Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Relationship/s
Hopalong:
Thanks, hon.
I should've added that he did, profusely, express remorse that he triggered my renewed anguish over her. He still didn't understand how his executive-management wording offended me, but unpacking unconscious patriarchal stuff isn't going to come quick. (And he believes he's a grand wordsmith so I doubt he'd see that somewhat-pompous tone the way I do.) So he remained convinced his effort was misunderstood but I believed him that he was also truly sorry he had caused pain. Particularly over his careless description of the "auto" email he'd gotten as "an email from her friend." He swore he understood ALL my instructions if he did donate, and not mention her again otherwise.
In addition to devastated at the near-breakup, he looked truly remorseful when I saw him, and has since backed way off the hyperbolic-romantic incessant reminders of how he feels and what he wants (perhaps he DID hear my explanation that they were backfiring, not leaving me oxygen or space to cross toward him voluntarily).
So...I dunno. I imagine a relationship with anyone with a lifetime's baggage at my age will mean work. I'm backing off to a caring but safe emotional distance to be damn sure it's not going to be consuming, pointless effort. If it's an endless struggle I will end it. I think traveling together for a week (with my own room to retreat to) may be a good chance to observe some additional stuff.
I don't mind adjusting, learning, and also challenging myself in therapy (why do I freak out about sex?). So if he is doing the same and showing signs of insight, mebbe we'll make it. (He even said he didn't care, he wants me enough as his lifelong companion that he'd commit to me even without it.) Hmmm. I just know I have to feel completely safe and not overpowered and not pressured in order to enjoy it. B, the previous "boyfriend" -- pissed me off in the same way. I think part of M's pressure is his post-surgery anxiety to check out whether he's still able. He was two years ago, but is also panicking about age and mortality since losing her.
One whiff of entitlement to my body before I offer it and I'm outta there. My last "fun only" lover -- decade and a half ago! -- responded to MY invitation. Hmmm.
But it's not only all that. It's the "fusion" he's been trying to create with me. Belatedly, despite many years of craving that myself before oodles of therapy taught me how unhealthy it was, and how I had to learn to love myself and not look, as you mentioned, to external sources to make me okay...I have caught on that he's in just the same place I was back then.
My hope (not expectation) is that as brilliant as he is, he might perhaps respond to therapy with insight. Worth a little time, I think.
Thanks much Amber...y'all have no idea what your support and insight means!
love
Hops
Hopalong:
While it's important to communicate your boundaries and need for time alone, it's also necessary to emphasize the wish to share time together. Above & beyond, what you normally would do perhaps.
Problem with that is, after 15+ lonely but independent years alone...adjusting to seeing him 3 times/week is already a challenge for me. And otherwise, I worry that this kind of approach puts me in a transference-a-la-therapist position, and I vastly do not care to do that. Or take that role. At all. Happy to share with him various insights I've picked up from decades of therapy, but not as his instructor.
Good news on the same curve. I think partly in response to his own freakouts, he decided to "un-retire." He wants to keep teaching, professorizing, until he falls over. And I feel relieved, as does he. I think all that mental energy was going into me, after 50 years of having a LOT of other things to think about. (He recently returned the proofs for his latest book, so he still has an amazing work discipline.) I am just glad because he absolutely loves teaching and scholarship. And he's going to drop all the extra administrative stuff, such as heading up graduate studies, that made FT into FT+. He happened to know a friend of my father's who died face-first into his typewriter at 101, still writing scholarly articles. He says, I want to go like that! And I think for him, that'd be perfect.
For me, if I'm with him long term? Time to MYSELF!!!
Twoapenny:
I keep trying to write a post, Hops, and keep deleting it because I keep saying things that I know you already know and are aware of :) So I will just say that I know you will figure this out, I hope you know that while we are all rooting for you to have the happy ever after bit we also don't want you having to compromise on any of the things you've worked so hard for and you hold so dear to yourself. So I hope you will keep posting, keep thinking, keep taking back your space and time and keep looking after you. Not least because I've got no-one to water my plants if I have to come over there and kick his arse :) Lol xx
lighter:
((Hops)) I'm so relieved he's going back to work. Whatever happens. All that focus and zeal was impossible to deal with, mainly bc he can't hear you through his need, as you've mentioned.
