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Relationship/s

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Hopalong:
Well I'm hangin in, Boat, but it's not as swimmingly smooth as it was.

That's okay. Honeymoon feelings only last so long.

He went into a needy clutchy anxious spiral and my reaction was withdrawal
and we've spent a week trying to reconnect and get up out of it in a healthy
way. But I've seen the other side of all this romanticism.

Difficult but not impossible, and I still think he's my person. I'm just resisting
enmeshment that he thinks is flattering and I find claustrophobic.

I've been alone a LONG time and he hasn't been alone a full year. I realize we're in pretty different spaces as far as autonomy goes, and I'm fierce when someone messes with it.

All in all, though, I'd say we continue to communicate earnestly and fairly well. Once he stops interrupting, that is.

He basically proposed tonight in an off-hand way. I just calmly said, since it's so early, how about we talk about it every couple of months? And he didn't argue.

Oh lordy.

xxoo
Hops

Twoapenny:
I think you're right to protect your autonomy, Hops.  It takes a lot of hard work to be in a comfortable place with being alone, and to build up a work base, community base, friendship base and so on.  So very important to hold on to that and keep that element of separateness, I think.  Interestingly, I have only two friends who have relationships that to me seem healthy.  They've both maintained their own lives rather than becoming one unit.  They love each other, obviously, and do things together, but also have each kept their own careers, friends, hobbies etc.  I think it's healthier and more realistic.

And the honeymoon period - sigh!  So lovely, but has to settle into something else at some point.  And hopefully it will settle into something comfortable yet still fun (minus the interruptions :) ).  It's a rocky path, Hops!  But I'm very glad you have your hiking boots on and are following it :) xx

lighter:
It's OK for him to NEEEED you the way he needs you, and it's OK for you to put boundaries in place and protect them.

Once you give up autonomy, it's gone, Hops.  I agree with Tupp.  Don't let it go.

Lighter

sKePTiKal:
Hmmm. Yes Hops, I like your idea of revisiting a formal commitment every few months for the time being. You both are still acquiring and digesting information about each other. Trying it on for fit and comfort. That makes absolute sense, even while you're noticing a shift from the honeymoon phase to a deeper level of intimacy. Wait and see how the new level fits and feels. All while still having fun and enjoying each other - and possibly extending the honeymoon phase in other ways.

My update referencing the jumble of old and new while in a period of change might have some clues for ya. I think the older we get, the more intimidating change seems - especially when it involves a commitment somewhere in it. And some of us lose our patience easier with drama over the years too. I spend a lot of time, mentally reducing what seems like complex situations into as simple an equation or choice as I can. Hol thinks that's kinda silly and pointless... but getting down to brass tacks has always served me well. She can get hung up sometimes in the "he said/she said". I jealously guard the process of getting to "simple" and my conclusions too. But I still like to bounce it off other people's perception for what I might not be seeing. 2nd opinions always show me something I didn't assess correctly or understand or just dismissed. But my own conclusions - so often denied me - and my way of getting there, ARE one expression of my autonomy. You bet your bippy I clutch it. (Sometimes it's justified; sometimes it's not.) It's just another way of experiencing boundaries for me.

Re: enmeshment...

every couple needs to negotiate where the line of "being one couple voluntarily" and "enmeshment" encroaches on autonomy is... and it may be the kind of thing that is always in flux, 24 hrs a day. But that's based on my own experience (so far) and is to be taken with a large grain of salt. You have needs; he has needs; sometimes they might conflict... sometimes they are perfectly compatible... and sometimes, one or the other needs to step up and sacrifice a bit for the other. (no point by point scorekeeping allowed! Just big picture balance of giving and receiving, and yes - situations in the present can impact that.)

I *think* (for now) that once you've seen what enmeshment IS, it's not possible for you to blindly walk into that situation again. The repetitions that seem to be a pattern for some people, come with that particular set of blinders... of craving for the "old normal" of the devil we know. So you CAN trust yourself to see, feel, think all the things required to maintain your autonomic boundaries now. You have definitely seen what enmeshment IS, how it occurs, and what the danger signs of "incoming" are. It's unpleasant to encounter it to any degree... but if it can be honestly discussed and negotiated it doesn't have to be an ongoing problem.

It's definitely something that Mike & I were always trying to sort out. Not always comfortably either - but throughout the process we both understood the bottom line: we had each other's backs no matter WHAT else was going on or who we, as individuals, were. That kind of loyalty seems to be getting rare in this day and age... but it ranks right up there on my need list. And it's something I know how to give, too. I understand completely that other people are different and have other needs. It's not even easy to see what those things are, all the time, in ourselves. My tendency to see it negatively, is to unfairly judge myself as "needy" emotionally. Well, then if that's "needy"... that's my only "needy" spot. I've always been so much more outwardly focused - caretaking others, having many things under control and running smoothly, etc. silly occupational proclivities - that I think, now... I can give myself a pass on this particular "need" I've finally identified, after all the rambling blathering I've done here and other places.

