Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: mudpuppy on July 28, 2018, 12:32:04 AM
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Hello everyone. Long time no see.
So I'm minding my own business at church last April and this very attractive blonde lets me know she's interested. Says she's been eyeballin me for two years but wasn't ready for a relationship til now. I ask her out. She lets me know she doesn't think she has time for a relationship because of her insane schedule; and she does work nutso hours. Has a masters in criminal psychology and therapy and is a marriage counselor.[shoulda been a red flag, sorry doc] We go out anyway on May 4th and hit it off instantly. Been divorced 4 years, I'm the first guy she's gone out with. I tell her I'm already falling in love with her on our first date. We have a pickanick for our second date and I tell her someday I'm going to ask her to marry me. She tells me some day she's going to say yes. We are perfectly matched and incredibly happy and fall completely in love. Several times she admits she's impressed I don't have a problem with her schedule. And I don't. As long as I have her heart whatever time she has is fine. We got more physical than we should have probably [well definitely] but she was an enthusiastic and quite competent participant. She's already calling her house "ours" and calls me her husband and I call her wife.
So after 13 straight days on she finally gets a couple of days off just after the 4th of July. Her boss texts her if she can come in anyway. She groggily says yes and regrets it as soon as she did. No biggy to me. She then wonders how we might go about eloping or what sized wedding we should have, who should officiate etc. Obviously completely in love and serious. Goes into work gets stuck on the job overnight and doesn't get home til mid Saturday. That's ok. We go up to the mountains and then have dinner and watch a movie in the afternoon/evening. No problemo, but she's pooped and we don't fool around so like an infant I get my pout on as she falls asleep. I wake up pouty and she has to work a double so we don't get to go to church together. She texts me that afternoon and asks how my day is. I say I'm a little down and disappointed because of how the weekend worked out. She feels bad.
Next day Monday I'm already feeling like a jerk so I want to go up and talk to her, but she says she needs her space and needs to think about things and that she doesn't think we have time for a relationship. We text over the week a little and then I go see her Friday. Suddenly issues that were perfectly fine are not but the only one that makes her cry is that she says she cares so much about me she doesn't want to hurt me because she doesn't have time for a relationship. I tell her the only thing that will hurt is if we don't have a relationship and that all I said was that I was a little disappointed and I was already over it and was being an idiot. She cries some more and tells me that's what her bipolar ex used to say to her all the time. We pray together and she asks God to take this pain from him away. A week later she breaks up via text with me anyway saying she doesn't want the stress of someone always waiting for her or trying to adjust to her schedule. I tell her I have never cared about her schedule but that I could never make her see it. My heart of course is broken into tiny bits.
Talking about a wedding one day. Two days later ready to break up and the only intervening thing was me saying I was disappointed in the time we had together which just happens to push a button left there by her useless ex that I didn't know was there. But she now insists it was that our relationship was "heading in the wrong direction" is why we broke up.
She obviously has a deep hurt that needs healing and that makes her scared to death to let anyone next to her heart so that when an actual commitment goes from fun and games to potential reality she runs off instead of working on things, which is pretty ironic for a marriage counselor, IMO.
Why can't she just admit that she has this pain in there so it can get healed? She actually got mad at me when I happened to suggest that might be a plan.
Why couldn't she have left me alone since my heart was somewhat less broken from my late wife than it is now from her?
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Oh wow. I'm sorry you went through this mudpuppy. :(
I wish I could offer some brilliant insightful nugget of wisdom that would make all of this understandable. I'm not doing all that well, getting back into relationship again with someone so maybe I don't know as much as I thought I did. My D is processing all the feelings of the end of a longterm relationship so it's not like I don't get what's going on... I just can't explain it.
But I see one little thing in what you wrote that might be a clue. You'd have known about some of her buttons and what not to push accidentally, if you'd taken more time initially to talk through personal histories some. It does really help to know what kind of relationship experience a potential "partner in crime" has before getting in over your head.
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Hi Mud.
About this situation of yours......
What popped up for me was what could have been experienced as critical/whiney/hard to impossible to please, heading toward interpersonal terrorist land with a demanding partner AGAIN feeling.
Not that you are, but...it sounds like you hit the wrong chord and got lumped into that category.
I'm so sorry, but understand the dread and revulsion of being trapped in relationship where that's a factor.
The best you can do is back off, give plenty of space and show her you're not co dependant, needy, pushy, or anything she's afraid of.
Play it cool. Be strong. Be confident. Maybe she'll calm down, and open up again.
Also....she didn't leave you alone at church, bc she wanted to get to know you. She wants what you want...honest, loving companionship.
You're not a victim in this, imo. You're a grown man moving fast into uncharted territory. There's bound to be hiccups.
Relax.
Breath.
Be confident.
Healthy people don't want to be responsible for other people's happiness. They don't want to be interrogated, or sighed at over silly things. They want adult interaction with an authentic other person sharing their truth....
I think.
Maybe.
Just give her space. Let her come back to you. If she does, know she has tender spots, and stear clear if them. No one wants to be jerked around over small stuff. No one wants to feel responsible for someone else's happiness.
No one wants to date a fragile, emotional,pouty person, esp if they're busy, with little time for themselves, ime.
Sorry your heart is hurting, but she may be back. Chin up. Be confident, and don't let her see you sulking. Be kind, use humor, and stay aloof.
Be grateful for what you shared with her. Gratitude is super special....maybe it's the key?_
I've missed you, btw!
Lighter
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Hey lighter and sKeP,
Obviously I left out a lot in my description of 2+ months. Saw my counselor/therapist today and after listening to me describe things for an hour or so including the stuff I left out here he decided she's probably got some borderline tendencies. And after considering things I think he's got a pretty convincing argument.
Makes it a lot easier to understand and deal with, though he is obviously not diagnosing her. But as I look at the whole arc of the thing it explains an awful lot of the bewildering parts of it; bewilderment being a pretty common side effect of entering a borderline's orbit.
I still consider her a friend but if she does come back I'm getting some of that yellow caution tape for my heart.
mud
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I'm so sorry you're hurting, ((((Mud))).
For me the biggest red flag was on you both:
I tell her I'm already falling in love with her on our first date. We have a pickanick for our second date and I tell her someday I'm going to ask her to marry me. She tells me some day she's going to say yes. We are perfectly matched and incredibly happy and fall completely in love.
Everything I've read, for many many years, says lightning strikes and (real) love at first sight (date) are rare, rare, rare. They're usually a combo of lust, loneliness, and imagination. Creative souls do this.
It's like--there's one solid silver marble in a swimming pool full of marbles. Of course you got it on your first dive!
Her schedule is secondary and diagnosing her borderline? I don't know.
But I would say with all my brain that it didn't sound like a reality-based start. You gave no time to build a foundation a life could grow on. Her panic is on her, your speed and pouting on you.
I'm so sorry. Doesn't matter why these things happen, they still hurt.
hugs
Hops
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Hi Hops,
Our underlying feelings were genuine even if overlaid with new love excitement.
Regardless, the way to deal with it is to talk about it and make adjustments not run away.
As I specifically said my guy didn't diagnose anything. He suggested she was displaying some mild borderline tendencies. Were I to describe everything that occurred that would make more sense.
Obviously we took things too fast, but we were and are genuinely fond of each other. When she said she needed some space I idiotically pursued her rather than standing still and letting her come back to me. Even so I remain hopeful that if I stand still now, eventually she may find her way back.
mud
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And just to be clear I don't really have any idea what really happened. That's most of the problem. I didn't really do anything to cause it.
She talked about her hours and her concern for anyone handling her schedule a lot from start to finish including the three major conversations that ended in the breakup. And my mention of being disappointed did start the whole ball rolling. But I don't know if that was just an out she uses when things get too hot. A mutual friend who is a perceptive woman said she might be a dreamer and when I started making her dreams come true she bolted.
I have no idea if she really has borderline tendencies. If she does they're mild because she never did any of the cra-cra stuff. The evening of the breakup things got a little unpleasant and she said a couple of things which were just not true but they could have been merely said in anger. She was sending major mixed signals in the two weeks the breakup took to complete, but she might just have been as confused as I was.
My guess is, she's just wounded from her last marriage and when she let somebody in after four years and things got serious she got scared of getting hurt again and ran away.
I just hope she goes away for a few months and after healing a bit comes back, because she's the only girl besides the late Mrs Mudpuppy I ever felt this way about. For the first time in many years I was truly happy and looking forward to the future and I thought my long dark night of the soul was finally over.
mud
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A gentle challenge to you, (((Mud))).
Do you remember the young woman you were so intensely determined to persuade to let you stay in her life after she wanted/needed space? You wanted to take her to church counseling so the counselor could help her see her errors. I remember pointing out to you that fundamentally, you were not accepting her No. You had a whole lot of explanations then as now.
I resonate with this so much because in one of my series of unrequited/obsessive inlovenesses, I damn near resembled Glenn Close before I finally figured out that the real problem -- or the only one that mattered and the only one I had a prayer of solving -- was in me.
I submit that this:
When she said she needed some space I idiotically pursued her
may represent a pattern within you, that is about you, and that is not about the woman. A retreat by a woman you desire triggers a WHOLE lot of hyper-inspection of what is wrong with her. Notice that. Turn that microscope around and know it will be painful, but This Way Lies Reliable Happiness.
It could be anxiety about possible loss. And...it could be that you are not convinced all the way through that any woman, at any time, can say No (EVEN AFTER FIRST SAYING YES), and that this can be okay with you. Not without agonies of hurt and maybe some nuanced blaming of her for breaking what you considered an implicit contract.
So that's where I think your answers are. And I totally believe you will wind up happily remarried one day, Mud. I really do. And if there were a shortcut on this, that I could get my hands on, I would send it to you by courier with a bow on it, to spare you the painful journey.
All I can say is, getting there is worth it. Because otherwise, I think this will happen again.
love and comfort,
Hops
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If we're talking about the same person that was six months after Mrs Mudpup died and I became infatuated with this gal for about five days and snapped out of it. She is and was very damaged and the only reason I became infatuated was I was a mess myself. She still needs counseling as she has a long line of broken friendships whenever anyone comes close.
This present gal approached me and at least equally reciprocated every thing I expressed for a couple of months. Moreover once she asked for space I asked her more than once if she minded if I text her my thoughts and she obliged and I told her if they bothered her or overwhelmed her to let me know. She never did.
Moreover she herself prayed that God would remove this pain from her.
Regardless I have already resolved that if I am so unfathomably stupid as to get involved with any other woman in this lifetime I'm going to stand there like some kind of stoic rock, ala Gary Cooper, dispensing an occasional laconic "yep" to let her know I'm still above room temperature. That seems to be what they're looking for.
mud
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A retreat by a woman you desire triggers a WHOLE lot of hyper-inspection of what is wrong with her.
Only if there is no obvious reason. If I do something obviously retarded that causes a reaction then there's obviously something wrong with me. If I say something relatively innocuous and the reaction is far out of proportion to what I said then, yeah, I kinda wonder what's wrong with her, especially if she clams up rather than talking the problem out.
