Sometimes such anxiety is based on a realistic fear that if we assume a bottom-line stance (“I am sorry, but I will not do what you are asking of me”), we risk losing a relationship or a job. More often, and more crucially, separation anxiety is based on an underlying discomfort with separateness and individuality that has its roots in our early family experience, where the unspoken expectation may have been that we keep a lid on our expressions of self. Daughters are especially sensitive to such demands and may become far more skilled at protecting the relational “we” than asserting the
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