Do you have any ideas what your "one thing" might be yet?

Hopalong:
Tupp, that rang so true to me, about the only healthy relationships you know being ones where they maintain a lot of independence. Love and return, go and return.

Lighter, yes, I think so too. I have this sense that once I capitulate over my own resistance (rather than voluntarily releasing it)...that would end it for me, inside.

Amber....
--- Quote ---My tendency to see it negatively,
--- End quote ---

I got lost and don't know what this "it" referred to, dang me. Important discussion for me at the moment. And thanks for the thinking. Please tell me more.

Everybody--I can describe....something I fear a bit. Because I don't know if I fully understand what's happening.

He has a lot of natural, understandable, unshocking, anxiety that I completely empathize with...about physical intimacy because his cancer operation left him dependent on an injectable aid to function. First time he told me about it, months ago, I immediately told him it didn't matter to me at all, I'd been with two people with those issues (one due to spinal injury, one to cancer) and I truly understood all the aids and accomodations, and it never had any affect on my desire or enjoyment of closeness etc. He was touched and relieved and as we weren't getting right down to business but very affectionate and enjoying our emotional bonding, I didn't obsess.

Same as with R, I set my boundary early by explaining that I favor slowwwwwww, old-school courtship these days and am in zero rush. Looking forward to intimacy but without urgency. He was just fine with that, said my pace was the only pace, he'd never push it, and he completely understood.

Until he didn't. Recently I have felt BADGERED. He was actually physically clutching at me and whining. Whining. Making unsubtle moaning noises at me that sound exactly the way he sounds when devouring fabulous food. Leering, trying to be sexy and suggestive, telling me repeatedly (cannot understate "repeatedly") about his overwhelming desire for me, and then it just went "clunk" inside me.

That is the sound of me turning off. I wound up telling him I was feeling pressured and he goes, oh no, I'm not pressuring you, and I go, yes you are. Can we please just let it rest a while, and give me a chance to catch up with you? I WILL catch up with you and DO look forward to it, but it's been 15 years and I'm easing awake.

Then there was the night I started to stay over, slipped into his spare bedroom as he began snoring, realized I didn't want to be there (he had badgered and begged, stay over stay over), tiptoed out with pooch and as we headed to my sweet l'il home realized I was so GLAD to be out of there. So GLAD he'd fallen asleep. Felt literally like an escape. The room for me was nice but full of her religious books and just wasn't my own space. (All that's okay and he removed them the next day.) But just the feeling was, this isn't quite ready. I'm not quite ready.

M doesn't mean to do this next bit. I think his recent meltdown has been out of his control. But what was feeling like a haven and a nest could begin to feel like a sticky web if he doesn't get a grip. I'm not blaming him, I'm just discovering a layer of him. Deep vulnerability that I can sometimes welcome and sometimes not.

He has an extremely difficult time letting something go. He perseverates. He repeats and repeats and repeats (I have such desire for you). There is no rest from it and it backfires in me retreating. Wanting desperately to fuse, he winds up unintentionally causing more distance. The flood of talk becomes floods of messages and I feel like a flooded engine. (Hmmm, not bad. Need to explain it to him that way.)

Weds I was going to a potluck with covenant group women, greatly looking forward to it. M and I had a tentative plan to watch Handmaid's Tale together afterward but I wanted to leave the evening open...if I wanted to stay late and talk with friends instead I wanted that option. So I told him, I'd like to decide on that when the potluck ends, and I'll call you as soon as it does and let you know either way. He emailed, texted, emailed again and emailed AGAIN to tell me he so wanted me to come. I'd seen him three times in recent days and was looking forward to the serenity and close conversation with my women friends. Then maybe a night alone.

With every reply, I gently and sweetly repeated, "I'll call you right after it and let you know either way." Yet over and over....he tells me what he wants. AGAIN. Later I did go and it was fine. We had a nice time watching it together. But I had been frustrated about his repeated messages. Turned out he'd had a horrible day emotionally, virtual panic attacks about me withdrawing, so he was clutching.

It reached peak struggle before I actually felt angry with him. I woke up to a yearning, moany voicemail about please please please call me, so I did, and somehow his voice and endless repeated explanations about what he wants just set me off. I told him his anxiety is overwhelming me and setting off my own and I really want him to see a counselor who can help him manage it, because I can't manage his emotions FOR him. He actually agreed and said he'd be able to get a grip and deal with it. He'd basically had an afternoon-long panic attack. And he IS willing to see a counselor. (I also offered to do it with him if he thought it'd help.)

