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Good Description of the Problem

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Simon46:
Here is a great illustration of what it feels like to be N'd.
***************
Imagine this....
You've been invited to a party, but you realize on the day you're pretty sure the party is happening that you're not sure what kind of party it is or what time you should arrive. Well, you're smart and you'll give it your best shot. So you dress in a kind of neutral casual-dressy style and show up at seven.
As you come up the walk, you can hear the sounds of a party: music, laughter and you think, "This is going to be a great party." When you come up the stairs you can smell aromas coming from the house and again you say to yourself, "This is going to be a great party."
You ring the bell and your host emerges wearing a bemused, enigmatic smile... and a tuxedo.
"You're late," he says. "I'm sorry. You didn't tell me what time the party was." "I thought you would figure it out" he says. "Well I am here now," you say . Your host looks you up and down. "That may be true, but you are not dressed properly." You look down at your elegant, if casual, clothing and then at his black-tie formal wear. "Yes, that's true. But I'm not that far from home. I can just go and change quickly and be right back."
You desperately think about what's in your closet that would fit with formal wear and how long it will take to press it. You add up the travel time, wonder what you'll have to do to your hair to look right, how to change your make-up.... after all this still seems like it'll be a great party......Your host shakes his head. "But then you'll be really late." Dinner will be over and I was COUNTING on you to sit right beside me at the head table."
Your heart sinks. Your one chance and you blew it! Inside your head, you say several unflattering things about yourself, your abilities, your intelligence, and your potential, but out loud you declare, "Honest, I'll be back in 45 minutes. I'll be perfect. Can't you wait? You cannot imagine how you'll be back, but you want so badly to be the guest of honor.
Your host shakes his head. "Well, I don't know. But what are you planning to bring to contribute to the dinner? I've told you how much I like those special, individual nineteen-layer cakes you bake. I thought you'd know to bring one for every guest."
Behind him you can still hear the laughter and the music; you can still smell the exotic foods, and you can still see the champagne in his glass. And you still think it's the greatest party ever and you still want to be the guest of honor.
*********************************
That is what an emotionally unavailable relationship feels like. You're just never quite good enough to get admitted to the party. You get seduced by the clear, often indirect and unspoken, message that something is just a little wrong. If you can fix that, the implied promise goes, you'll be the guest of honor and win the door prize: love...
But when you "fix" what was "wrong" the first time, something else is a little "wrong." And when you fix that, something else will appear.
Your host has no intention of making you or anyone the guest of honor. Your host also has no ability to make you the guest of honor - or even to open the door to let you in. Your host is suffering from emotional unavailability. This is the inability of a person to reach out and make a heart connection with another person.
What is so unsettling and painful is that you end up with the clear belief that this somehow your fault and that it's your responsibility to fix it by being perfect. If it isn't fixed, you're not perfect enough.
You did not break it, you don't have to fix it.
You say to yourself that you would never get caught in a situation like that, it seems obvious... until - you are in the middle of it..... it doesn't start out with unreasonable demands of perfection. If it did, you'd walk away after the first five minutes. We all get sucked into emotionally unavailable situations because the process is subtle and progressive. The demands move a little at a time, inching you away from your power base, shifting control of the situation to the emotionally unavailable person. This person doesn't want love as much as he or she wants CONTROL. Emotions are unsafe; control gives the illusion of safety.
It is perfectly reasonable to expect an emotional connection with someone with whom you are in a relationship. We expect police officers to enforce the laws, teachers to teach, etc.. These expectations put us into a particular mnd-set when we're around those people.
Over time you expect a relationship to grow and deepen. When your partner turns out not to be making an emotional connection, it causes trauma; that is why these relationships are so painful. The trauma then does further damage as it undermines your expectations about yourself and YOUR abilities to make connections. As illogical as that may seem, it's human nature to look for the flaws in ourselves when things don't go as we expect.
We end up being traumatized twice in these relationships; once by the loss and abandonment and again by the loss of our own confidence in ourselves. That is why the end of these relationships can be so much more painful than the end of a fully realized relationship.. We ruminate about what we could have done differently to make it work...."
Excerpted from “Emotional Unavailability” by Bryn C. Collins.

