Читать книгу Ghosted and Breadcrumbed - Dr. Marni Feuerman - Страница 9
ОглавлениеThe topic of unrequited love may make for an entertaining movie, but if you are experiencing it yourself, it is anything but entertaining. In fact, it may be one of the most painful experiences you ever have. Unrequited love is love that isn’t reciprocated in the same amount (or at all) that you are giving. Finding yourself in this circumstance, whether once or as part of a pattern, is not random. As you will come to realize in the pages of this book, unrequited love results from the impact of early history and experiences, especially with your parents. The good news is that you can unlearn the negative patterns and, instead, learn how to both choose and appreciate an emotionally available partner.
Let’s take a look at Samantha’s story. For the third Christmas (not to mention Thanksgiving and New Year’s) Samantha was by herself. Her married boyfriend was supposed to have left his wife by now. After all, he had asked her to be patient, saying he loved her....It would happen any day now. Samantha thought she suffered alone. Many of her friends had real partners. She felt jealous because, while she had a partner too, she spent these holidays alone.
Samantha was like many women in a relationship with a married or otherwise unavailable man. People would ask her why such an attractive, smart, educated, and hardworking woman didn’t have a serious boyfriend. She really seemed to have her life together. And although she always answered, “I haven’t met the right one yet,” she believed that, one day, she would be introducing the right one — the one she was already seeing — to her inner circle...as soon as he got a divorce. She also believed that she could wait. After all, she was only twenty-five.
Single women in relationships with married, noncommittal, or emotionally unavailable men let many years of their lives go down the drain. The chemistry of lust and fantastic sex can keep them in a state similar to addiction. With a married man, the highs are so high that these women have learned to cope with the lows — the “in-between” times of not being able to see or talk to him and of going solo to parties and events. With the emotionally unavailable man, you find yourself going crazy, in a state of high anxiety, wondering why he has not responded to your call or text.
Like Samantha, you have found that a relationship with a married man ensnares you in a web of lies that keeps this relationship hidden. Your friends and family may have met him under the pretense that he is single. Or perhaps no one even knows he exists. Whatever the case may be, your life is an emotional roller coaster.
Being with an unresponsive man who you know is single and available is another kind of torture. You tell people you have met a “great guy,” and you can’t deny the chemistry and intense attraction. Yet your friends all wonder why you also seem miserable. You are likely conflicted because this feeling that you call love makes you insecure and anxious at the same time.
Since you have decided to read this book, maybe you’re tired of living in a state of constant ambiguity. Perhaps you are seriously asking yourself if you should cut your losses and move on. Or perhaps you are looking for a sign of hope telling you that you should continue to ride this out. Many women enter into such an arrangement unwittingly. Some women do break up with a man upon learning he’s married or emotionally unresponsive and, in doing so, cut off a seemingly drama-filled relationship quickly. However, many others stay in roller-coaster relationships anyway.
When He’s Emotionally Unavailable: “Isn’t my love enough?” you might ask. I can tell you this circumstance has nothing to do with the amount of love or your ability to love. Lust and infatuation maybe, but not love. Love doesn’t hurt like this. Real love is balanced and reciprocal. There is a healthy dependency rather than a codependency. In a healthy dependency, you can each count on the other, and you have each other’s back. A man in a mutually loving relationship would not make you feel off balance and as if you are going crazy. He would also be completely honest about his feelings and the status of your relationship.
Let’s take a look at Michelle’s situation. She got set up on a blind date with Mark by a friend. Not blind exactly, because she knew so much about him before they met. He looked adorable in his social media pictures. Just her type. What’s more, he looked great on paper. An Ivy League graduate with a professional job, and Jewish like she was — and now, her friend thought they would be perfect for each other.
When they finally met at a noisy bar, it was as if the heavens parted and there was no one else in the place but them. They talked all night and had so much in common. She was sure she had found “the one.” When the date ended, and they went their separate ways, she was excited to hear him say he would contact her and definitely wanted to go out again. Then, when he didn’t call or text the next day (or the day after...), she became sad and anxious. She replayed the date in her head, wondering what she had done wrong or if she’d misread Mark.
She finally heard from him on Friday and was now faced with deciding whether she would be “too available” if she agreed to see him on Saturday night as he requested. After polling all her friends, she decided to go out with him, and they had an amazing time again. But then the cycle started over, and again she didn’t hear from him for several days. She decided to send him a text, and it went unanswered until the next day. All she got was a “sorry so busy” response. What a letdown. But instead of reading the situation for what it was, Michelle just tried harder and obsessed over him more. She could not comprehend how this could be happening, given all the undeniable chemistry they had.
Fast-forward to a few months later, and the “relationship” Michelle had with Mark — if you want to call it that — was filled with constant ups and downs, highs and lows. He could be very sweet and responsive and, at other times, distant and moody. This left her feeling great at times and, at other times, extremely depressed and anxious. It seemed like she was always worried about the relationship and whether Mark was going to break up with her or had found someone else. Mark called her “needy” when she tried to express her feelings to him. She was so confused at that point. She believed she was in love, but she was miserable and her family was always concerned about her.
