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Double Jeopardy; A; WTH is the matter with women. Q; What is Men, Alex?

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Hopalong:

--- Quote ---ALL of your comments were about fixing me.
Do you do that to any of the women who come here with relationship issues?
--- End quote ---

Pretty much, I think I don't. [edit] I think practically everything I write about here is what I/we can do inside ourselves, since we can't control others...anybody correct me if I'm wrong.

None of us hate men or have frizzy hair and Ivy League degrees. Well, JHU is almost Ivy League but counter-snotty while prestigious. I never understood that, but I was in the graduate writing program where we were concentrating on not shaving our legs. I am a humorless feminist, remember.

Seriously, sorry I wasn't helpful, Mud. It takes two for anything to work and just one can end something, I know. I just worry about your pattern of focusing on analysis of the other and what you were describing sounded as it sounded to me. Pattern spotting in oneself CAN help, I'll hold to that, but maybe there's also a pattern in the types of people you're attracted to. Or maybe it's both. And I do think it'd be valuable to try a different kind of therapist. That's one reason I see a man. I need to avoid my echo chamber sometimes, to get a new perspective.

My insights are worth two cents but hey, they were free. (If I were a man-hater I sure wouldn't work so hard to be helpful! And like Lighter, I've missed you too.)

Hops

sKePTiKal:
Hmmm. (veering off in another direction)

Been following along. Firstly, yes - sometimes "fast" works just fine. BTDT. But in both cases (for me), I'd been around the guys long enough to see how they interacted with others, get a sense of their values and the way their minds operated - so when the "invitation" was made for a one on one interaction (coffee I think) I already had a decent expectation that they were decent chaps. And then, it was off to the races for relationship development.

Mike & I spent days/weeks talking through past relationships - complete with analysis of our own complicity in issues - so we had an overview of where the other's buttons were. He was so honest & forthcoming about his own previous failings (for those women) I was shocked. But it also let me explain that I'm not "those women". Operate under different expectations, redlines, etc. Or CAN, at any rate. That opened the discussion on what we really both - deep down - wanted. And it was very simple really.

Mud, I think it's possible that the new woman fears she's not able to manage her schedule well enough, to let herself enjoy exploring a new relationship. That perhaps she's got a conflict-idea in her had about HAVING to choose between career and relationship... and while both are important, some "should" is driving her to focus on career over relationship and trying to do both - well - is overwhelming her.

Without any direct feedback as to why she pulled back so suddenly, all a person can do is guess. But it sure sounds to me like one of those internal self-tangles people who've been through some life-crap and abusive situations deal with that get in the way of normal life. So, she's denying her emotional life for the pragmatic work-a-day career option... perhaps, for rebuilding a sense of being secure in her own self?

Above is all speculation since there's so little to go on. And filtered through the continuum of connection/emotional attachment to autonomy... which is only my way of looking at things (at the moment).

It also occurs to me, that mud's wanting to talk through whatever "it" is... doesn't preclude the lady from taking enough space to do her own thinking and sussing out the tangle herself.

mudpuppy:
Hops,
My humorous reference was to what the female therapist you suggested I try might be like, not to you or anyone else here.

I analyze things to try to understand them and the more inexplicable they seem the more I analyze.

The unfortunate fact is after 40 virtually any single person, man or woman, has been wounded. I have and so has my friend. Most of the women in this bracket have been wounded by bad men, hence the title of the thread. This woman has never known the love of a guy like me, only chumps.
I'll always believe our wounds are so perfectly complimentary that we would have made a great couple if only we had given it a chance to evolve instead of ending it without trying. And so I will pray for another chance with her in the future some time; maybe the end of the year or maybe longer, IDK. She has a very forgiving nature and a strong faith so I'm very slightly hopeful.

sKePTiKal,
Agree with pretty much what you wrote, but I think it's beyond just balancing work and relationship. Her emphasis on it and reference to its harm in her past indicates to me  she was deeply hurt by it previously and is afraid of being hurt that way again. The fact that one relatively minor mention of it by me started the rift and that she could never give me a clear or consistent reason for breaking up along with her sensitivity to my speculating that fear might be the real reason she broke it off makes me think it is the root issue. Who wants to get hurt again if that is all you know from putting your heart out there?

Edit in; I should add her parents were divorced when she was young though she gets along with all of them. And her step dad who raised her passed away within the last year. Not sure the first still effects her much but the latter is still a deep hurt in her especially as I believe he is the first close person she has lost.

mud

Hopalong:
This is probably tainted by my personal experience, but for some women, their job (at 75% pay) is massively important to their sense of safety and meaning in the world. I would have been utterly incapable of disregarding that for a new romance...would need to know someone MUCH MUCH better/longer before throttling back a driven devotion to work.

It's not unusual. Depending on how it was framed, she may have felt smothered by your pouting about the demands of her work. Since she is probably already stretched to her limit to manage that job, and anybody who is going to sulk about it is not the supportive partner she needs.

Another personal projection. Someone who wants that insistently to BE THE ONE to fix me, fix my life...is a hair's breadth from wanting to CONTROL me. What one interprets or intends as "love and support" another can experience as "hover and smother." Many women can't take it. And it's not just a sign of "damage" -- in some, it's a sign of health.

It's very hard to find the right chemistry and balance with this stuff. But I'm familiar with what the panic of a good man wanting to control, assuming he knows best for me, explaining me to myself, analysing me with presumptions, etc. -- feels like. Good men can trigger it.

mudpuppy:
She does not make 75% of anyone. She makes a lot of money and can retire in only 3 1/2 years.
As far as wanting to fix her life, she said she was looking for a "house husband" precisely because she doesn't have time to take care of herself.
Since I could work out of the house and can do all the projects she wants to do we seemed a perfect fit to make her life less stressful and her more in control of it. We spent hours drawing up plans of additions and landscaping I could do to make her place just what she, and I, wanted it to be.
As far as me overwhelming her with solutions and fixes, after looking at our texts, I actually did give her her space. A week after she had asked me to give her space and a couple of days after the talk where it was obvious we were only going to be friends she thanked me for my "patience through this tough time" and that it showed my character and that she really appreciated me. The very next evening after I had done a few things around the house for her she thanked me profusely for that and then added a not too nice PS about some stuff about her dad's tools which was a very confusing mixed message
I really only got goofy with too many words the next week after she officially broke it off at which point it obviously didn't cause the breakup. That was pretty much baked in the cake when she said she needed her space almost two weeks before that, IMO. The pouting consisted literally of me saying I was a little down because I was disappointed she had to work part of the weekend. With that explanation was also that I already recognized it was me being a doofus not that she had done anything wrong or that I had a problem with her job, but the damage was done.
In any event she's gone and I'll get over it. If God intends it to be then we will have another chance to do it His way rather than our own.

mud

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