It could be anxiety about possible loss.
I have no doubt that contributed to the volume of words I directed to her. I even told her I suspected that was one reason I was talking so much. I also told her I'm still probably too wounded to be in a relationship as I think she still is. But I don't get why so few women like to just sit down and talk it over when it gets weird.
And...it could be that you are not convinced all the way through that any woman, at any time, can say No (EVEN AFTER FIRST SAYING YES), and that this can be okay with you. Not without agonies of hurt and maybe some nuanced blaming of her for breaking what you considered an implicit contract.
Uh, yeah kinda. I don't tell anyone those kind of things without meaning them and I would expect them to want to slap my face if I just took odd offense at some offhand remark and then withdrew without an explanation other than some contradictory vague bleatings. I would have just broken her heart and she should damn well blame me in a very unnuanced manner.
If you're going to tell someone you love them forever and you're going to marry them you better mean it because there is pretty much no bigger pain that you can inflict than going back on those words. Other people's hearts are not play toys.
mud
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Just got three or four long texts from her. Basically told me what a horse's ass I am.
After considering the last couple of weeks I think I have to agree with her.
mud
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Of course it hurt. A LOT.
I think there will be two tricks, that once you master them, all will be well:
Trick 1.
The implied contract of "I love you" is one neither of you should have signed or blurted or heavy-breathed yourselves into So Damn Fast. Those romantic/religious words can feel like Niagara Falls rushing into a lonely heart. So the triggered sequelae's legitimacy are undermined (you owe me now, you're not allowed to, I have a right to guilt you now) by the fact that it wasn't an authentic contract. It was under duress (romantic duress, lust duress, loneliness duress). For you both.
Of COURSE it hurt anyway that she broke it -- we're just wired that way in this culture, to react to love words like dynamite when we're feeling certain ways or thinking certain ways. But...when he encounters such a dramatically gorgeous vision again, Mature Mud will realize quickly he should not rapidly draft and sign that implied contract until, say, quite a few months of talking and learning and observing and sharing different seasons and situations and meeting each others' closest friends and observing THEM closely --all while perhaps staying out of bed sez the old prude?--are through. Nor should she. MM would have Backed Away Gently when the firehose feelings appeared too soon. Firehose feelings are only firehose feelings--a sign that all is not yet safe for the heart on fire. It WILL be, one day soon.
Trick 2.
The very moment--without any wiggle room, texts/exceptions/persuasions--that a woman asks for or asserts her desire for space/time/privacy/distance/alone-time/rest [Tip: All of these are Nos] you A-lock your jaws shut, B-disable your devices and C-Accept Her No.
Earlier, you said, ...Regardless, the way to deal with it is to talk about it and make adjustments not run away.
"Regardless" = regardless of what she said/asked for/stated/requested. Regardless of what she wanted. "...The way to deal with it" = the way I want her to deal with it. Surefine. But that's how YOU wanted her to deal with it, which was not the way SHE wanted to deal with it. She wanted to retreat/take space/withdraw/think about it by herself. Which means, she had said No.
You don't ask/demand/insist that a woman explain to you, Yes, this is a No. You open yourself to a No being a perfectly fine if disappointing response. You accept her No Instantly after saying, "Okay. I'm going to miss you. Let me know when you want to reconnect." And then you coil up your firehouse and get very busy distracting yourself from analysing/explaining what is wrong with her. Exhausting workouts. Two movies a day. Volunteering directly with humans (very old, very young). Wear yourself out. Keep the faith that whatever happens or does not happen, you will be okay. Have patience with yourself, as the intrusive thoughts appear, gently let them pass and redirect your mind to the movie, the workout, the volunteering. Not to what is wrong with her. (Yes, she approached you first--girls are allowed to do that. You brought out the firehose first.)
It is fine for healthy people to say No to each other when they need to. A No is one of the responses we can give. It is honest, responsible, real. It can be neutral, healthy, and sometimes heart-breaking. It can be cruel but just because your response is disappointment doesn't mean it's invalid for some reason. It's in the human repertoire. It's information, not Being Bad.
once she asked for space I asked her more than once if she minded if I text her my thoughts and she obliged
She asked for space (that's a No). You pressured her (more than once). With a lot of volume of words. Even if she "obliged" with a [weary] yes... you did not accept her initial No.
That's the echo I hear from the earlier infatuation. A firehose fixation and then a verbal, analytical, full-of-logic-and-justifications mountain of pushback and persuasion against her No. I think you want to not work so hard to persuade anyone to love you. You are entirely lovable already. You deserve love already, as you are. You are a wonderful person, Mud. Love is all around. You will intersect with the right woman in the right way and at the right time. It'll be calmer.
I really do understand it all (man, did I do the volumes of words and pressure and persuasion--which thankfully failed but were AGONY) and the pattern doesn't monsterize you, Mud. But it IS a pattern for you, I believe.
Instead of keeping your focus on What is Wrong With Women, which could take you to a long-term lonely place, I think the more you study and unpack and work in therapy on yourself, the happier your chances of a small dusty green garden hose springing to life one day with clean, refreshing and sustaining love.
Look for the little garden hose. Listen for the still small voice within, not the orchestra. That's where sustaining love starts. IMHO.
love to you,
Hops
PS--Consider trying a female counselor, your age-ish. Secular counseling. It does not undermine or disrespect faith (if it does, run). But it might help you avoid unintended mistaken-theology male privilege potholes that do undermine right relationship.
PPS-Book for you: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Western-World-Denis-Rougemont/dp/0691013934
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Did you read my last comment Hops?
I basically said in two lines what you did in your last comment.
Trick 1. Done.
Trick 2. Done.
However you completely misunderstand the basic problem. Mrs Mudpup and I did fall in love in weeks or less and got married in five months and it was perfect.
My problem isn't that I don't have some homely, frizzy haired, man hating Ivy League therapist telling me what a jerk I am. Nor is that I'm white and have testes and privilege. My problem is I, like a complete moron, wanted to recreate or even expected to recreate what I had with the late Mrs Mudpup.
I now see what a blazing retard I was to do that.
I know it is a very slim hope, but I hope after a few months or even more in which we both heal that this recent girl and I can start over and do it right over a long period of times as just friends and then possibly more. In the middle of breaking up I suggested we sometime go to the same restaurant we had our first date at to have a second first date to start over from the beginning and do it right this time. She thought it was a very good idea then. Perhaps she will again some day.
mud
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homely, frizzy haired, man hating Ivy League therapist
I see now.
I don't think I can help.
Wish you the best, Mud,
Hops
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Surely you remember I like joking around?
If you'll read over your responses there is almost nothing about the possibility this gal was making me crazy and didn't respond well to very minor relationship issues. If it's going too fast slow it down. She said she wanted to and I agreed we should. If we're too physical stop being physical. Agreed. I agreed with everything she said, but she looked for the very first issue that arose and bailed rather than even discuss working on them. When she broke it off she made a couple of accusations which were patently false and took very little responsibility for anything that happened and was not honest about who was talking about getting married as recently as yesterday.
ALL of your comments were about fixing me.
Do you do that to any of the women who come here with relationship issues?
mud
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ALL of your comments were about fixing me.
Do you do that to any of the women who come here with relationship issues?
Pretty much, I think I don't. [edit] I think practically everything I write about here is what I/we can do inside ourselves, since we can't control others...anybody correct me if I'm wrong.
None of us hate men or have frizzy hair and Ivy League degrees. Well, JHU is almost Ivy League but counter-snotty while prestigious. I never understood that, but I was in the graduate writing program where we were concentrating on not shaving our legs. I am a humorless feminist, remember.
Seriously, sorry I wasn't helpful, Mud. It takes two for anything to work and just one can end something, I know. I just worry about your pattern of focusing on analysis of the other and what you were describing sounded as it sounded to me. Pattern spotting in oneself CAN help, I'll hold to that, but maybe there's also a pattern in the types of people you're attracted to. Or maybe it's both. And I do think it'd be valuable to try a different kind of therapist. That's one reason I see a man. I need to avoid my echo chamber sometimes, to get a new perspective.
My insights are worth two cents but hey, they were free. (If I were a man-hater I sure wouldn't work so hard to be helpful! And like Lighter, I've missed you too.)
Hops
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Hmmm. (veering off in another direction)
Been following along. Firstly, yes - sometimes "fast" works just fine. BTDT. But in both cases (for me), I'd been around the guys long enough to see how they interacted with others, get a sense of their values and the way their minds operated - so when the "invitation" was made for a one on one interaction (coffee I think) I already had a decent expectation that they were decent chaps. And then, it was off to the races for relationship development.
Mike & I spent days/weeks talking through past relationships - complete with analysis of our own complicity in issues - so we had an overview of where the other's buttons were. He was so honest & forthcoming about his own previous failings (for those women) I was shocked. But it also let me explain that I'm not "those women". Operate under different expectations, redlines, etc. Or CAN, at any rate. That opened the discussion on what we really both - deep down - wanted. And it was very simple really.
Mud, I think it's possible that the new woman fears she's not able to manage her schedule well enough, to let herself enjoy exploring a new relationship. That perhaps she's got a conflict-idea in her had about HAVING to choose between career and relationship... and while both are important, some "should" is driving her to focus on career over relationship and trying to do both - well - is overwhelming her.
Without any direct feedback as to why she pulled back so suddenly, all a person can do is guess. But it sure sounds to me like one of those internal self-tangles people who've been through some life-crap and abusive situations deal with that get in the way of normal life. So, she's denying her emotional life for the pragmatic work-a-day career option... perhaps, for rebuilding a sense of being secure in her own self?
Above is all speculation since there's so little to go on. And filtered through the continuum of connection/emotional attachment to autonomy... which is only my way of looking at things (at the moment).
It also occurs to me, that mud's wanting to talk through whatever "it" is... doesn't preclude the lady from taking enough space to do her own thinking and sussing out the tangle herself.
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Hops,
My humorous reference was to what the female therapist you suggested I try might be like, not to you or anyone else here.
I analyze things to try to understand them and the more inexplicable they seem the more I analyze.
The unfortunate fact is after 40 virtually any single person, man or woman, has been wounded. I have and so has my friend. Most of the women in this bracket have been wounded by bad men, hence the title of the thread. This woman has never known the love of a guy like me, only chumps.
I'll always believe our wounds are so perfectly complimentary that we would have made a great couple if only we had given it a chance to evolve instead of ending it without trying. And so I will pray for another chance with her in the future some time; maybe the end of the year or maybe longer, IDK. She has a very forgiving nature and a strong faith so I'm very slightly hopeful.
sKePTiKal,
Agree with pretty much what you wrote, but I think it's beyond just balancing work and relationship. Her emphasis on it and reference to its harm in her past indicates to me she was deeply hurt by it previously and is afraid of being hurt that way again. The fact that one relatively minor mention of it by me started the rift and that she could never give me a clear or consistent reason for breaking up along with her sensitivity to my speculating that fear might be the real reason she broke it off makes me think it is the root issue. Who wants to get hurt again if that is all you know from putting your heart out there?
