Debunking the Provider Myth

Through my Substack newlsletter Self-Abandon No More , Therapists of the Berkshires video podcast and my forthcoming book Self-Abandon No More: A Therapist’s Quest for Wholeness, I’m offering women (and men) total permission to debunk their own provider mythology and give themselves permission to become the only one they can always count on to never abaondon themselves in any way ever again.

Newly divorced and freshly jilted from a rebound relationship with a dashing venture capitalist, I was raising two teenage sons in a rented farmhouse I could barely afford. Forced to confront the constraints of my resources and my own power-leaking ways, I eventually coined this self-abandoning pattern The Provider Myth. With echoes of Betty Friedan’s “problem that has no name”, my Provider Myth theory is rooted in feminine self-abandonment, highlighting the flawed perception that women need something, anything, from outside themselves, to supply the love, inner-comfort and financial freedom they require to be whole, fulfilled and fully alive.

At some point I grew tired of longing and waiting. I realized I could be the elixir I’d been dreaming of.! The crux of the provider myth centers on the question, “Am I willing to robustly provide for myself on every level—to be a provider?” For me this required letting go of a tenacious and subterranean operating system promoting the fantasy of some magic sauce for my life that would somehow descend upon me from on high—namely a perfect partner. 

Relinquishing this societal tonnage provoked so much rage and betrayal. Betrayal that I’d bought into the fallacy of my own insufficiency for so very long. As I gave up my provider myth fantasy I had to literally grieve my very own addiction to a dream.

I believe this is a hard-wired illusion for many women, the notion that we will never be enough, or have enough unless we are set up with the perfect partner and the perfect life. so deep it seems almost cellularly encoded this fallacy of not enoughness is how women self-abandon at the starting gate.

 By self-referenced, I mean you provide your own self-validation, self-approval, and purpose from your own construct of personal values. We create meaning and are fulfilled by living according to what we value and what we devote our time and energy to. This is how women truly can provide for themselves.  

Single men are expected to be self-referenced. They are seen as lucky bachelors, who are not defined by the women in their lives. It’s our turn.

 My forthcoming book, Self-Abandon No More: A Therapist’s Quest for Wholeness, will give you a granular depiction of how to face and reckon with our own provider mythology so that you can become robust providers of your own emotional, financial, physical/practical, and spiritual fulfillment. This is how you cease to self-abandon. This is how we debunk the provider myth at a personal level, become a whole and self-referenced woman who no longer leaks her power, blazing a new trail of female sufficiency.