Dear Laelithia:

I am back to your thread earlier than I planned. I am still not focused as much as I’d like to be, so if I misunderstand something, please let me know what it is.

I don’t remember you mentioning before that your father was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery- I hope he heals and fully recovers.

I do remember that you’ve been in therapy and I hope it moves forward, that it helps you more than it has so far.

Regarding the man you shared about: if I understand correctly, the two of you were in a relationship recently and were physically intimate for a period of time, and then he told you that he wants to see other women (“he still felt a little pressure to date others as well”), and had a date with another woman set- that’s a devastating experience for a woman in a relationship, being emotionally invested in the man.

You wrote: “Instead of taking this well, I took it badly and begin pushing him away”- wanting to date other women = pushing you away, isn’t it, in other words, didn’t he push you away, not the other way around?

And why should you take it well, that he wants to date other women?

I referred in my earlier post to your “obsessive regret”= believing that you ruin relationships that would be wonderful if only you didn’t make the terrible mistakes you perceive to have made.

“I feel so badly about how I behaved”- when he set a date with another woman while in a relationship with you, if I understand correctly- it is he who behaved badly, no?

“I told him it was okay to take things slowly and date others only just the night before”- well, you weren’t aware the night before that it was not okay with you that he dates other, were you ?

* If you choose to answer my questions in this post, please answer each question  very simply and clearly.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by .

Dear Laelithia:

I hope that your dog is comfortable, not in pain, and I hope he heals as much as is possible for him, and that your father continues to recover from his surgery.

I want to refer to what you shared more than 3 years ago, on May 19, 2017 and comment on how it is relevant to now:

“my parents provided the best care that they could and I had many opportunities (private school, extraordinary activities, clothes/ toys, etc.),”- fast forward, as a 31 (?) year old woman, you are educated and I think you have nice clothes and that you are not lacking for anything material.

Continued quote: “however I longed so deeply to be seen by them, to be heard, to hear loving words of affirmation.. I tried so hard to get (mother’s) attention, I would clean the house as a child during the nights to surprise her, I would work so hard at school, I would try to engage with her. But she was emotionally aloof, and often deferred to spending time with my sister… my inner dialogue of feeling unworthy of her attention and ultimately unlovable”-

– fast forward, you have just experienced another very short, month long relationship. Your history: first relationship was a long term, stable relationship meant to please your mother, if I remember correctly, a relationship where you did not experience much interest or passion for the man who curiously turned into a woman later.

All other relationships were either very  short term, or on-and-off longer term relationships; undefined, unstable, unsatisfactory and very distressing for you, fueling your obsessive thinking and maintaining that same-old feeling and core belief that you are “unworthy of .. attention and ultimately unlovable”.

In summary, a childhood that gave you education, clothes and other material goods led to you being an educated, well-dresses adult (I imagine) who is not lacking for anything material. On the other hand, that same childhood led you to a series of very distressing experiences with men and ongoing distressing regrets about relationships that ended.

The way I see it, your relationship with your mother is maintaining that same-old core  belief of being unworthy of attention and ultimately unlovable. But even if you ended contact with your mother and left her behind you, this core belief will not be left behind. I do wish (because you can’t or won’t end contact with her) that you, at the least, move far away from her, hoping this will mean less contact with her, or space enough in between contacts, space that will allow you to loosen that core belief a bit.

The man we are discussing now, another very short relationship, expressed much interest and future plans for the two of you as partners, and then.. he changed his talk. Did he lie to start with, faking his interest in you, or was he genuinely interested in you and then changed his mind- I don’t know.

I don’t think that you happen to meet man after man after man who is dishonest and uninterested from the start. I think that what happens may be that your core belief expresses itself in behaviors that turn men off to you, sooner than later.

This is what comes to my mind this morning, as I look back at what I remember from our communication over the years: you are like a little girl that tries to act mature, like a woman; a little girl who thinks she can make come across as an intelligent, educated, refined woman, but the little girl can not deliver a convincing performance for long. She does her best, but .. she is only a little girl, feeling sometimes very scared, at other times very guilty, at other times angry, and often confused.