Leaving someone you love is one of the most difficult things you can ever do. Michelle got in so deep that it seemed impossible. We can see from her story that she completely missed some major red flags. Even she did not know how she turned into the person she did with Mark. She always saw herself as strong and independent, successful at work, and as someone with plenty of friends.
But the essential point is that men like Mark are not capable of loving women back. Their behavior may run the range from manipulative or insensitive to downright emotionally abusive. It’s imperative to understand why this happens and how to find a man who will love you back unequivocally. It is also critical to know when and how to get out of this situation before it creates more distress and psychological damage.
When He’s Noncommittal: Don’t some men get over their fear of commitment? The short answer is, yes, some men do get over their relationship anxiety (a.k.a. “commitment phobia”). If they are going to, though, it will likely happen in a reasonable amount of time! You will also be getting positive signs during the course of your relationship that it is progressing in that direction. You will not see the same anxiety in other areas of this person’s life. Truly noncommittal men are just that: incapable of committing. The issues may be too deep-rooted, or the dysfunction too significant, for him to get past his fear. You may notice it in other areas of his life as well, not just in his relationship history.
This is the situation Emily found herself in. She liked so many things about Jake. They had a lot in common, enjoyed each other’s company, and had good sexual chemistry. She was in her late twenties and had established herself in a career. She was ready for marriage and thought Jake would make a good husband and father. After a year of dating, he still never brought up their future and certainly not marriage. Every time she wanted to talk about it, he would derail the conversation by picking an ugly fight. He would say that he was not ready, but he could not provide a clear answer about when he might be. Or he would blame it on his uncertain career path.
Emily noticed he had trouble staying at one company and bounced around a lot. She also knew that his parents had had a contentious divorce and a drawn-out custody battle. She did everything she could to reassure him, yet nothing seemed to calm his fear of committing. Emily began to feel tormented by her love for him and her desire for marriage and children.
Men with relationship anxiety can, indeed, be in love with you. However, they have much more difficulty staying in the relationship long term. They also have trouble talking about a future with you. If push comes to shove, they will likely bolt from the relationship. The expectation of commitment makes them fearful. They may struggle with the conflict of dependency versus freedom. Being in love with someone who can’t commit to you can become a nightmare.
When He’s Already Committed (or Married): Men in this category are emotionally and often physically unavailable. In fact, they already have a girlfriend or have taken vows with someone. Yet you might find yourself involved with or very attracted to one. Don’t some men leave their wives for their lovers? The ones who do are usually the ones who have already made a certain plan to leave even before meeting someone new. If this has not happened in your case, then the odds are woefully not in your favor. Instead, there is an extremely slim chance this man will actually leave his wife. And if he does, the probability that things will work out between the two of you are slimmer still. It is nearly impossible to track real statistical data on this subject, but based on what I’ve gleaned from the research, I’d say that the percentage of relationships of this sort that successfully work out is 10 percent or less. That means there’s a 90 percent chance it will not. Would you bet on a horse with a 90 percent chance of losing? Would you get on a plane with a 90 percent chance of crashing? Of course not. Yet if you’ve chosen a man in the category that I’m discussing here, you’ve bet your heart and future on the same horrible odds. You might be thinking that you are going to be the exception, that even with such dismal odds, it will work out for you. I can tell you right now: you are not the exception to the rule.
Take Beth’s situation. She spent years with Jon. In her mind, he was her soul mate. He had virtually every quality she was looking for. The only problem was that he was married. But he had a “special circumstance.” He and his wife had a “marriage of convenience.” They never had sex, and the marriage was more of a friendship. They both turned a blind eye where cheating was concerned. They were staying together until their youngest daughter went off to college, so she’d have a stable home environment. Beth could see the light at the end of the tunnel: just two more years, and Jon would get a divorce and marry her. This is what Jon told her. She had no evidence to the contrary. Plus, she believed he was sincere. This chemistry could not be faked!
Fast-forward two years (by which time Beth was in her midforties). Jon’s youngest finally went off to college. Beth knew that any day now Jon would file for divorce, and they could get married and move on with their lives — together. And, true to his word, Jon did get divorced. But then the unthinkable happened: he also broke up with Beth!
While we can only speculate about Jon’s real thoughts, it seems that Beth was his “transitional object.” She filled a need for Jon and allowed him to tolerate his marriage. So, yes, he was unhappily married, but this didn’t necessarily mean he thought seriously about Beth as she did about him. He had essentially used her. Furthermore, about a year after his divorce, he did get married...to someone else!
With many more women in the workplace these days, bonds and friendships more readily develop between women and men. Many of these relationships are with men who are married. Some of these relationships shift from platonic to emotional and then, most frequently, turn physical. Furthermore, women are far more financially independent now and do not need men to secure their futures. We’ve even reached the point that a woman can have a career and a child entirely without a man. Overall, women have gotten a much bigger part of the pie. Women hold positions of power, run companies, and are millionaires.