I hope the T breaks through. He's smart enough.
The fact he's messing in your wounds, like fingerprinting child, then going all Irkle...
"Did I DO that?". It's maddening, imo.
It's forgivable if he respects that bou dary going forward. I think.
It's a terrible thing when your new, supposed to be safe person, begins putting your emotional safety in his sights, and for what seems to be attention. It doesn't feel molevolent but it feels deeply disordered.
I think Paris will make or break the bond. Hold steady. Don't give an inch. Take back the ground you lost. He learns and can be trained, or cannot.
Stay in observer mode as you can manage. No matter what he does, this can still be a period of growth, lovely meals, and compassion for you both. There will be deep sadness if he can't make the shift, but you're hopefully able to stay level, and hold what you got, as they say.
Don't panic if things go awry. Know he's doing his best, and can't manage more. He would if he could. Our limitations are so human, and heartbreaking, imo.
I guess I'm saying that if he fails, just enjoy Paris on your own. Try to resist racing to the airport in horror.....worst case scenario. Been there, done that. He'll likely talk you into staying, and that's deeper misery, IME.
Courage, Hops. Maybe he'll be brave enough to figure this out.
Lighter
sKePTiKal:
If you read my long description of Buck, Hops... you might already know what I'm going to say.
You may have to enforce that tiny bit of space between you and M, for awhile on your own. I don't like the "fusion" idea either, but I know Mike really went there after he retired and I fully sympathize with the Japanese women stuck with retired husbands. I'm not picking up any of that from Buck; he's been alone long enough. It's myself I have to watch, because precisely, it's what I was used to with Mike. I don't want that again. ESPECIALLY when we're older, we have to adapt those "conditioned expectations" of what a relationship is and the structure of it to the complicated mess of what our lives have been up till now. That requires individual, private space. Entry into it, needs to be requested - not taken for granted.
The sex thing is also different when we're older. I swear, we might as well be teenagers again what with all the angst and self-consciousness about our bodies. For guys, that often shows up in performance anxiety. Everyone deals with it their own way too. For me, it's an area of compatibility in the top 10 important things on my wishlist. And so it's also something that I explore earlier than most people. What I noticed - despite being able to immerse myself fully still, despite my old lady body - is that even in the peaceful, safe place afterwards... I needed to go back to my own room to sleep. Let my brain process everything while I slept. (I think I might've been wary about emotional whiplash, too... part of my emotional self wants to judge this as "cheating" on Mike. It's not at all rational in any way shape or form; but I am paying attention to it regardless. That would be loyalty at my own expense, and I know for a fact he didn't expect me to enter a nunnery while he's chasing blondes in heaven.)
What was really welcome to me, was being able to talk about it openly without "posturing" or ego-crap. He surprised me in an embrace and kiss (I'd given him a huge hug when he arrived; this was later on) and while I didn't expect anything of the sort... I was ready and willing to not just receive but give as good or better than I got. Full throttle. And he made sure verbally it was what I wanted; even letting me come to his room and leave as I needed to. But then, there have been "omens" all along our friendship period that there was some kind of intuitive understanding & respect for our separate life experiences between us.
It's a totally different style of thing that you're going through Hops. I'm not even sure they're comparable - apples to apples. But I shared your reticence about sex too and whether I even had that side of me left alive... until it was called forth. She's been in hiding for a long while, but she's way more alive (albeit PICKY) than I expected. And not at all concerned with the vulnerability that's involved in that shared experience. But there's a lot of trust already built up between he and I. The fact that I could definitely still desire someone is very empowering and magical for me.
But I've needed those 4 solitary years of picking through the flies in my own "pepper"... to know whether or not something like this was even on my "want" list. Maybe you need to focus on that for a bit, too. Unravel all the bits & pieces of emtional experience flotsam that have gotten tangled in that very natural expression of life & love in human experience.
For sure it'll be a different ball of yarn, than mine.
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