Edit in; I should add her parents were divorced when she was young though she gets along with all of them. And her step dad who raised her passed away within the last year. Not sure the first still effects her much but the latter is still a deep hurt in her especially as I believe he is the first close person she has lost.
mud
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This is probably tainted by my personal experience, but for some women, their job (at 75% pay) is massively important to their sense of safety and meaning in the world. I would have been utterly incapable of disregarding that for a new romance...would need to know someone MUCH MUCH better/longer before throttling back a driven devotion to work.
It's not unusual. Depending on how it was framed, she may have felt smothered by your pouting about the demands of her work. Since she is probably already stretched to her limit to manage that job, and anybody who is going to sulk about it is not the supportive partner she needs.
Another personal projection. Someone who wants that insistently to BE THE ONE to fix me, fix my life...is a hair's breadth from wanting to CONTROL me. What one interprets or intends as "love and support" another can experience as "hover and smother." Many women can't take it. And it's not just a sign of "damage" -- in some, it's a sign of health.
It's very hard to find the right chemistry and balance with this stuff. But I'm familiar with what the panic of a good man wanting to control, assuming he knows best for me, explaining me to myself, analysing me with presumptions, etc. -- feels like. Good men can trigger it.
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She does not make 75% of anyone. She makes a lot of money and can retire in only 3 1/2 years.
As far as wanting to fix her life, she said she was looking for a "house husband" precisely because she doesn't have time to take care of herself.
Since I could work out of the house and can do all the projects she wants to do we seemed a perfect fit to make her life less stressful and her more in control of it. We spent hours drawing up plans of additions and landscaping I could do to make her place just what she, and I, wanted it to be.
As far as me overwhelming her with solutions and fixes, after looking at our texts, I actually did give her her space. A week after she had asked me to give her space and a couple of days after the talk where it was obvious we were only going to be friends she thanked me for my "patience through this tough time" and that it showed my character and that she really appreciated me. The very next evening after I had done a few things around the house for her she thanked me profusely for that and then added a not too nice PS about some stuff about her dad's tools which was a very confusing mixed message
I really only got goofy with too many words the next week after she officially broke it off at which point it obviously didn't cause the breakup. That was pretty much baked in the cake when she said she needed her space almost two weeks before that, IMO. The pouting consisted literally of me saying I was a little down because I was disappointed she had to work part of the weekend. With that explanation was also that I already recognized it was me being a doofus not that she had done anything wrong or that I had a problem with her job, but the damage was done.
In any event she's gone and I'll get over it. If God intends it to be then we will have another chance to do it His way rather than our own.
mud
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I hope so, for you Mud. I hope happiness comes. You deserve to be happy.
What resonated strongly for me in your posts is something that feels so familiar it took me right back to those relationships of mine. The ones during which I learned it was...me. Not bad me or guilty me but anxious lonely me who couldn't see myself clearly. The objects of my affections obsessions were several different people over time, sequentially. But ME, that pattern was the same.
I remember obsessively looking into every encounter or message exchanged for an explanation that would be LOGICAL (he said or promised this so of course I thought that). And, in fact, I was looking for evidence or exchanges that I could use in a way as EVIDENCE that my hurt was unjustified.
It was. In the sense that life's not fair and I had to learn to accept a No (or to read it in behavior if I was getting mixed signals in words). And a couple times, the other DID do me wrong (lying, etc). Still, more than once, I was devastated that the yearning I felt was not reciprocated. Or the other, initially enthusiastic, changed their mind. I had a horrible, terrible, awful time accepting their No.
Looking back on those unrequited agonies, I realized that there was no peace in the relationship. There was desire and drama and anxiety and tension and urgency and speed, which I confused with love. Passion don't pass the potatoes. Though it adds spice.
What I fantasize about now is more agape plus affection plus commitment plus shared interests plus chemistry. At 68, I still enjoy chemistry, but passion is not priority one any more. Old-shoe comfort means more, affectionate and peaceful trust and belonging. I guess, for me, I'd describe what I seek as powerful tenderness.
You're still a young feller, and I am certain a handsome one...I wish you powerful tenderness. May you find it and be well. Sending hope!
Hugs
Hops
This might be an interesting read. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201104/the-rescuer-identity (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201104/the-rescuer-identity)
I remember you talking about how hurt and damaged the other young woman was too, which made me think of the Rescuer thing. Might not resonate or maybe bits of it.
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Thanks Hops. Problem is I don't know they're hurt and damaged til after I get involved. I'm not trying to rescue anyone that I know of. This gal seemed like a strong, independent, healthy gal, then out of the blue what had been a couple of comments about her schedule turns out to be a trigger so sensitive one little mention that I was a little disappointed blows up a relationship in which she was planning our wedding two days before it blew up.
There is a lot to bother me about this present blow up but what is bothering me the most now is her insistence before we stopped contacting each other that her feelings weren't as intense as mine and that my talking about marriage so early was a red flag. She talked about it more than I did going so far as to pick a date and she was talking about it right up to the very end. She wasn't even honest about how long the relationship lasted. I still have the texts from the two months we were happy. If her feelings weren't as intense as mine then she's a great actor. If you change your mind fine. But if you change it for no good reason, and she has given none, don't try to justify it by making up stuff about what happened.
I didn't have a problem with the other gal saying no because she said it right off the bat. I had a problem with her acting like I was some kind of nutcase when I went out of my way to avoid her.
Everybody has their wounds, but why try to project yours onto the other party?
mud
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I can understand what isn't working for you about HER behavior.
What I think you might be skipping quickly past is:
my talking about marriage so early was a red flag
What if, in addition to all the things she has done wrongly or unfairly...this is also true?
That YOU declaring love and zooming to marriage talk immediately is, in fact, a big huge Red Square sized red flag?
What if THAT'S true? What if it means something pretty big about what's going on inside you? What if you would find peace, and renewed hope, and steadier center, and reality-based confidence, and a calmer core about love...if you dug into what is that about?
I trooooooooly believe that once your focus is off HER, and onto YOURSELF (not in blame, but in courageous curiosity) your growth and possibilities will take off like Richard Branson.
Slowly at first and then...atmosphere. You need to create your own happier atmosphere. You deserve to breathe without this angst. Yay, therapy.
Hugs
Hops
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Well, I suppose I'd need more data to decide whether it's a problem for me. Maybe your own experiences make it a problem for you but not necessarily one for me?
I've only done it twice in my life.
The first time it led to the best relationship of anyone I've ever met.
The second time the woman agreed with me and was planning our wedding. You seem to be blowing past the part that it WAS NOT a red flag to her at the time. She says it is now but it obviously wasn't. That is not what broke us up. Her pain from her previous marriage did and that related not to a quick wedding but to her fear of being hurt like she was by her last guy. Had she not had this internal hurt we would very likely be on the way to a happy wedding. A good argument could be made that our relationship going as fast as it did exposed what was eventually going to come out anyway. The only way our relationship stayed on track was I was perfect on her score card up until I made a comment about her schedule. That's all it took to blow everything up. Obviously I was not going to remain perfect for ever, so better to blow up then than later, IMO.
You seem to find it hard to believe people can fall in love quickly and genuinely and that early talk of weddings is inherently, in the case of two people who fall in love quickly, a bad thing. I know people who have done it quick and been happily married for decades. I was myself. I know people who did it slowly and carefully and when they finally got hitched hated it and each other. I don't think there's a cookie cutter for these things and I'm not sure the pressure that a whirlwind romance creates doesn't weed out which ones can make it and which ones can't. She obviously can't, so if we do get back together some day as I hope, then I will take it slow and steady and let her know that now that I know what her flashpoint is it will never be reached again. Had I known the first time around I would never have complained because it was just a minor deal to me, but obviously not to her. But, because it is an unresolved hurt in her it was inevitable I was going to hit that nerve eventually. Until she faces it and deals with it it's not going to go away and she will not be able to have a successful relationship with anyone.
My problem was, IMO, not the one you describe but was only revealed after she ended our relationship. I still had so much unresolved pain and issues surrounding losing Mrs Mudpup that I could not accept losing this gal. It hurt SO bad, worse even than losing Mrs M, that I spent a week driving her further and further away by trying like a fool to keep her. I was never mean but I was idiotic. I doubt any one anywhere anytime has ever talked anyone back like that. I will always be grateful to her for telling me off so that I could see what a jerk I was rather than just blocking me and clamming up. It was her telling me off that let me start healing that mess I was refusing t recognize. Because she is a trained therapist and a genuinely charitable gal I hope and believe that as time passes she will recognize that and think more charitably of me than she does right now. Time will tell. I also hope the same happens with her and this episode forces her to deal with what she knows is there but withdraws to her lonely mountaintop to avoid dealing with.
I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to make me think about this stuff Hops. Just because I don't agree with a lot of what you say doesn't mean it isn't valuable and since I'm hardly wise I may eventually find out you may very well be more right than I know.
mud
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You are a hurtin' cowpoke, ((((Mud)))).
I think you shouldn't beat up on yourself so much. You are also a good person.
Clearly, so is she.
Something triggered something that represented something. I dunno.
I think the pout-moment was the switch.
I have a screaming Mimi in my head who can also appear in response to a complaint that even though intended lightly, triggers this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GsEXQwBzxo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GsEXQwBzxo)
Just so you know how infallible Pope Hops is...my parents:
Met May 1st 1945
Engaged June 1st
Married July 1st
Together 50 years
My father took her out almost every evening during May, except Saturdays. They ate dinner at a rooftop restaurant looking out at the lights of DC. Pretty heady time to be there, right after the war.
My mother once told me she wondered about Saturdays and he said, Saturday? That's bath night!
Hugs
Hops
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Mike and I decided to take our frendship to the next level in April. In June, he bought me an engagement ring. I moved in, in July. And the next year, in September, I remember asking myself what sort of madness it was to get married (when the previous one was so hurtful) to this guy so soon... on the long drive down to Duck, NC.
We were together till his preferred ending, 15 yrs. later. It was never a "perfect" relationship but it was without question, the best I'd experienced to this date.
Yes, "love at first sight" or fast decisions about marriage can work out. No one size fits all rules about that for people. People impact each other and grow and change (hopefully) as a RESULT of their relationships. I even went through the "secrets revealed" and dealt with phase with him. It wasn't ever a "bone of contention" in the relationship either. Other things were, though.
I guess this is year 3 now since he died (lung cancer & COPD) and while I recognize I have the capacity for another relationship and have learned what lonliness really is now... I'm still taking time to learn who I am now. By myself... not in the context of a relationship which it seems is part of my destiny, but does get in the way of "just being myself". I completely trust that I'll know - again - when it's the right "learning experience" in the form of a relationship the next time. No rush.
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Great, romantic story, Hops.
Saw my counselor again today. [counselor sounds much better than therapist or head shrinker, IMO :)]
He's still convinced she has borderline tendencies, especially after I described those portions of her response at the end that were not really accurate and placed blame on me solely for behavior we both equally engaged in.
