Annelisa

For most of modern history, infidelity has been narrowly defined: sex with someone who is not your spouse. More precisely, genital sex . More precisely still, penetrative sex. This definition made a certain kind of sense when marriage was primarily an economic arrangement, when lineage and inheritance mattered more than emotional fulfillment, and when sex itself was tethered tightly to reproduction. But we no longer live in that world. Today, most people do not need a partne

"The way we live with need quietly shapes every aspect of the human experience." Annelisa MacBean We are crossing a threshold right now, not marked by fireworks or resolutions, but by fatigue, grief, and a quiet, persistent question moving through the human field: How do we live now . . . honestly, responsibly, and together . . . without hardening or disappearing? This is not only a personal question. It is not only political. It is not only spiritual. It is all

May this season meet you kindly. May the truth you carry soften at its edges when it reaches your lips. May your heart feel held by something larger than circumstance, a quiet knowing that you are allowed to be exactly as you are. May the children in your life feel the steadiness of your presence, and may you feel your own steadiness, too. May whatever is unraveling do so with grace, so that what wants to be born in you can finally breathe. May you move through these days wi

Navigating the Holidays with Honesty, Warmth, and Care Holidays have a way of amplifying whatever is most alive in us. Joy feels brighter. Loneliness gets sharper. Conflict rings louder. And when a relationship is in a fragile place, or quietly approaching its end, the pressure to perform in a warm and festive manner can feel almost unbearable. Every year I meet with couples and families trying to hold themselves together during December. They try to smile politely at dinner

Wrestling with, and Surrendering . . . to Need When someone says “I’m done,” they usually believe they’re finished with their marriage . . . that the relationship has run its course. Their partner can't give them what they want (the partner is the problem). But more often, something else is collapsing: the lifelong project of trying to control their experience of need. The adultified child has reached the end of their endurance. Not because they are with the wrong partner

Why Dependency Feels Dangerous to the Adultified Child One of the most painful illusions in adult relationships is the idea that “I can finally be myself once I leave this marriage or this relationship.” For the adultified child, this fantasy can feel like oxygen. Not because they don’t love their partner. Not because the relationship is wrong. But because dependency itself awakens a kind of ancient terror that most of us . . . least of all the adultified child . . . knows h

Why the Adultified Child Doubles Down, Just When Things are Getting Good When the adultified child begins to heal, it can look a lot like falling apart. What we often call progress in partnership; feeling more, seeing more, being seen more, daring to soften and receive . . . can feel like danger to the adultified child who has spent a lifetime surviving by being in charge, independent and invulnerable. It’s at the very threshold of real transformation that the adultified chi

Today, let every small thing be enough. The breath, the cup, the glance . . . each one, a secret blessing. Let gratitude be your feast . . . a table set with everything you already have. Let thankfulness be a gentle alchemy, turning the ordinary into quiet miracles. Dear Ones, Thank you for the ways you show up, inquire, and allow transformation to unfold . . . for the quiet moments of insight and your brave hearts, so willing to grow. With sincere appreciation, I wish you a

One night, after a thousand years of running the kingdom alone, the tired king of your heart heard a small knock inside his chest. He opened the door and found a child . . . mud on her feet, light in her eyes, carrying the sun she had stolen from her own tomorrow. “Do you remember me?” she asked. “I have been guarding your wonder.” The king fell to his knees. All his armor turned to rain. Every rule he’d written about strength and survival melted into the dust at her feet. Th

There comes a point in every healing journey when insight is no longer enough. We can name our trauma, trace our lineage, map our attachment style . . . and still feel the ache of a child who has never been met. Awareness without experience only sharpens the edges of self-knowledge. At some point, the heart needs to be held. The Birth of the Inner Parent In the wake of adultification, the psyche is left with a missing figure . . . the true inner parent. Winnicott called it th

Most couples don’t come to therapy because they’ve fallen out of love. They come because they’re drowning and confused and lost. They can't figure it out anymore. They aren't employing the tools they know they could be using . . . they want to, but don't . . . or can't. Beneath the arguments about time, money, sex or parenting lies a deeper story: two adultified children still doing the only relationship dance they know how to do. How Adultification Begins In a healthy family

Grown up, But Living From the Child’s Survival Strategy My lovely, 40-year-old client, a therapist herself, sits in my office, shoulders squared, voice steady. “I’m fine,” she says. “I just don’t understand why I can’t feel fine.” Her life looks enviable . . . reliable income, caring partner, healthy body, beautiful son. Yet beneath the smooth surface runs a subterranean panic: What if it all falls apart? What if they finally see I don’t know what I’m doing? This is the para

When Growing Up Becomes a Performance I have a client who is 47, accomplished, and respected in his field. He meditates daily, journals before bed, attends couples therapy every other Tuesday. By all appearances, he’s a grown man. Yet each morning he wakes to the same silent verdict: not enough. No matter what he builds . . . great career, beautiful family, social identity . . . his foundation keeps trembling. There’s always another summit to scale, another wound to outgrow,

Humee Hum - The Other is You Performed by Mirabai Ceiba Spotify https://open.spotify.com/track/1MWDQSB6vmVPjF9SAQINvt?si=5fdbc12cccc441a1...

Beloved, you keep handing me pieces of myself I swore I had lost long ago. Sometimes you offer them gently, as a flower opening in the...