Fusion

[Hopalong]

Anne Wilson Schael in Escape from Intimacy describes fusion, as the overwhelming attraction, affection and intense feeling of bonding that can occur between any couple, friend or date, meeting and talking for the first time, and sometime thereafter.

She says it's a heady, joyful, fulfilling feeling...until it's not. She talks about how it backfires and turns to ashes and people are left bewildered, angry and hurt.

Instant "I love yous" and gushing responses are not so much insincere as likely projection. When someone understands even a part of your experience, that can be like striking a match. You (or I, since it's definitely happened to me...I'm preaching to myself too) feel such an enormous surge of relief and gratitude that your boundaries of self just drop in a heap around you.

For a while, it feels like bliss. Then comes a time when the glow fades, little bits of resistance or lack of harmony appear, and the whole enterprise feels suspect. Irritability and suspicion spark...and can grow into something that leaves the whole connection in ashes.

When I see my last bf, a major N, I still feel a cold sick repelling. But boy, those first weeks of happy fusion....

Anyway, there is a middle ground, Schaef says. It's being happy when you connect, and not letting hurt turn to hate.

So far, I still "hate" the ex BF. I don't want to see him or talk to him and I'd rather cross the road that encounter him on the sidewalk. What that means is that for a few months shy of two years, I have been paying for, punishing myself for, an experience of fusion that lasted just a few months. It was a year before the bitter end, but it was bitter.

I think I won't have recovered from the fusion habit until I can look back and remember something about him to be grateful for, and to face the fact that there are some things about him I can still appreciate.

Not there yet, but I wanted to share these thoughts, since I've become as wary of "fusion" as a red flag in relationships as I am of those things that are always on the list of N traits.

Whew,
Hops

[Certain Hope]

Hops, this is excellent.

When someone understands even a part of your experience, that can be like striking a match. 

So true! And especially via the net, where anonymity encourages a far deeper level of sharing in a rapid fire manner... without the opportunity to spend time with someone in person, in a variety of settings.

It's so easy to assume a supernatural sort of "kindred spirit" relationship!   I think it's just that sort of magical thinking which can make it even more difficult to accept difference which are bound to arise. My husband and I had an instant kinship, "soul mate" (don't laugh) experience.  hehe  ok, I'll laugh. We really are very much alike, he and I, and that, in and of itself, is able to spark plenty of fireworks.

Thank you for sharing this here, Hops. Keeping both feet on the ground and thinking in realistic perspectives should be a great way of preventing any further fusion-blowups.

Hope

[teartracks]

jac,

My pedestal theory...The one that puts me on the pedestal  is responsible to keep me there! 

teartracks

[ANewSheriff]

Hops: 

Not there yet, but I wanted to share these thoughts, since I've become as wary of "fusion" as a red flag in relationships as I am of those things that are always on the list of N traits.

This is a red flag for me, too, Hops.  I have been married for almost seventeen years so not in the romantic genre, though.  My fusion has typically been with women friends.  I have had several friendships that began with an ecstatic bang only to end up a disheartening mess.  What I have noticed is that most of these women disclose a lot of very personal information (too much too soon) and then seem to recoil in fear later.

It is funny because I have never, ever threatened to disclose any of the information or brought it up in a negative way.  I just think that people are sometimes so happy to reveal themselves and connect with another person.  They feel a connection and jump at the chance to do so.  But, they later feel very raw and exposed.  It is as if I became the enemy because I knew too much. Most of these relationships I was able to salvage, but it was hard work. 

There are some fairly predictable stages of relationships.  When we skip over any of them, we inevitably have to backtrack back through the layers and start again at a more reasonable pace. 

jac:

What you call and describe as fusion my therapist dubbed instamacy - instant intimacy.

What a perfect term.  I will remember this one.  Thanks, jac.

[Stormchild]

ANS, jac, ever'body - I call that 'antifusion'.

Folks get all het up and come running in real close... then they get all scared up and go running off again.

If they don't understand what's pulling the strings, sometimes they have to come up with a reason to go running off again - 'I'm afraid of really knowing a person' won't do the trick - so fights are provoked or engineered, then used to justify the running.

My Nsib did a classic version of this: within a year of marrying, Nsib called me out of the blue - in a clearly argumentative state of mind - and tried to pick a fight with me for about 45 minutes. I was very mellow and not interested in playing, and I frustrated one ploy after another. Finally, I said I had to go because I needed to get up early for a meeting at work, and that was used as the pretext. Screaming, cursing, calling me every foul name in the book, slamming the phone down.

As you doubtless have figured out, Nsib was getting ready to start an affair. And since I liked and respected Nsib's spouse, Nsib had to make sure that I was cut off from contact. Fabricating a fight was used to accomplish this. The marriage didn't last another six months, because Nsib's spouse realized what Nsib was, once the cheating became obvious, and did a classic drop-kick.

Watch for the trumped-up fights. They always have an agenda behind them.