As it turns out though he doesn't really mean necessarily Borderline PD but those actions by a person who has been hurt deeply in the past and now wishes to avoid being hurt again at any cost.
I have never considered love a feeling but rather a decision or a commitment and I don't give up on that commitment unless the person loved behaves in a way so voluntarily egregious that it voids that commitment. So I still love this girl, because something was done to her to make her as defensive as she is.
And so I have decided that though we'll probably never have a romantic relationship that's ok, and I will wait and stand by her and if she reaches out because she is hurting I will be there to help her heal, not to get involved with her again, regardless of how long it takes. If she never gets there that's out of my hands and if someone else comes along for me in the meantime that is ok. Doesn't mean I still don't love her as my sister and want the best for her. Her bluntness and even her unresolved pain helped me do a great deal of healing, so what kind of jerk would I be if I didn't stand by her, even if I have to stand quite a distance away for awhile?
If we do end up together that's ok too, but that's not the objective. Right now she is imprisoned by her fear and I would like to see her free, even if it's free to be with someone else. She is choosing to be alone, not because that is what she wants but because she is too afraid to risk her heart and so takes the safe escape. Regardless of what it's called all of her words and and more importantly the understanding I gained while we were together point to a wonderful woman hampered from living the way she truly wants to because she was wounded by life. If she chose solitude in a state of being free to choose either I wouldn't consider it anything but a healthy choice, but that's not where she is.
I just hope to see her back to the way God created her to be not the way man wounded her. She helped me to get closer to the way I used to be so IMO I don't have a choice but to try and return the favor. If she never wants any help or never chooses to face her fear, I'll have to give up but at least I will have tried to help my friend. And for all I know she may end up helping me heal some of my remaining wounds. It's in God's hands and I will just wait and see what happens, because I have a feeling even if we both do nothing at all our paths are destined to intersect again anyway.
mud
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Hi, Mud:
How are you doing?
I'm concerned about you. I'm not sure why you'd want to spend your life with a woman your T believes has borderline tendencies. We can't save people from themselves. We can't heal them, no matter how much we love them, IME. I learned that one the hard way.
You explained why you believe she's not PD, only has traits, but I'm still very concerned.
I hope you're remembering to breath, and taking good care of yourself.
Lighter
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Doing well, actually, Lighter. Thanks for asking.
Breaking up let a lot of stuff out that I was holding onto and didn't realize I was. I really kind of needed it cuz I'm not sure I would have seen it any other way.
I like my T but in this case I'm not sure he's correct.
I think he just kind of lumps any woman who has been hurt and is afraid of being hurt again as having borderline tendencies. I'm not infallible obviously, so it's possible she does in which case we'll never go anywhere.
But if she's just someone who has been hurt and is wounded then I know I can't heal her or save her, but I can possibly hold her hand while God, time or both do.
I can't declare her a borderline mess because she said some stupid things as we broke up without calling myself one too because I probably said more stupid things than her.
There's enough of a chance, a good one IMO, that she just needs to learn to trust again. We both brought a lot of baggage to the first try. If we can try again with a little less luggage then it will either work or it won't, but at least I'll know it didn't fail because of our baggage but because it was going to no matter what.
mud
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Well....
make sure you don't dismiss relevant information.
Whatever's happened, you have many indicators to consider.
I know the heart wants what the heart wants, but don't forget AAA....
Assess
Accept
Act
The love of your life might be just around the corner.
Be available for her.
I'm glad to see you posting, Mud.
Lighter
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I don't think I'm dismissing relevant info. I'm just not sure what it means. I can't assess it until I know more.
We broke up without me fully understanding what happened. That might be because she's a borderline and has done this before.
But it might also be because she was simply scared of being hurt again as she was before and ran away rather than try to work it out. If the latter then there's a good chance she is the love of my life; or the second one anyway.
I'm encouraged that she hasn't displayed any other typical borderline behavior and has a great reputation with people who know her.
I'm worried that she broke us up over what seemed like very little and seemed to look for reasons to justify it including some that weren't too accurate.
If we come back together in a few months I will at least now be on my guard and will not walk goofily into a buzzsaw like Gomer Pyle, as I did last time. Nor will I have unrealistic expectations as I did.
mud
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Some of the toughest experiences I've ever had have been rejection without me fully understanding it. While humbly acknowledging my imperfections, I always based it more on some confusion about the other's behavior or thought processes or damage (which Only I could heal), etc etc etc...
I think it's because I truly believed if they had a convincing ARGUMENT (logic that would satisfy me) for why Not Me, then I'd find the rejection easier to accept and could let go of the feeling that there would be an Act 2.
Later, I came to believe that acceptance (whether I fully understood the Whys or not) was what would be healthier for my emotional and spiritual growth. I had felt ENTITLED to an explanation or justification from the object of my love that would satisfy me and soothe my excruciating rumination. I wasn't.
When I finally got it, it helped more than I can explain. I am so grateful I ran across the following at a time when I could be receptive to it:
It's always okay to ask the universe for what you want, as long as you release the outcome.
Not perfectly, and not every time, but "release the outcome" has saved me a lot of suffering and was actually an opening in the hedge onto the path of self love. It's not compassion for self that keeps one attached to something outside of our control. It's self torture.
She loved you. And then she didn't. It's painful as hell and it was the outcome.
I wish you a lot of healing, Mud. I hate hearing your hurt and I've been there. More than once. Later in my life, I stopped doing that. And friendships got happier and my expectations for relationships less intense. "Less intense" eventually turned into a positive for me, when for decades, white-hot romance had been my goal. Now I just think, white-hot burns.
xxoo
Hops
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I mean this in the nicest way but why do we so often try to extrapolate our experiences to others? Especially when we don't know one of the parties at all and the other only through the innertubes?
I don't know what the outcome is because I don't think we're done. I could be wrong and acknowledge that, but I actually experienced the relationship. How do people who didn't, know what the outcome is or that there is already an outcome?
A desire to help and be supportive is extremely admirable but I'm not sure assessments based on our own experiences are either.
I don't even know that she loved me and then didn't. While we were breaking up she said she still did. I suspect she still might but her fear dominates her love because fear and withdrawal equals safety whereas acting on her love equals risk and the possibility of being hurt.
I know a not insignificant number of people happily married who by the standards I've heard expressed here should have moved on after they broke up the first or second time or decided they didn't love each other or weren't right for each other.
I don't know what the future holds. That's what makes it exciting.
mud
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Probably because I over-identify with your stories, Mud.
Doesn't mean I know you or her or you-two or anything, really.
No offense intended, and I hope your excitement becomes contentment.
You deserve it.
love,
Hops
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Well, mud... I think you've settled this issue about as well as can be expected - without shutting the door on the possibility of a relationship in the future.
I'm guilty as charged, for self-referencing my experience a lot. It seems to me, to be a softer way of suggesting a helpful idea or empathy with someone going through something. Female conditioning, perhaps (old school style). But I've also seen this backfire with fireworks and become an obstacle too.
In particular, I had to keep that tendency on a really short leash with my D and witnessing her process her "break up blues". She has no inhibitions about telling me to stick that **** where the sun don't shine! LOL. I guess that's one of the reasons we mostly get along pretty well with each other, she and I. I don't take offense, recognize my transgression, and we move on... and the opposite is also true.
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No offense intended, and I hope your excitement becomes contentment.
None taken as always, Hops. Because I'm built primarily to love a girl completely I'm afraid that's the only way I'm ever truly content. That's possibly not a good thing but it doesn't seem something I can change...or want to.
I'm guilty as charged, for self-referencing my experience a lot.
I think we all do. It's human nature. I think I'm a little more cognizant of it than many because of my experience when Mrs Iggy died and people didn't know what to say and so said what they knew, which was their own experiences and trying to dovetail them to mine. Doesn't work too well usually.
It occurred to me this morning she may not even have broken up with me as an individual or for anything in particular that happened directly between us, hence her making up things about the relationship to make sense of why we were breaking up and telling me to delete the texts of when we were together because they reminded us of how happy we were.
As I think about the things she said and how things went, it's more like she decided that when I showed her I was less than perfect and we hit our first bump in the road, the idea of being with someone, anyone, has less appeal than the idea of being alone.
Who knows? Time will fill me in eventually.
Thanks for listening guys.
mud
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Just listened to this really good talk on Borderline PD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to5qRLRSS7g (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to5qRLRSS7g)
and to be honest my girl not only has none of those 9 traits even mildly, I'm not so sure I don't have some of them myself. :shock: :P
So I'm even more convinced she's just a girl who, like all of us, has been wounded by life and is just trying to figure it out and not be hurt again.
mud
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Mud:
You puzzle me. You're so centered, as a general rule. The emotional male/female stuff seems to bring up what appears to me to be racing mind kind of stuff for you. Not criticizing, just observing over a period of years, with compassion.
Sometimes it feels like you're in your own way. Sometimes we all are, frankly. I get that. Maybe I recognize it, bc I do it myself.
Anyhoo, I see benefit to researching PDs, as you believe they relate to this gal, but I also can see how focusing hard ON her might not be your optimal position for attracting her back. Or sustaining connection with her either.
I'm saying, focus on yourself to understand if and how you might be in your own way, in any form.
Don't take that as preachy, please. I want you to have another live of your life. I really do.
Lighter
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Didn't sound preachy and I appreciate the attempt to help.
My mind races when I don't understand why something happened. Until I understand, at which point my mind no longer races.
Unfortunately I have a hard time understanding complicated people and most single women in my age cohort tend to be pretty complicated because most have been through difficult and damaging divorces. There are very few widows my age and most gals who have never been married by now often demonstrate why in a fairly frightening way. Not all but most. So that pretty much leaves me with divorcees who are toting some kind of wound and it is a very different wound than what I'm sporting.
I simply asked the one before this one out one time which sprouted three and a half years of weird avoidant behavior from a someone who had previously been very friendly. We never even went on a single date and I still have no clue what her problem is but don't much care and haven't for some time, except that I'm very good friends with her dad which makes it a bit awkward.
This present gal is even more confusing. One minute she's trying to decide whether we should elope or have a conventional wedding and literally on the same weekend is deciding to break up with me and the only thing that occurred was I said I was disappointed in how the weekend had gone because she had to work for half of it and literally as I texted that to her also noted it was probably me and not her fault at all. To me that is something I apologize for, as I did the next morning, and it's over with. If the situation was reversed that is what would have happened. I can't imagine what kind of process leads someone to break up a wonderful relationship over something like that. And so i don't understand.
It's important for me to determine that process because if she is a borderline I don't want to attract her back because it will only happen again. OTOH, if she's just wounded then I would like to give it another try, if she wants to.
I'm more than happy to take the blame when I'm an idiot. I was after we broke up and I told her I was and apologized for it. But I didn't really do anything wrong in the relationship itself other than pout a little bit for a few hours. If that's a legitimate reason to break up a relationship that is headed toward marriage then I might as well hang it up right now because nobody can meet the standard of never doing something dumb. And even she realized that wasn't really a sufficient reason which is why she made up reasons when I pointed out how little sense it made and what I thought the real reason is.