Despite so many changes, however, remember that women tend to be more relational and emotional by nature. Men tend to be more logical (problem solvers) and physical. Another issue is that men tend to desire sex more than women do; women’s sex drives seem to wane a few years into marriage and more so after kids. Our bodies go through extreme physical changes, while men do not have such significant changes, and their sex drives don’t diminish nearly as quickly. However, the shifts in physical intimacy within the marital relationship resulting from these changes in women affect men significantly and may contribute to some men’s complex proclivity to stray. A lot less sex than they had early in the marriage isn’t what they “signed up for.” Being involved with a married man when you are seeking a committed or monogamous relationship can also wreak havoc on your life. Those in such circumstances sometimes even describe it as torturous!
When He’s Not That into You: This may seem like an “emotionally unavailable man” situation, but it can be tricky. The way to think about it may be that this is less about who he is at the core and more about situational unavailability. He will not be available to you, because he just doesn’t have those deeper feelings. He may be a very good, high-quality man, but mutual feeling and attraction are a must for any relationship to get off the ground, let alone be sustainable.
Don’t personalize the man that just isn’t into you. You have choices, too, and I am sure you can remember times when someone liked you and you did not like him back. The craziness comes when you don’t (or he doesn’t) accept this and move on. In the best-case scenario, the man will be honest and direct from the beginning. If this doesn’t happen, be intelligent about his behavioral cues. If he doesn’t call, text, or pursue you in some way...he’s not that into you!
Your situation may involve complicating factors — perhaps he’s your boss, your best friend’s spouse, or a neighbor. That is, you may find that seeing him is unavoidable. If you do not see him in your regular day-to-day life, consider this an advantage, since all these complicating circumstances just make things more challenging. However, you can successfully withdraw from this relationship, and chapter 7 discusses how.
You will be able to get through a breakup only if you learn to tolerate the pain of the breakup and the pain of being alone. This is the place where so many people habitually fail. The pain becomes unbearable, and so they keep going back. It’s not like a regular breakup, when you’re no longer in love, or you’re dumped, and the door closes completely. If the door is left open, you may walk back through it and return to him. In that case, your situation is similar to that of an alcoholic who can always access alcohol: you both have to find ways to live while knowing that the thing you crave is out there and potentially obtainable.
Again, the painful feelings are entirely normal. You will experience a loss and will have to go through the grief process. Feeling angry, sad, rejected, lonely, and hurt come with the territory. Chapter 9 will help you devise a plan for riding out these difficult emotions. Using the most effective strategies drawn from my years of doing psychotherapy, I offer practical techniques to help you cope with these feelings and get on the path to feeling good again. Loss can put people in a crisis state, and a breakup (with a married man or in the context of another romantic relationship) certainly fits this category. This book will introduce you to coping strategies that help you adjust to the “new normal” that comes when a loss is accepted, and it will guide you as you move forward.
These therapeutic coping strategies, which are thoroughly explained in chapter 9, make up the acronym GET SMART:
• G — Goal orientation
• E — Emotion management
• T — Thought restructuring
• S — Self-soothing
• M — Mindfulness
• A — Attachment style
• R — Reaching out to others
• T — Transformed behavior
Chapter 10 discusses moving on with your life. This will be a natural progression once you have gained some mastery of the strategies for breaking up and tolerating the associated pain, discussed in chapters 7, 8, and 9. If you have moved on from the pain of this loss, most of the battle is done. But, as with anything you are trying to change, maintaining the changes takes energy and effort. The goal will change from getting out of these relationships to figuring out what you want in life (including any future relationship). Chances are you still desire love and partnering up with someone. If so, that’s wonderful! But you need to know how to make your life as fulfilling as possible until this happens. When working to move on, there are several vital concepts to keep in mind regarding goal-setting and overall recovery, which we will explore.
We will return to relationship matters in chapter 11, which discusses in depth what a healthy relationship looks like. Information there presents a picture of what most people desire in a partner (for example, honesty, responsibility, caring), which will help you reflect on what attributes you find necessary in a romantic relationship (along with deal breakers).
In that chapter, I also spend a lot of time on what makes a relationship healthy. I focus predominantly on emotional and physical accessibility, along with emotional responsiveness and emotional engagement. I also revisit attachment-related concepts and discuss tuning in to your gut feelings and rational thoughts when interacting with potential romantic interests. I will help you develop a successful dating strategy that enables you to recognize red flags and cut off a poor prospect before you get too involved.
Chapter 12 explores how you can figure out whether you could use some professional help in breaking off a relationship, staying broken up, or making better choices when it comes to romance. Some women “relapse” numerous times back into the arms of their lover. They may find it next to impossible to break free, even as their prime years pass by. A self-help book may be all it takes for some, but for many the guidance of a professional counselor provides the support, and facilitates the intensive emotional work, necessary to move forward. The chapter also explains how to find the right professional.
Finally, chapter 13 reviews key points and leaves you with messages about self-love, finding a sense of purpose, and healing. We also look at vulnerability, loss, and forgiveness. You can explore the recommended reading and additional resources that follow the final chapter to help yourself stay on track.