Maybe some of the men, those who were decent, saw a woman first, impressed by her intelligence, education, refinement, but then the little girl, scared and angry and immature, broke out from inside the adult and acted like a little scared and angry girl that she is. Then the little girl recovers some, trying to correct the situation with adult, mature, knowledgeable output, but her performance fails, and the man can see that .. that the woman is a façade.

This is my feel, at this point. I can’t tell you  how strongly I believe that you need serious psychotherapy, which you did not have so far, so to connect/ bring together the little girl and the woman, and the two will be One. Not a perfrectly confident woman, of course (hardly any woman is), but an integrated woman, one who has adequate insight into herself, one who understands who she is, and therefore, who others are.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by .

Dear Laelithia:

You are welcome. You wrote regarding my suggestion that your core belief that you are unworthy and unlovable expresses itself in behaviors that turn men off: “I have always felt in my gut that this was true, but at the same time unable to clearly point out what behaviours in particular my core belief causes to happen.. I think slowing down the pace of these relationships will help a great deal to start with”- I agree, slowing down the pace will be a great start.

Let’s look at pace and behaviors in the first relationship you described in your first post, first thread May 9, 2017, and then fast forward three years and three months almost,  to the last relationship you described, on this thread,  Aug 4, 2020:

May 9, 2017: “I met a man online, and we chatted (text, snapchat, phone calls) constantly every day for 2 weeks before we planned to meet.. Eventually we did meet, and it was wonderful. I have never felt so strongly for someone so quickly in my whole life. We spent the weekend together, and after going home a few days, he let me know he would have to be away for work for 2 weeks, but he didn’t have to leave until that Friday. So, crazily, he came back to see me and we spent another few days together. This time I was really dedecestated (devastated?) when he had to leave. Fast forward 2 weeks while he was away for  work, and again we were talking constantly. I was truly falling for this man, and we were even beginning to plan our future together (including babies and marriage!). I thought it was a bit fast, but I was so smitten, I could hardly believe I had finally found a good, attractive, commitment friendly man. After his 2 weeks away, I went to visit him in his city for the weekend. It was wonderful again to see him,  but we did have a few silly arguments (usually after having too much to drink). Anyway, when I got back home, I noticed his contact was far less than before. I pointed this out, and before I knew it, my perfect man was saying he wasn’t sure if he was ready for a relationship after all. This after he had been the one pushing for things to move so quickly”.

August 3, 2020: “I met someone.. he was kind, assertive, generous, and brilliant with creating and designing things… I decided to pursue (him) because he was so clearly pursuing me. I met him in the other city I’m planning to move to, and the experience was lovely. I felt somewhat alive again! .. this continued for the month or so, even when I had to travel last minute back to my city… He told me how he had purchased a property just outside the city.. and even thought about how I could run my virtual practice there as well. He told me how he had ‘done the math’ and how we had a great connection and our future goals aligned… he also told me that he is 6 months out of a tumultuous 2-year relationship, and still felt a little pressure to date others as well, to ‘be confident in his decisions’ moving forward.. I, unfortunately, uninvited him from meeting my brother and became short and cold to him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I proceeded to have too much to drink that night and ended up sending some really odd texts that I now regret. He then told me he had a date scheduled the next day, and I really lost it… I felt bad about this in the morning, so I said ‘sorry.. ‘ to which he replied: ‘I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, this meeting was planned a week ago. My perspective isn’t a plan b scenario, I’d like to go thru the motions get out and meet some people so I’m confident in my decisions. I feel you were kinda mental toying with me last night, I didn’t have a good feeling… I also mentioned I’d rather not have a stressful convo before bed and the opposite is what actually happened.. I’m sorry I don’t have my mind made up about us. I need a bit of space, there’s a lot going on around me with work etc. I’ll just shut down if you press me too hard’. I gave him space for the next day or so.. When I asked if he was still planning on getting my bike today, he said ‘I’m sorry not after our last interactions.. I was hoping for some space… This is a bit intense for me.. I’d rather not discuss it any further’.. he spoke about how he felt pressure from me to start a relationship so soon and he wasn’t sure that he was ready at this point and that we didnt know each other well enough yet to make that call. He said he was worried about a few comments I made and was bothered  by my mixed signals”.