As for me, I have done quite a lot of work, as I think I mentioned. The breakup let me finally realize how much grief and even anger I still carried from Mrs Mudpup's death and how much UI still was looking backwards. It also let me see how broken my relationship with God was.
But the bottom line will always be a great relationship was ended and it didn't even make sense to the person who ended it. Since I am not that person then of course my main concentration is on understanding her. If I had broken up a wonderful relationship for no clear reason then I would be concentrating on me.
Our connection wasn't sustained because instead of sitting down and resolving what should have been a small problem she isolated herself for five days and made up her mind without talking to me.
As far as attracting her back. I'm going to let things lay until Nov or Dec when her schedule lets up and we've both had time to heal and just ask her if she wants to talk to even see if she has any interest. Meanwhile I pray for wisdom and patience. Not sure what else I can do.
mud
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mud, I'm coming up on 3 years of widowhood now. But I'm WAY further behind you as to other relationships. Friends are filling in some of the simple human connection need for me, that energizes me to being open to more people. Especially when "nothing bad happens" and I have fun.
Somewhere early in the process of grieving, a 16-ton anvil of realization hit me that I'd not lived any of my adult life alone, to speak of. (Short periods or doing things on my own, yes... but not just living alone.) And I was finally at a place where I felt ready to tackle that, explore it... and ENJOY it. For what it is. So maybe a year or two of that now; and I can finally recognize how I feel when I'm "lonely". I've had to face a lot of my fears - big & little too. Break through my sacred taboos of "I can't"... and figure out how to do it by myself. What "it" might be.
The little bit of "online dating" I explored made it clear to me that I was in no way shape or form ready to "date" - and the truth is, I never really "dated" anyone I had relationships with in my life. The concept is like some kind of ritual "game" where the rules are always changing and each person has their own set of rules unique to them. I detest those kinds of games between people; always have. It always seemed morally "wrong" to me to play with another person's feelings this way. Either you have a connection or you don't; either you care or you don't - or you care, but not enough for a certain level of intimacy. And you're able to TALK about it together. Doesn't make you "bad" but I don't need to dance that dance till I drop to decide if we have level of connection anymore either. Or put up with ill treatment or anything else that bothers me just to find a connection with people. At my age, life's too short for that crap!
On the other hand, after age 50 or so (it varies a lot)... the logistics of a relationship get a lot more complex. It's more like a corporate merger with all the details that need ironing out. Especially with families and assets and lifestyles.... and on & on. People already have the life they wanted to build in most cases - or the reasons why they don't, are justification for further investigation and caution. So it's not like a young couple setting out to build a life together - weaving each other into it. But that is the pattern we have in our heads for what a relationship coming to blossom should be like.
I think that genetic-societal-historical pattern (I call it "white picket fence syndrome"; some others call it the "Ozzie & Harriett rule") kinda gets in the way of us older folks knowing just what it is we're looking for REALLY and what "rules" or forms that relationship takes, that actually do make sense for people with developed lives and autonomy... trying to make a connection that is valuable and fulfilling for both people.
No one who knows me, would describe me as a "hippie-dippy free spirit"; they'd choke & pee themselves laughing over that oxymoron - but when it comes to relationships and patterns/expectations we have engraved on our brains... I really think we need start to bending those rules... patterns and even design something totally suitable for the situation borrowing this from over there, maybe a little of that... and oh, THAT might be fun... and throw out the expectations left-over from our 20s and do things differently. Throw the rules, patterns, and picket fences to the four winds and just deal with things as they are, as they come up... and surf the wave.
(no, I'm not wearing purple; at least not yet!!!! ;) )
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I didn't really do anything wrong in the relationship itself other than pout a little bit for a few hours.
Mud, I believe what happened during those few hours was that a switch flipped within her. I don't believe it was a process, but a woman's sudden intuition about what would be unbearable for her, emotionally. (In honesty, I'd have had the same chandelier flip on. Not because you're "bad" but because that kind of stuff triggers a powerful desire to flee. Not that you intended it, but to the recipient of "pouting", it can feel like emotional manipulation instead of mature communication. Red flag.)
I don't believe you were "wrong." I reject the whole idea that you are "bad." But FWIW (hey, it's free) I do think the key to understanding what happened is not in her personality diagnosis or her reasoning process or what she said before that moment or after it. Not in focusing on her. She experienced in her own inner world whatever she experienced, you can't make her un-experience it, and it may not have to do with all these different causes you're guessing. You are guessing.
I think the key is in YOUR internal climate, your thinking, and your mindset during those hours. Your only alternative is to dig deeply in therapy into what "pout a little bit for a few hours" was all about. It may be very uncomfortable but I think that's where you'll begin to know yourself better. Be on your own side and treat yourself with compassion as you explore it. Don't call yourself "dumb" or "idiot" as you do this work; self-loathing isn't the point. Insight is. I think you're not quite there yet.
love,
Hops
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I really think we need start to bending those rules... patterns and even design something totally suitable for the situation borrowing this from over there, maybe a little of that... and oh, THAT might be fun... and throw out the expectations left-over from our 20s and do things differently.
A lot of the baggage I brought with me was exactly that. I'm not the same guy I was almost 30 years ago when I married Mrs Mud anymore than the new gal was Mrs Mud. I felt a false sense of security in the relationship because of Mrs Mud that didn't exist with this very different lady and didn't guard my heart or hers very well because of it.
Mud, I believe what happened during those few hours was that a switch flipped within her.
That's exactly what happened. My hope is that with the passage of time maybe she might consider turning it back off.
I think the key is in YOUR internal climate, your thinking, and your mindset during those hours. Your only alternative is to dig deeply in therapy into what "pout a little bit for a few hours" was all about. It may be very uncomfortable but I think that's where you'll begin to know yourself better.
I already know what it was all about. Without going TMI, I expected to spend a little "quality time" with her and she was too tired to do so. So I pouted selfishly and acted, yes, like an idiot the next day by complaining how the weekend went.
I did the same thing at the start of the relationship with Mrs Mud, but she was patient or unwounded or something enough that she let me realize what an ass I was being and accepted my apology. After a couple of stupid episodes I got over it, just as it would have with this woman had she let it. I suspect it may be because I'm still insecure in the relationship or perhaps I'm feeling too secure. Not sure which but it's a short lived and mostly thoughtless phenomenon. As soon as I'm completely comfortable in the relationship it goes away. And I'm only talking about a time or two in any event.
But the point remains, not only did I say, as I was explaining what the problem was, that I figured she had done nothing wrong and I was just being a fool, I immediately recognized I was and apologized. Now, when I have made certain promises of love and connection and vows of affection for all time to someone, unless I find some dead bodies in her crawl space or some live ones in her bed I'm not going to push her away the first time in the relationship she says something wrong and declare it over without at least talking to her and trying to resolve the issue.
I can work on myself til the cows come home but I'm never going to perfect myself and so eventually we would have hit a small bump in the road as every relationship does and I suspect whenever that happened the result would have been the same. She seemed to be waiting for the first sign I had feet of clay to confirm I was going to be like the other guys.
I freely admit I made a mistake and I freely admit, being a fallible human being, there is no chance I will ever be in a relationship in which I don't. I also freely admit I overlooked a few things she had said that bothered me too but that's generally what you do if its something minor in the larger picture of how great the relationship is.
She didn't, so even if I grind myself down to the nub on the great grinding wheel of self improvement the reason we broke up will still exist where it started, somewhere within her, because what happened was not worth breaking up over absent that pain she admits she harbors down deep in her soul. I love her and so would like to see if we might try again in a way more likely to help her heal from that. If she doesn't there's nothing I can do about it. But because I still love her I would be betraying how much I care about her wellbeing if I didn't try.
I may not be communicating things too well but, while I am not even slightly reluctant to admit what a bonehead I can be and my many faults, I treat the women I love amazingly well, especially compared to the rest of the guys out there. I am hopelessly romantic and brought her roses all the time of only the colors she loves best, I wrote her a lovely poem [well I think it was lovely anyway], I always opened her door and held her hand and left her little notes, even one so corny as three post-its with an eye, a heart and a picture of a ewe. I was always cheerful and fun and loving and sweet and kind. She had a laundry list of projects around her house she wanted done and I was eager to do them. And I don't mean like hanging a picture. I mean like a new laundry/dog room and a new bed and bathroom and garden and driveway. I love doing that stuff and there is very little I can't do. I cooked for her [and I'm a very good cook] and did thoughtful little things all the time and even fell in love with her old cur...and I mean literally, her dog is a Mountain Cur. We loved doing the same stuff, like kayaking and hiking in the mountains. We disliked the same stuff too. Our texts back and forth, from both sides, would put a diabetic in ketoacidosis in a heartbeat. She had picked out May 4th next year as our projected wedding date 10 days after our first date which was May 4th of this year. Two days before we broke up she was thinking about eloping because she didn't want to wait for a wedding. We were perfect for each other in a way that very seldom happens and something that should not have broken a relationship that well matched up did and it was not me that let that happen. And it did it utterly without warning sign, fight, blow up or anything else.
So, if I want to discover what happened so that if we do try again we have a chance of making it this time, I'm pretty sure I have to understand the person from whom sprang the reaction that was out of all proportion to the stimulus. If we by some chance get it right then we will both have a great life together so it's worth taking a swing at. And I'm not sure I'm taking much of a swing at things if I concentrate on me who not only didn't break us up but didn't really do much wrong.This isn't meant to sound conceited or hard but it seems to me to be just recognizing reality; I have a track record of treating a woman, whom everyone who knew her considered exceptional, like a queen for 23 years and keeping her exceptionally happy. I know how to love someone and how to make them feel loved, respected, honored and secure. My present gal does not have that experience and has picked and given her hand to two bums to marry and then runs me, a non-bum, off for almost nothing. If we're going to have any hope of solving what broke us up the first time we better do as Willie Sutton did and look where the money, or in our case, the issue is. I have wounds that are healing. She has one she shields from healing and only briefly acknowledged. If she won't open up to let it then nothing will ever work. I can't do that for her obviously but I'd love to be at her side if it helped her to open up and let God and her work it out together.
mud
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the reason we broke up will still exist where it started, somewhere within her, because what happened was not worth breaking up over absent that pain she admits she harbors down deep in her soul
I respect and appreciate your honesty, Mud. Truly. I'll just carry on bluntly telling you a thought or two which, of course, you can evaluate on your own...all are discardable. And despite how firmly I express all this, I'm not thinking it matters. The big ole universe rolls us along with it and we have our age-old human arguments. I'd still want you in my lifeboat.
What I hear are two things:
#1 You declaring repeatedly that her personal choice to break up is invalid, or not justified. That's not respectful. (Prostrating yourself by calling yourself an "idiot" doesn't provide any insight into what you're actually doing--refusing to respect her autonomy.) Not just pretend respect, but the kind of respect for another you can feel all the way inside. You can dismiss another's experience, even with the most detailed explanations, but that has consequences. She sensed your desire to override her choice. Her No. To her, that WAS worth breaking up over. You can't decide that for her. You can judge it all you want to console yourself, but that doesn't make this thought pattern right or good for you. It won't help to decide she was just wrong because she's broken.
