disintegrating was the final card, and the house was falling around me.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

So if you still love him, and you refuse to believe this is how the story ends...

If you've done the therapy and the books and the courses and the podcasts, gotten better at some of it, and still go to bed feeling like something essential is missing, this is what I wish someone had told me:

Stop! Just stop! What are you trying to prove? And who exactly are you trying to prove it to? And where did you learn that? What made you think you have to prove anything to anyone, including yourself, to be good enough?

Maybe that would have prompted me to look inside sooner.

Why would I set myself up for failure in that way? Good enough was arbitrary. Impossible, the way I was defining it. Because as soon as I hit a target and it felt hollow, I'd just move the target. That was never going to stop, with the way I was internalizing the meaning.

Looking for external validation in any way was never going to fill that gap for me. His validation... or my constant proving it to myself, but not really believing it.

Yes, I absolutely want my husband's validation. It feels amazing. And yes, I need to validate and celebrate my accomplishments and hard work. Both of those are true for me. But the gap I was trying to fill wasn't something anything external was ever going to come near.

It was the intrinsic enoughness that was missing. And only working to love myself more could create it.

And not just loving the accomplishments. Loving the messiness. The failure. The emotions. The losing my shit sometimes. The not knowing what to do. The fear of letting anyone see that. I had to learn to love all of it. Because only loving the "good enough" parts set me up to never feel like I was truly enough.

Until I felt that inside me, it was too much pressure on my husband to be responsible for my enoughness. He couldn't, and shouldn't, have been expected to do that for me. But I didn't even know I was doing it, much less how to learn to do it for myself.

So you don't need to try harder. You need to ReMember her. All of her. Not a performance. Not a strategy. Just you, more fully yourself than you've been in years.

Most of the time, he can't help but respond to that.

And whatever he does, you never have to choose again between loving him and disappearing.

You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to still believe, even a little, that this doesn't have to be the end of the story.

I see you. You are not the only one. ❤️