Now my thoughts this morning: the pattern has been, you meet a man you like and .. you lose your senses, you lose your mind, basically. You place the man on a pedestal, you fast forward the relationship in your mind, running fast without looking, imagining he is running with you, but you are running alone and, not seeing what’s in front of you, you crash into a wall and bruise your head, once again.

This is a form of insanity, I think. And you need to see it this way so to give the topic the seriousness that it deserves. It’s not that you need to fix something small to make a relationship work, you have a lot to fix, so be prepared for the hard work you need to do for the purpose of having a sane relationship, one that works.

The recent man, the one you will be having lunch with tomorrow- you had sex with him very quickly, had physical wonderful intimacy, he talked about the property he wants to buy, mentioning you can run a virtual practice from there etc., and you took his words on that solo run, not seeing what’s in front of you, and you crashed into a wall. When he said those things to you, I imagine he was smitten, maybe lying with you in bed, feeling very good after sex, and he was imagining a future with you, daydreaming and sharing his imaginings with you. Those were words fitting the moment, fitting the limited place and time when spoken. But you took his words as if he just carved them in stone and ran with them.

When he told you that he wanted to date other women, and that he had a date already scheduled, you lost it because you were already running fast by yourself. And you got angry as if there already was a mutually committed relationship and he betrayed it. But there was no commitment made.. he was just daydreaming about a future with you, daydreaming while having a good moment with you.

Angry that he betrayed what you believed was carved in stone, but which for him was daydreaming out loud, you got angry at him, bringing up serious conversations, pressuring him to have such a talk after he told you that he doesn’t want to have such a talk before going to bed, etc.

When you put the man on a pedestal and fall in love, for some men it’s a turn on, but for other men it is not because they worry about you thinking they are that great too quickly, before you got to  know them. That’s an alarming behavior for men who have some emotional intelligence, and experience with such behavior before, behavior they witnessed or experienced in teenage girls perhaps. When such men see you so much in love, looking at them as if they were the best thing ever, they worry.. worry about that crash.

The men who don’t worry about what I just mentioned, they get worried when they get to see your behaviors after you crash, not knowing where that came from, and then you start those conversations with them and they are bamboozled- they didn’t know you had all that anger, they didn’t know you had all those expectations, they thought you were having fun, they were having fun.. and they don’t want all that drama, not even knowing where it’s coming from (is my guess).

Here are my suggestions:

1. Keep in mind your tendency to put the man on a pedestal and to fall deeply in love/fall into insanity, and when you have thoughts about how wonderful he is, etc.. and how you never felt like this before, etc.,  remind yourself that you have this tendency, and try to take him off the pedestal and calm yourself, center yourself, take a break/time out from texting/ talking/ seeing him, so to return your mind to sanity.

2. Do not assume there is a committed established relationship with a man before it is clearly stated by the two of you, that neither one will be dating others, that both want a long term, maybe lifetime exclusive relationship with each other. Don’t take a man’s daydreaming-out-loud (or lies, as some men do lie) to mean more than that the man is just feeling good with you right there and then. (His good feelings with you at the time and place do not mean that he loves you permanently).

3. I don’t know if it is possible for you to have sex with a man and not rush into that solo run, so keep that in mind, and consider that it is better for you to not have sex with a man before a committed relationship is established, or at the least, not before he tells you that he will not be dating other women.

4. When you feel angry at a man, drinking or not, do not call him, do not send him messages: do not communicate with a man while you are under the influence of anger. Calm down first, pause, take time out, and when you are calm, then figure out what to say to him, what not  to say, how to proceed.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by .

Dear Laelithia:

You are welcome. I appreciate your gratitude and grace. I read your post but I want to re-read it when better focused, Wednesday morning and reply to you then  (in about 15 hours from now). Have a good evening and night, and I will be back to your thread Wed morning.

anita