#2 You identifying that she has pain in her soul may be accurate. But who anointed you the Certified Healer of This Particular Soul? Maybe it's not your place. Ouch, I know. (I was Florence Nightingale on steroids in a couple romances so I'm being brutal hoping to spare you a repeat.)
Back to the pouting. Again, I truly respect that you're honest about what it really was. You wanted intimacy and she did not, hence you sulked and thus made her "pay for it" for hours. Raht thar. That's entitlement. You acknowledge too that this happened more than once.
I can't identify with you this time, but with her (easy enough). If someone pressures me even for a kiss I'm not wanting, I'm soon outta there. It's the pressure. Cajoling, begging, remonstrating or retreating in a childish way are all pressure, but you've minimized those behaviors nonstop with cute euphemistic vocab like "pouting" or saying you were being "dumb." Double respect that you fessed up. When a man pressures a woman in that way...it is related to everything about women's experience in this real world that will cause many to retreat and lose trust. Even if you'd never force or rage, there's still an edge to it, of entitlement. And I know, without doubt, that you didn't WANT to convey this and ruin your hopes. You just...did.
If you ("you" hypothetical man,not Mud) are going to badger me and sulk when I refuse, I won't want to be with you any more. Period. My body belongs entirely and without exception to me. I do not owe any man anything physical, even a spouse. That shared gift has to be utterly voluntary and every time. (I'm preaching to myself because in some relationships including my last one...I forgot this truth about myself. When I remember it, I'm okay again. Not angry --I know what this culture teaches men, it's hardly their fault when they can't see it-- nor a victim, just clear. I value my inherent freedom and being pressured is bondage.) That clarity feels more beautiful than anything.
Yielding to pressure isn't freedom. It may be preached or dogma-ed that way as "submission", but it isn't good. It's not good for anyone in a relationship, when that is the ask and the way it's delivered. It doesn't look like, sound like, or feel like freedom. It feels like being trapped and suffocated under expectations, no matter how many rose petals initially get one there. You need to understand that spirit. Admire it. Yield to it. Respect it and not just in lip service. Not worship, respect.
I'm hammering away on this because I like you, Mud. I've benefited from your attitudes at times, and know your desire to be protective and a helper/healer is the flip side of your unrecognized male entitlement. Which is cultural, permeates our world, and not your fault. (Once you learned about it and owned it, then you have a whole bright amazing future that may involve no rose petals at all.)
This stuff is really hard. I guess I keep challenging you because you'd make a GREAT feminist if the light came on for you after reading deeply about it. You'd find your own liberation, too. That would be amazing, but I tend to go on hopeless crusades too. So I don't expect it!
Plus, I'm fired up about an incredible woman's funeral today. Aretha.
Likely, we'll never fully understand or agree with each other, Mud, and I'm not humble when I talk about feminism. What it truly is. But that's okay.
In the hope something good might grow for you, I offer this tiny seed anyway.
Hugs
Hops
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Mud:
Hops explained this better than I ever could, but I've said it on this board, and I'll say it again...
when a man tries to change a woman's NO into a YES, it's a huge red flag.
Any conversation you have with this woman, that includes asking her to change her mind about anything, esp the relationship, will be interpreted as another bomb, IMO.
Healing, in this case, will be about your respectful acceptance of her NO, IME.
Respecting her wishes, as much as you respect your own, is what will make her feel safe, Mud. Does that make sense?
Lighter
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I say this in the heartiest good humor and good faith, but it's like you guys hear nothing I say.
You can dismiss another's experience, even with the most detailed explanations, but that has consequences. She sensed your desire to override her choice. Her No. To her, that WAS worth breaking up over.
That's an excellent theory but it never happened. I was perfectly sweet and supportive before she broke up with me. As I said, we discussed nothing. She said she needed space and time to think. I gave her five days of it and then we talked and she had already decided we were done. Zero pressure from me. No attempt to override her choice. She sent me a text a couple of days later thanking me for being so patient and supportive and how it showed my character etc.
You acknowledge too that this happened more than once.
No I didn't. I said I did it with Mrs Mud a couple of times who wisely let me figure out what an ass I was being and get over it. Regardless, if a guy pouting because he didn't get sex is a relationship ender then there would be no relationships because every single man has done that and not a few women.
I'm hammering away on this because I like you, Mud. I've benefited from your attitudes at times, and know your desire to be protective and a helper/healer is the flip side of your unrecognized male entitlement.
Yeah, the problem is that is an ideology and ideologies are generally useless methods of looking at and politicizing human relations. My ex girlfriend, who I know better than you do, would probably even more vehemently state that your theory is not applicable to our relationship whatsoever. It is especially not applicable because I had convinced myself, as I was pouting, that it was her schedule that really bothered me and I didn't even realize or mention the sex root of the thing until after we had already broken up, so fairly obviously it could not have had anything to do with her decision. And that demonstrates why looking at human relations through any ideological colored glasses rather than as individuals leads to myopia.
But who anointed you the Certified Healer of This Particular Soul? Maybe it's not your place.
What part of this;
"She has one [wound] she shields from healing and only briefly acknowledged. If she won't open up to let it then nothing will ever work. I can't do that for her obviously but I'd love to be at her side if it helped her to open up and let God and her work it out together."
says I have appointed myself the Certified Healer of her soul? Doesn't it say exactly the opposite of that, that I can't heal her, but that I would like to support her if she ever did try to heal through her faith in God [or however she chose for that matter]?
when a man tries to change a woman's NO into a YES, it's a huge red flag
If you're referring to the week after she broke up with me then I couldn't agree more. In fact I think I have mentioned several times already how foolish and counter productive that was. It was a product of me not wanting to lose her and doing the only thing I knew how to prevent it which was exactly the wrong thing. But of course by then we were already broken up and I had already lost her so it obviously had nothing to do with us breaking up.
We did have a wonderful relationship for a time and so I hope that in a few months she will be in a place where she has already decided that she would like to try again in a more Godly way, since we are both Christians and we both felt we didn't do so the first time around. When I suggested a couple of times in the middle of the breakup that some day we go back to the place we had our first date and have a second first date and do things right this time she thought it was a great idea. Now, maybe she won't down the road. Maybe she will. I'm not trying to force her to change her no into a yes. I've never tried to force a woman I love to do anything [or any other woman for that matter]. I'm just going to ask her if she'd like to try again from scratch with both of us a little older and wiser. If she doesn't then there's nothing I can do about it. If she does, yippee.
I have to say this again; if I was a woman who came on here with this same story, I'm almost certain I would get a whole lot more Amazon support and a whole lot less, "forget about him, he sounds pretty good to us, but you honey, you're a total mess and you need some deep therapy to get yourself fixed".
Talk about invalidating someone's perspectives and POV. I come here with a story about someone you've never met and know nothing about and you dismiss or deride not only my theories about what happened but many of my factual eyeball and ear drum observations. Maybe your guys' perspectives are more out of whack than you know and you ought to work on yourselves a bit?
Maybe the sisterhood is just as cockeyed as the brotherhood. You pay lip service to the fact women have the same blind spots as men but that doesn't seem to slow down applying the blanket solution and in so doing you talk right past me and ignore things I plainly state.
I'm an individual and so is my ex girlfriend. We deserve to be treated as real individuals not actors in some Mars/Venus play. A woman's perspective is different and appreciated but not if it decides it's a tribal thing before she answers and assumes I'm Alley Oop but just don't realize it. I described our particular hurts and baggage and challenges that pertain to our particular individual experiences and viewpoints. I came here looking mainly for individual insights and perspectives and what I heard in return was mostly either stereotyping, criticism, dismissal of my perspective or blaming of me. Thanks. I'm in such a better place now.
I already saw my head shrinker about her. Now I'm gonna have to go get my head shrunk over you guys helping me. :P :roll:
I'm not ticked off but I am a little perplexed. I'm a guy and a human being so i have my share of faults. But, as you know women better than me I know men better than you ever will. As hopeless as I am [I ought to be the lowest common denominator] I'm a veritable prince among men. I don't even like guys they're such bums. If you had any clue how bad even the best of them is when there aren't any gals around you'd probably all be lesbians. Could I be improved? Sure. But, I'm not the problem in this relationship. I was perfect for two months [as was she] and then made what would have been a fixable boo-boo had she made even the slightest effort to resolve and talk about it with me. I acknowledge that to her it was not a small boo-boo. THAT IS THE PROBLEM! Because she has been wounded, what to a non wounded person [AKA Mrs Mud] would have been a small bump in the road, instead to her crashed us into a bridge abutment.
Because I care about her I'd like to see if we could get past that problem down the road some day, even if that is a small possibility. I got almost no practical suggestions to actually help me do so, just a lot of suggestions about what a clueless dope I am who needs oodles of work to ever have the remotest chance at finding the real love of my life.
I'm feeling a little voiceless.
mud
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Mud:
Sorry you don't feel supported, so here's my "practical" advice....
IMO, you have a much better chance of reconciling with this woman IF you accept her just as she is, and where she is. Perhaps with gratitude that she's still in your life, even if it's not what you'd hoped or planned.
IF you can do that, perhaps she'll feel safe enough to re think her position, and try again, but I do think it's her move to make. In every sense. To bring up. To discuss. Everything.
I'm sorry you're feeling judged, and not heard. Maybe if you re read...?
Even if you pout, or sweetly "try" to change her NO into a YES.... you aren't honoring her NO, IMO.
I don't think anyone said you tried to force anything. You're a very nice person, and I think you're an honorable man with good intentions. That's not what's up for debate.
What I'm talking about is accepting what she wants, even if it's contrary to what you want. Supporting it, even.
I don't think it's about how "wounded" she is either, but then I don't know, bc I can't know, and what you asked for was opinions not certainty, and the Amazons answered.
I think we would have done more quiet hand holding, and validating if you hadn't asked, but you did.
It feels like you keep circling back to points you've been over, at the expense of considering other views, IMO.
That's OK.
Even if you're right on target, we still have valid points, and they matter. Just as your views, and points matter: )
Lighter
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Mud, sometimes when a relationship ends there just aren't any conclusive "answers". There's just hurt. And that elusive "hope" that given time, another try at it becomes available. Sometimes, that hope is the cruelest part of all. It's magical thinking; of a sort that happens in the grieving process.
My D has been breakingup for 4-5 years, from a 9 year relationship. The particulars don't really matter and wouldn't make sense in context of your situation. But what it all comes down to, is that eventually it got to the point of "I'm not doing this anymore"... and "I CAN'T do this anymore". The reason/issue in contention wasn't anymore major than in your situation. So I've been "treated" to being the sounding board for how my D has processed this over the YEARS, to the point that my patience is tried every single time she treds over that same puzzle-path, trying to find a different answer than what she already has come up with - and is having a hard time accepting. And I KNOW how it hurts her. She's cried like a little girl grieving on my shoulder enough times... asking if she's a bad person because she can't see things the same way he does. Because it doesn't make sense in HER value system.