CC:
Hello Simon,

I really loved this analogy of being N'd.  I related to it so completely, beginning from my relationship with the N mother and how experienced life because of it.  To this day, in spite of all the hard work I have done  how "successful" I appear to others on the outside, and having reached some level of peace within myself --- I still always feel like the person that arrived late at the party in the improper dress - as you apparently have too.  Thanks for an amusing and yet sadly true-ringing metaphor.  A really creative perspective. Take Care, I hope you are healing.

Discounted Girl:
Yep -- Simon says it right again. It just struck me how I never tire of all the "reassurance" I receive from postings on this site. It's never sticky sweet, it's raw truth but written so eloquently. Well, may I just add a line or two here? The party analogy is great -- it describes the no win situation you have when in the grasp of an N. More than once (oh really about ten million) times I have wished that I had laughed in my Nmother's face, stuck out my tongue and walked away, never looking back. I think there are lots of people who are able to do just that -- for some reason those of us stuck in their Nclutches are so very overly sensitive and want to please (and not always from lack of esteem or confidence, sometimes just from very strong moral fiber). We make fine prey for their sick hunger.

It seems I have been in mourning all my life, missing something I never had -- not even warm memories can I conjure up. Virtually all of the happy times I had as a child did NOT include my mother. I mourn not ever have been cherished as a child -- all children should be.  :cry:

aglenn:
I have been lurking on this message board for several months and so much of what I have read hits me between the eyes. I've been seeing a counselor for a little over a year. I initally went to get a "handle on my relationship with my mother" (has N traits), but through the process have discovered that my husband has N traits as well. I knew there were issues in our marriage, but could never bring myselft to face them. Well, I have finally started raising the issues to him and of course he says it is all my issues. We've been having the same conversations about these issues for a year now and last night he moved into the guest room. I don't know where this is going - my marriage, my relationship with my mother or this post - but this particular thread described like no other what I have felt all my life with my mother and with my husband (who I've been with for 13 years).   :cry:

Thank you for saying what I've never been able to put into words. I guess that's why it's called Voicelessness.

seeker:
Hi everybody,

Boy, I'm feeling very voiceFULL this week :D ...I also read Simon's description with great interest and feeling of deja vu.  It almost read like a suspense tale.  I found myself thinking "oh god"  "what is our hero/ine going to do?"  "Oh god, I know what's going to happen!"  "Sh--!"  I relate so much to this because I am watching budding Ns in the playground do it to my kids.  They are so mean-spirited, I wonder why we find them so attractive.  Why do we believe them when they tell us how cool they are?

This is the ol' Set Up for Failure.  Actually bullies of all kinds target competent, happy people to pull down.  You know, kick over the sand castles.  Instead of creating something beautiful they gotta kick it down.  Makes 'em feel powerful.  Remember Lucy and Charlie Brown at the start of football season?...He always believes there's hope that Lucy will hold the ball for him.  And she always pulls it away at the last second.

I watched my NSIL time and again set up my kids for failure.  I told her once that if she was going to invite them over to help her "decorate" to please not ask them to help with extremely fragile things (they were very young at the time).  Oh of course not, but when we got there the most fragile things were out and about.  Once I figured her out, I wouldn't let her near them to do her head-trips on them.  


--- Quote ---for some reason those of us stuck in their Nclutches are so very overly sensitive and want to please (and not always from lack of esteem or confidence, sometimes just from very strong moral fiber). We make fine prey for their sick hunger.
--- End quote ---


If Ns can be creative, it is in creating situations where you must DO SOMETHING (ie. a crisis) and if you don't, you don't care, and are therefore a BAD PERSON.  Ewwww.   :roll: I had to force myself to walk away from her decision to sacrifice another child into her volcano of anger.  It hurt like crazy because I knew what the poor child was in for.  (Pushed my rescuing button Big Time). But I also knew that trying to do anything was just going to hurt me and my family.  This poor child's goose was cooked, so I had to save my own.  What a decision!  The only solution was to let her sit in her own mess so she wouldn't do it again.  Besides, I didn't make the decision to "rescue" (ostensibly) this child--SHE did!!!!  :shock:  Own your decision, woman!!  I had to put my head down and tell myself "Bring it on" when she went on her "scorched earth" policy of retribution.  Don't expect me to come back to your baited trap.

Well, kinda got off topic here.  Thanks for another great post.  I will look for that book because it sounds right on the mark.  Thanks all, S

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