On Fear of Loss

“Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love. Often in their adult relationships these men act out again and again to test their partner's love. While the rejected adolescent boy imagines that he can no longer receive his mother's love because he is not worthy, as a grown man he may act out in ways that are unworthy and yet demand of the woman in his life that she offer him unconditional love. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.” 
― Bell Hooks

Edit: I get it now.  I'm failing the tests.  Steve's a great guy.  I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he can easily find someone else to love him.  I'm sure someone out there is better at the games than I am.  I can't do it anymore.  I feel like Chell in Portal!  I wish Steve well.


I will keep my original post intact below.



Today I am thankful for recognizing the no win-situations inherent in emotional abuse.

I didn't want to use that phrase. Emotional abuse is a loaded phrase but for lack of a better term, I'll use it.

I'd rather use the phrase "behavior that creates distance within intimate relationships."

On Monday Steve wrote that I was emotionally abusing him out of fear of losing the relationship on his Facebook wall.  This is why I blocked him.  This is partly why I told him to stay away.

He also keeps saying that he can't be my friend.  I can't make a lover out of a non-friend.  He knows this.  This time, he wanted to hold our friendship hostage until I complied with his demand to remove some Facebook posts and replace them with accolades of him (so everyone would know that I have an "awesome boyfriend").  Asking a hurt woman to post kind things about you online is a dangerous thing to request.  The things I would have posted could have been awfully passive-aggressive. 

I went on to Google exactly what he wrote.  I found a battered men's website claiming that women will emotionally abuse men to hook them and to keep them from leaving. 

He keeps telling me his shrink says that I am hooking him because I fear losing him.  I don't know how I hooked him.  He's never answered the question. 


Why would I hook him?  I don't want to control anyone. 

*****



He has sent me really mean and accusatory emails over the past year.  He's sent me abusive texts.  He'll tell me that love will cause me to forgive him.  Every relationship has problems.  My problem is that I am not committed enough to overlook his disrespect.

If I try to talk about things, he'll shush me.  He did it once when he wanted to have sex and I was having issues accessing birth control.  He tells me to be quiet quite often.  Sometimes, the things he wants me to keep to myself could directly impact him.
The shushing thing made me realize that we didn't have a chance of growing the relationship.  I kept blaming myself and my divorce outcome, but in reality, that wasn't the only reason our relationship grew stagnant.  Couples have to talk in order to grow together.


I'll post more.  Maybe I'll post screen shots of his pot shots when I am feeling strong enough to look at them again.  Maybe I won't.  They are incredibly painful to see.

He wanted to control me.  He'd say he needed to control.  I thought he meant he needed to control his emotions.  Now, I know better.  He wanted to control the relationship to gain a sense of security.  

In that relationship, I felt like there was a lot of projection going on.  I noticed that everything he claimed I was doing were things that he did.  I was pissed off when that man publicly labeled me an abuser.  I don't like labels.  Then, he denied writing that.  He did!!!  Why deny it?

*****



Steve kept telling me that his therapist said I had him emotionally hooked.  He wrote on Facebook that his therapist told him to stay away me because I kept discarding him.

It was my guilt over him feeling discarded that made me come back.  I always wanted to leave him feeling good about himself.

I'd give him what he wanted and he'd vilify me.

I'm not sure that I believe he is seeing a real therapist.  He'd talk about discussing me for hours on end with his mother.  I think she could be the person giving the bad advice.

If it was his therapist, if he valued the relationship, he would have taken me up on the offer of free relationship counseling.  He didn't.

*****


I am wondering if I did the right thing.

If a guy is claiming that I am abusing him out of fear of losing the relationship, what am I supposed to do?

The only thing I can do is end the relationship.

If someone is claiming to want you around,

but claiming that you are an abuser for being around,

and calling you names,

while refusing to talk about actual problems,

what do you do?

You have to cut it off. 

You have to tell the other person to stay away, if not for his sanity, it has to be done for yours! 



Then, the kicker is that I am labeled an abuser for leaving him. He'll make you feel guilty for going away. 

If staying is abusive, my leaving should provide relief, right? 

Why is my leaving abusive?  

I recognize now that the relationship was a series of no win situations.


It's like being told to be quiet but then vilified for not talking about your feelings.

That is abuse.

*****

Abuse is putting someone is a series of no win situations.


You know what?  I refuse to be a victim from this point on.


I'm still sobbing a lot.  I'm still praying that Steve finds what he is seeking.  Away from the craziness, I am feeling more  positive about myself.  I'm not sleeping but at least I'm smiling again.


I am now at a point where synchronistic events are happening for me again.  I'll have to write about those later. 

Maybe I have to get away from the crazy making I deal with Steve to get my groove back.   I deal with enough of it from my ex-husband.  I still wonder if the confusion I feel is due to my being stuck here.  You know, Steve is rarely available to talk to about deep matters.  That's probably adding to the confusion.  The games hurt.   I get games from both of them: I don't like dealing with no win situations in stereo.

Don't get me wrong, Steve is the perfect guy 90% of the time.  The problem is when he gets paranoid and thinks I am doing, saying, feeling, or thinking negative things pertaining to him, he'll attack me without consideration for my feelings.  I'll withdrawal because I do not know what to do about that kind of insecurity.  Usually, I'll come back when he asks me to and I feel that I owe him closure.  I care for this man but there has to be a balance between protecting myself and helping him feel better about himself.

Actually, in the end, I felt more like a booty call.  I'd visit.  He'd get what he wanted and then find an excuse to send me away.  I got the sense the silly intellectual arguments he started were designed to frustrate me and get me to leave.  He'd say something historically inaccurate, I'd correct him, and he'd start crying saying that I called him stupid.
That was a game.  I can't believe that I fell for it. 
I wonder if his mother directing our Saturdays together was another means of running me off.
I noticed, too that he was typically too tired, too something to actually talk.  I wasn't sure how to grow the relationship dealing with that.

When he told me that it was better for me to be quiet about my anxieties that impacted the relationship, I realized that he didn't love me.


That's okay.  Today is a new day.  It is a great day.  I know things will get better.


Love ya,

S.

P.S.  I am trying to find a checklist for things that abusers do to hook you in.  Maybe I can see my behavior in that and learn something.  I'll edit the post when I find something. 

Edit sometime later: Basically, what I am finding is that women hook men by threatening to steal their property, their money, access to their children or telling them that they'll never find another lover because of some internal deficit they have.

I don't do those things. 

I don't know what the heck Steve is talking about.

I guess it doesn't matter.


There is no way to heal this rift.

I can't do the make up/break up thing again.

It hurts too much.