She is trying to solve the puzzle with rational mind, not emotional thinking... though we've made progress on it's "language and vocabulary". And there is no logical explanation, within context of the relationship OR the individuals, about why this one minor issue in contention became the B&W, life/death negotiating point. Except personal belief values... and POSSIBLY (I couldn't know this if I tried)... a subconscious conflict in D's partner that interferes with his otherwise empathetic, understanding and rational processes.
Being outside the relationship, I think it's likely those belief values could be "informed" by a very specific, past-history, subscious emotional conflict, since the same issue was the reason for the break-up of his previous relationship. (This doesn't apply to you at all; completely different circumstances.) Where I'm going with this... is that one party doesn't KNOW consciously the reason "I can't do this anymore" and doesn't even face the possibility that maybe it's MORE or something different, than the reason they tell themselves it is.
And that leaves the other party hurt, confused, wondering what on earth they did wrong... and why such a little thing became the "sorry, gotta go now, I don't want to see anymore, I'm too hurt, angry or whatever" issue.
So, I can understand you're grieving this ending. It's abrupt and doesn't make sense to YOU. Any way you try to look at it. And the fact is, IMO... there isn't any solace, or acceptance, or living with it comfortably with an option to "try again" later... that is going to make the grieving any less onerous. All you CAN do, when you're ready to do it, is just let it go. And put one foot in front of the other, and live your life. You're not closing a door on her, or the possibility of a relationship - but you will be caring for yourself, best way you know how and giving her the chance to do the same.
I find it very difficult to justify putting one's life in limbo, hanging out & hoping that you get another chance at a relationship. I don't believe you're doing that, so this is just a caution. We all want what we want - and WHO we want. Until we move on and let the past go.
I'm very sorry your dream-girl took a flyer on you. We can analyze it 6 ways to Sunday and never come up with a different explanation than what she gave you. So hugs, mud. It's never easy but you'll get past it.
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I'm sorry, Mud.
It's hard to be direct and honest with a friend and use the right tone and vocabulary that in some way could possibly be helpful. Your anguish cut through so I wanted to be extremely clear. Just please, forgive the "political" vocabulary. It does get in your way so I should have tried to be more creative and use imagery instead. That was lazy of me. If you could, please try to understand that empathy and insight and revelation and epiphany and new awareness are the point. Words like entitlement, or feminism, are only shorthand for what real people have learned as real hearts broke and real hopes rose or died.
I am so, so sorry, my friend, for the pain you're going through.
In practical, what-to-do terms, I think Lighter gave you the most important advice. In terms of any fantasy future do-over, your most difficult and most important choice at the heart of it all is:
Let her choose to bring it up in future if she wants to. Don't ask. Nor even hint.
She might; she might not. But utterly letting go of the idea of instigating a new or re-relationship is the best thing you can do for both of you, imh-ho.
love,
Hops
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Mud:
The pouting over her schedule WAS your attempt to change her NO into a YES.
After she broke it off, your trying to change her mind about that was you trying to change her NO into a YES, once again.
If you try to speak to her about considering this relationship again, without her bringing it up first, then it will be about you trying to change her NO into a YES. No one's questioning your motives. We're staying away from motives. We're focusing on one things here.
I can't imagine someone as passionate and committed as you not interjecting your opinions when she's expressing her opinions, esp when you've gotten used to discussing future plans, and collaborating.
You want what you want, and you want her to want this wonderful future also. She DID want it.
The thing is, even if what you want is the very best thing for her, and you both, she has to make up her own mind about that, and feel respected for her views, IME.
No one is trying to convince you that this relationship/woman/your way of relating with her is WRONG. It can be mostly right, and have fatal flaws, IME.
If two things were true in this relationship, it was close to perfect, and there was a fatal flaw, then can you consider what that flaw was? Could it have been a missing or weak building block you weren't aware of, or didn't want to see? She stopped building the dream for a reason. Was the base unsteady?
What if that's true?
Honestly, the idea of falling in love with a man who has the time, and ability to support a woman in her life, job, and emotional world is an amazing thing to contemplate. She wanted that. You offered it. You both agreed it was an amazing life you looked forward to.
IF your pouting over her schedule was what tipped the scales here.... IF that's true, and you believe it is, then maybe your acceptance.... your ability to honor her NOs is an issue here.
This isn't a man / woman thing, btw. It's a people thing, and everyone should be able to honor what others say, even if they don't agree, or like it, IME. We can be dissapointed, and still honor someone's NO, IME. We're sharing our experience, from our POV, and I'm thinking that's an amazing POV when you're trying to understand your female friend's POV.
You don't feel heard, and I'm sorry about that. Truly, I am.
I can honestly say I'm feeling a bit voiceless myself on this thread, and so I repeat what I've been saying, trying to feel heard. It's not important in my life that you hear me. I'm afraid it's important in yours, and I do care.
If I'm right, it doesn't make you wrong. As I said, two things can be true at the same time. I'm sure you had an amazing connection, worth saving, with this woman. It's my hope that comes to pass if at all possible.
Nuff said. I release all expectation, ((Mud.))
Lighter
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Well I guess all I had to do was complain and you guys would start talking sense. :)
Thank you for all four of those replies. That's kind of what I was looking for from the start.
I of course hope she will approach me some time in the future. She is the one who initiated the relationship the first time so it's not impossible. I don't know how likely it is but it would sure make my life easier. Had I kept my big mouth shut after we broke up it would be a lot easier for her to do so.
However, I guess I don't understand how just talking to her about it amounts to trying to turn her NO to YES.
Before we went out and while we were breaking up she mentioned how she didn't even want to try a relationship while fire season was on, which ends mid November. And she twice told me, during the breakup, she thought the idea of trying again later to start over and do it the right way was a good idea.
So I'm not clear on how just asking if her NO has possibly turned to YES amounts to some disrespect or attempt to change her mind. I'm just trying to check if it has changed. Seems to me it might change but she be unwilling to let me know because of the awkwardness of the situation. I know I'm reluctant to ask her because of that. What if we're both willing to try again but we're both too chicken to be the first one to let the other know?
mud
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I'm not clear on how just asking if her NO has possibly turned to YES amounts to some disrespect or attempt to change her mind. I'm just trying to check...
Well, this is a test. Can you discipline yourself and respect her enough to stop fantasizing about (pre-analysing) what she is thinking? Can you wait for HER reality, whatever it is? Can you back away from even the SMALLEST attempt to manage her decision?
Can you center and calm yourself, be at peace with no strategems or maneuvers and simply release the outcome? Can you stop trying, even in ("I'm just....") ways? "I'm just..." is minimizing, rationalizing, etc. It's a flag for not fully owning something.
Can you feel such profound respect for her right to choose or not choose or simply let things float unanswered that you stop pushing, even with a pinkie finger, for resolution?
Can you give the power completely to her for now? (By "now" I mean the next five years...). Can you let go of the desire to know? Can you trust not knowing is okay?
That's respecting her No, with no wiggle room.
Doesn't have to mean sweating bullets off your earlobes, nor taking to drink, nor gutting it out in misery. The goal is...to actually perceive the stand-alone wisdom of it. Not wisdom-as-this'll-make-it-work. But wisdom as in this is generous and spacious, and trusting that the outcome will be what it should be (whether you are pleased with it or not)...and having faith.
It'll be difficult. But you can do it. I bet if you do, you'll feel different.
love,
Hops
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I think we were always talking sense, Mud.
Maybe we're using more words, and expanding our points, but we were making sense.
I wish all that writing made clear to you how important it is to respect an answer you don't like from someone you care very much about.
It makes people feel safe. That's so important to people who've had to walk on eggshells, or pretend to keep the peace that can't be kept in their lives.
I'm not sure you understand that yet.
Lighter
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I have to sit on my hands and lower my eyes in her presence? For five years?
You do realize I was her boyfriend not her indentured servant, right?
I guess I don't get the "I am woman hear me roar" and the "I am woman, a delicate flower who will run away screaming if you look at me wrong " dichotomy [and yes that was a mixed metaphor.]
More seriously, I do understand that any pushing will only push her further away. I suppose this will enrage the Amazons but my therapist dude equated it to being the horse whisperer with a spooked horse out in the sun of the desert. You stand in a spot where you go on about your life where she can see you but you never close the distance. Instead you stand calmly in the shade and wait for her to.
I have a friend, a woman, who suggested I might see if she wanted me to do all the things on her house and yard we talked about doing when we were going to be man and wife, but as client and dude. Seems kind of phony to me but it would be a professional relationship only. If anything more ever grew from it that's fine, but in the meantime I'm helping her and she's helping me in a nice, safe, uninvolved and nonthreatening way for either of us.
Smacks of a game to me and I don't like games but I find many of the things that strike me as games a lot of people, woman especially, think are just being smart. Any thoughts? I can't lie and say I wouldn't want it it be more than just professional but I would love doing it even if it never was anything more. We had some really great ideas and she really needs stuff done around what is a really neat log home but there is nothing else there. No landscaping, no yard, dirt driveway, laundry room in the basement and the only access through an outside staircase. A house obviously designed by a man. :?
mud
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I wish all that writing made clear to you how important it is to respect an answer you don't like from someone you care very much about.
I guess I'm not sure how it is not possible to respect an answer while at the same time hoping it changes in the future. Or even asking after five or six months if there is any chance it might have.
I assume it is probably true but because I'm not built that way I don't guess I'll ever fully understand it.
But as to the idea I have to accept whatever she decides as the right answer and the way it should be that seems kind of ridiculous. People make stupid decisions all the time, including about things that would make their lives wonderful, and "the way things should be" happens in my experience pretty seldom. Doesn't mean we don't have to accept other people's decisions, stupid or not. Of course we do, but pretending whatever someone else or we decide is the way it should be, invests us with a wisdom none of us possess.
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I have to sit on my hands and lower my eyes in her presence? For five years?
You do realize I was her boyfriend not her indentured servant, right?
I guess I don't get the "I am woman hear me roar" and the "I am woman, a delicate flower who will run away screaming if you look at me wrong " dichotomy [and yes that was a mixed metaphor.]
More seriously, I do understand that any pushing will only push her further away. I suppose this will enrage the Amazons but my therapist dude equated it to being the horse whisperer with a spooked horse out in the sun of the desert. You stand in a spot where you go on about your life where she can see you but you never close the distance. Instead you stand calmly in the shade and wait for her to.
I have a friend, a woman, who suggested I might see if she wanted me to do all the things on her house and yard we talked about doing when we were going to be man and wife, but as client and dude. Seems kind of phony to me but it would be a professional relationship only. If anything more ever grew from it that's fine, but in the meantime I'm helping her and she's helping me in a nice, safe, uninvolved and nonthreatening way for either of us.