Last night I got more insight and I think we connected better. At dinner he talked (and talked) about how intense and powerful and passionate and ultimate and earth-shatteringly different the intimacy we already have emotionally and intellectually is for him, etc etc etc, more than with either of his two previous wives, unique, special, ultimate, essential, he wants me for the rest of his life, on and on and on. I get it. But I think he just opened up another layer.

We were talking about the deaths of our parents. He has told me about the long stressful vigil for his father, involving getting both his sons to the family place in CR, the vigil that went on and on as family flew in and out, two weeks each, endless, exhausting. I understood and appreciated this epic kind of story which, unfortunately included a kamikaze arrival of his now-ex (1st), about whom he is still very bitter.

The thing is, before that started, I had started to tell him the simple but important to me story of my own father's death. Not epic, not dramatic, involving only me and him, a quiet guest room, music...and those moments, which were poignant but beautiful. But M interrupted me as I was halfway through, began telling his own, and he was off to the races. I struggled to hold on to his attention so I could complete my own story, but he was on a roll. I decided to release it, completely, and listen well and wholeheartedly. So I did.

He talked nonstop for over an hour. It went from a repeat (with more detail) of the ex's horrible behavior that undermined him, then through his father's death, back again to the ex's sabotaging awfulness, then into his night in a treehouse while he wept and shook in shock that she'd emptied the house and left, then moved forward into the death of his recent ex, a blow by blow of her cancer (pancreatic) and their final trip to Costa Rica for reunion with her grandsons, a difficult and epic journey back home after confirming blood tests in San Jose, how she at one point had to lie down on the floor in the airport, and how he felt responsible for all of it, and then home, and how he arranged for her two sons to come from CR, vigil again, long and terrible, right through to her death and some aftermath.

My heart was with him. I felt tender and consoling. I was glad to know these stories in that much detail. They are pivotal in his life and they matter.

I did tell him I understood exactly what he was saying about the behavior of his ex, but that since we do not know what happened in her childhood, I wanted not to relitigate his divorce from her over and over, but to let it go. I got a good picture of his intense sensitivity and how the family deaths affected him, and how terrible the experience of losing his wife a year ago has been. Loss, loss and loss...and intense fear of any more. (I.e., me. He's not losing me so far but things did change some.)

He said it's a terrible thing to love someone you could lose to death. (I said, we all do.) He really is sensitive and was raised in a culture that demanded men always be in control. I began to sense who he REALLY is, under Mr. Professor.

Anyway, watching tears roll down his face in the restaurant booth, I was moved and understood, and truly comforted him. I listened deeply. I could sense his relief.

Yet there's a part of me that wonders, will I ever get to tell him a story that's important to me the way he just told me those? Will he ever just listen?

So. Autonomy and boundaries and maintaining other close relationships with friends are going to be absolutely essential to me. I think that's always true, you don't buy milk at the hardware store. He doesn't have to fill all my needs. But he has to understand that I can't fill all of his either.

Him managing his own anxiety is critical. I've been around clutchy panicky men before, who are having trouble not making their own vulnerability my entire responsibility....and I know where it leads.

My second husband turned me into his mother. He became infantile at times. I see this risk with M.

Clunk.

Yet. On balance I know he is a very good man. A decent person. Someone who truly wants to share life and would be utterly loyal and kind and genuinely appreciates me. He's less than a year from the trauma of losing his wife, he was completely lost when we met, and I've become his new lodestar. So when I'm not "making progress" fast enough (toward sex) for him, he's gone into a spin about it.

I get it. But the pressure feels dangerous to me, emotionally. I told him I learned later in adulthood that because of my mother it took me a very long time to learn I needed to have boundaries and a separate self, and it's difficult for me to navigate that at times, and that any pressure to attend to someone else's overwhelming emotional need reminds me of dealing with her and triggers anxiety of my own.

He understood. He's a very intelligent man. But lately, he's been very challenging to deal with.

I think we may have come around a corner last night. He stopped badgering, he seemed to feel relief after that long long talk and tears. So I do think it's going to get better. And the good news is I do still love him. (Even find him desirable, always have. Just wanna go slow.)

We'll see. His ruminating and melancholy and obsession with fear of loss...I understand them. And if he gets some support from other people too, especially a counselor, I really do think we'll be okay.

But wowsers. Nitty gritty are us.

Thanks for listening....all. I so appreciate it.

love
Hops

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