Hi Adrift,
And when he looked at me, he looked into my soul. Ever had that experience? It's not something you can forget. Trust me, I've tried.
Yes, I had that experience with the first EA. I haven't forgotten it, but I've given up on it. A lot has happened to me since then (it's been three or four years, during which my father died and I had the second EA with N-co-worker). My heart has really been through the ringer these last few years.
Recently I sort of got in the middle of someone else's similar situation at work and it was kind of enlightening. The details of the story are kind of complicated but it has to do with my supervisor and one of my co-workers who had got kind of "clingy" with her over the years. The supervisor has major boundary issues (in fact, she was involved in a strange way with my second EA I had with the N-co-worker) and gave mixed signals to the "clingy" one. The "clingy" one wrote her several letters asking for the "truth" and wondering why the supervisor didn't want to be as close of friends. It looks like now there will be no level of friendship at all anymore. I was very disappointed in the way the supervisor handled it. She basically turned it around and blamed the whole messy thing on the clingy one. Gave the letter back and accused her of "testing" her friendship. To me that was unfair, because the supervisor knew for a long time there was a problem but she continued to give mixed signals and try to seem like the kind of friend the other one wanted. To me it seemed kind of leading.
And I didn't even realize until too late, that I allowed boundaries to be violated too. While the supervisor shouldn't have shown me that letter or even brought it up with me, I shouldn't have read it or appeared to have taken a side. Especially since I know how it is to be on the receiving end of mixed signals. I know how that feels to be led on.
The "clingy" one has a very poor relationship with her mother plus a lot of other stuff going on. I think the "seeking mother" issue has been brought up on this thread. I can see where that seems to be an issue often in these kinds of unbalanced relationships. The supervisor also had a poor relationship with her (murdered) mother. Her response has been to become a mother-figure to people. In a not very healthy way, imo.
Hope this hasn't become too much of a tangent. One thing sort of leads to another. When I witnessed this "breakup" this week it really spoke to my own issue of wanting to be wanted and instead usually feeling rejected in my own life. I have never really seen the other side of it, the point of view of the person who does the leading on, the person who allows you to think you might have something with them, when they never really had the desire or courage to go there to begin with. Nor the courage to nip it in the bud. I guess it's tricky on both sides of it. But I still felt that it was unfair of the supervisor to put all the blame on the clingy one. She had knowlege of the problem many, many months ago but continued to lead her on anyway. I wondered about it myself but just hoped the clingy one had let it go. She seemed okay all this time, but apparently was not.
A lot of people have these same holes to try and fill in.
PP