Smacks of a game to me and I don't like games but I find many of the things that strike me as games a lot of people, woman especially, think are just being smart. Any thoughts? I can't lie and say I wouldn't want it it be more than just professional but I would love doing it even if it never was anything more. We had some really great ideas and she really needs stuff done around what is a really neat log home but there is nothing else there. No landscaping, no yard, dirt driveway, laundry room in the basement and the only access through an outside staircase. A house obviously designed by a man. :?
mud
Hi Mud,
I will start with the caveat that I am not good at relationships and tend to avoid intimacy (all sorts of reasons) but for what it's worth, I am not a fan of games and have no idea why other people spend so much time on them, but we are all different :) I think just be yourself. She knows you are interested, she knows you're happy to wait, she knows you had a good time before the blip and presumably she knows that all relationships will have blips along the way. I don't think there's much more you could have done to be clearer about your interest and the fact that you still want a relationship. Her reaction, to me, does seem over the top, but if she has lots of unresolved stuff then she wouldn't have been reacting to just that blip, her response will have been to every other blip that's happened before (I say that as someone who is currently experiencing twenty years worth of reactions to something as simple as a postmark on an envelope). Working through stuff takes time, energy, patience. Some people do it better alone, some with someone by their side.
I don't know you as well as the other posters on here but you have always come across as an honest man with a warm heart and a lot of compassion. I think you said in an earlier post that you've set a sort of mark around October/November time to call time on the current situation if nothing's changed by then (apologies if I've got that wrong, my head is a bit all over the place at the moment so I might be confusing this thread with another). But if I were in your shoes I'd be inclined to just get on with whatever it is I do and let what happens, happen. I don't know if you're in a situation where your paths cross with this lady day to day but if you do a friendly hello will let her know the door is still open. If you don't see each other naturally then maybe a call or text a bit further down the line will again indicate the door is still open. I think you'll know in your heart how long you feel is long enough to wait. It might end up being one of those situations where you get together ten years down the line, who knows? But I think you've been honest about the way you feel and I don't think there's much more that anyone can do. I hope it turns out well for you, whichever way things go :) x
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IMO, mud... your friend's suggestion is bit creepy. Like you're willing to abase yourself at the foot of this woman's pedestal for the benefit of being in her presence. (It's too easy to be kicked in that position.) It's clingy and needy to TRY something like that... or it can be.
But, not for everyone. Maybe you can honestly pull it off, keeping professional boundaries in place and never ever bringing up the "sore topic". Question is: is she up to that? Would you be opening yourself up for even more pain? I dunno.
I guess you need to ask yourself if you're doing yourself any favors trying to find a way to just pass the time, or stay within her attention radius, until you feel you've gotten the final decision from her... or...
if you'll just dust yourself off, go about living YOUR life... and if she rings the doorbell some day, saying she wants to try again, at that time you'll reassess how you feel and what you think about it.
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Thank you Twoapenny. I'm happy to hear at least one other person thinks like I do. You should probably be worried. :lol:
I think you said in an earlier post that you've set a sort of mark around October/November time to call time on the current situation if nothing's changed by then
I said I'd wait until Nov/Dec to see if she had changed her mind at all. That doesn't mean I would give up on her changing her mind later. I've never intended to try and change her mind for her; that's what got me in so much trouble after we broke up. While I already know how foolish that was, Hops and lighter have helped me understand what that looked like from her perspective.
My hope is that someday she will be able to remember the 99.9% of our relationship that was pretty much perfect and in looking at that be able to overlook the .1% that caused the problem.
It might end up being one of those situations where you get together ten years down the line, who knows?
Well, she did say it took her two years of looking my way just to feel like she was ready to let me know she was interested so who knows.
IMO, mud... your friend's suggestion is bit creepy.
sKePTiKal; that was kind of my reaction too at first.
But on the other hand what she wants to do would be pretty fun to make, even if we'd never been involved, but of course, we were, which is what makes it kind of creepy I guess. I've done a lot of work for this friend so I just think she saw it as an innocent, rather than calculating way to reconnect without the pressure of anything more than just doing a job for her.
I think just be myself is the best advice I've gotten. Just being myself is what attracted her to me and both of us being free of our baggage and once again able to be ourselves is what made our relationship so great. My pouty party is not me and almost never happens and now that I know where her vulnerability is I would never ever touch that nerve again.
I'll be the guy in the shade being myself and if she wants to amble over for some oats eventually I'll be happy to share some and stroke her mane. If not, oh well.
mud
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Mud:
You feel she made a mistake. You feel she should change her mind, and do what you feel is best for her. She knows this. Pretending you value her opinion, as much as you value your own, would be playing a game, IMO.
Respecting her opinions, as much as you respect your own, would be the trick, IMO.
What if she does know what's best for her in these moments?
What if she made the right choice for herself?
Can you give her the benefit of the doubt, and just trust she's done the right thing?
I don't think working with her, under the circumstances, would lead to anything good. It's difficult to keep true feelings under one's hat, and your true feelings are that she should do what you need her to do, bc it's better for her than what she's chosen for herself.
A problem, IMO.
Lighter
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You feel she made a mistake.
I think I stated above that I don't think either of us were ready for a relationship at the time and so a breakup was not only inevitable but that good things would come from it despite or maybe because of the pain. Out of pain comes growth and so I hope that our relationship rather than being ill conceived was just ill timed. In an ideal world we would have taken a break, talked things over and tried to work things out while we were healing rather than breaking things off completely and hurting each other.
So I think she did the right thing at the time for the wrong reasons and those wrong reasons were the reaction of her baggage to the baggage of my own that I brought to the relationship.
But I also believe in reconciliation and second chances and the power of love. I believe two people of good will and faith can look back at what happened and learn from it and try again. If she chooses not to that's her decision, but I'm not going to apologize for having hope that love is stronger than fear or our pasts.
Pretending you value her opinion, as much as you value your own, would be playing a game, IMO.
I have never quite understood this concept. If I think someone else is wrong, of course I don't value their opinion as much as mine...because they're wrong. If I didn't think they were wrong, then I would agree with them and disagree with myself which is nonsensical per se. The question is not valuing the opinion of someone I consider wrong as much as I value my own. The question is do I value her right to hold a wrong opinion, and that I do, hence I am not bothering her and merely hoping and praying her opinion changes.
What if she made the right choice for herself?
Can you give her the benefit of the doubt, and just trust she's done the right thing?
Doubtful. The problem is she isolates herself and goes to her safe place when faced with pressure of any kind. That's ok once in awhile but it seems to be how she is living now and in my opinion that is not a healthy way to live. Were it healthy she wouldn't have to make up reasons for why she is isolating herself from me. She herself recognizes this but still does it. her safe place is a place where she doesn't have to work out her issues but instead protects them and keeps them from ever being healed. So if I care about her and believe she is doing something that is not in her long term best interest then I'm not sure why I would trust she's done the right thing. Perfectly wonderful people do the wrong thing all the time. If I truly care then I'm not doing her any favors by pretending I think she's doing the right thing. I don't think she is. The question is what can or will I do about it. Nothing directly and so I pray and hope.
I don't think working with her, under the circumstances, would lead to anything good.
You may be right about that and I am leery of the idea. It might work if I no longer had feelings for her, but I do so...
It's difficult to keep true feelings under one's hat, and your true feelings are that she should do what you need her to do, bc it's better for her than what she's chosen for herself.
I believe it is absolutely better for her than what she has chosen. We were both free and ecstatically happy until our pasts and our wounds made us less so. I'm certain I feel much worse than she does because her wounds wanted her more than anything to remove herself from the possibility of being hurt again and so she felt relief and safety in leaving. But that is a temporary and unhealthy band aid to a pain that needs surgery instead. She ran away from a problem instead of facing it when she finally had someone in her life who would have loved to support her while she did so. Do I feel facing and resolving a problem so one can live the way one wants is better than being controlled by it and having it disrupt relationships and lead to an isolated life? Yes I do and I'm kinda doubtful anyone will convince me otherwise.
mud
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Mud:
People work on their problems when they're ready, IME.
Maybe she's just not ready.
Lighter
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I think you're right, lighter.
She knew for those two years she was interested but didn't feel ready for a relationship that it wouldn't have worked.
I guess she thought maybe she had worked it out.
When we were praying and she was crying and asking God to remove the pain in her that she acknowledged was causing us to break up I just wanted to hold her and let her know it was all right and I'd stay with her as long as it took for her to heal. I would have and I still would if she'd let me. But she won't or can't and so I'll do my stuff and wait. How long I don't know.
mud
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I think you're right, lighter.
She knew for those two years she was interested but didn't feel ready for a relationship that it wouldn't have worked.
I guess she thought maybe she had worked it out.
When we were praying and she was crying and asking God to remove the pain in her that she acknowledged was causing us to break up I just wanted to hold her and let her know it was all right and I'd stay with her as long as it took for her to heal. I would have and I still would if she'd let me. But she won't or can't and so I'll do my stuff and wait. How long I don't know.
mud
I think it can be very difficult to love broken people (and by that I mean difficult for the person doing the loving!). I think it's almost like loving an alcoholic or a drug addict - you can see what they're doing, you know if they were to do x, y and z it would help (or at least not be so destructive) and you'd be happy to help or stick around while they do the work - but they just can't. It's just not the right time. Very difficult and very frustrating as well, I think. I look back now on some of the guys I've met over the years, good men, kind, honest men with regular jobs, sensible heads on their shoulders, little or no baggage - and I couldn't go out with them more than twice because they didn't treat me like dirt and I was so used to being treated badly that people being nice to me made me feel uncomfortable. It sounds so silly now and sometimes I do wonder how my life would have been if I'd had relationships with men who treated me well and did things like go to work and pay bills. But I just wasn't in the right head space at that time. I hope your friend does feel she can come out of her shell again with you at some point in the future.
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I don't think you should find any pretext, including fun landscaping or earnings, to go hang out in her yard, Mud.
I'm sorry it's so hard to let go. I know how that feels.
I do think you have endless justifications for why it's YOU who needs to heal her, help her, hang out near her.
It may not be. And it seems, from what's happened, that it isn't.
I'm sorry,
Hops
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Love doesn't conquer all. For instance, I learned it can't conquer cancer.
But it does find a way.
It, combined with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control finds a way when people say there is no way.
Both she and I believe that and that is why I have hope. And that is also why if there is no way to be found it will still be ok.
But my hope perseveres, because I know what perfect earthly love is like and I'm a romantic and always will be.
When people tell me there is no perfect love, I tell them they are dead wrong because I experienced it. So when they tell me it can't happen twice in one lifetime and that a door is closed, I will just tell them I told you it finds a way when the door opens and it does happen.
But even if it never happens, I'd rather believe that and wait for it to happen than surrender to the idea it's just a matter of permanent rifts, wounds that can't heal, hopeless psychological reactions and concentration on ourselves. I've found the secret to true happiness is concentrating on the other, and if she concentrates on you, you live a perfect life until one of you dies.
I've lived my life so far by passing up the passable to wait for the best and I've never regretted that, though tragedies engulfed most of the fruits of those waits.
And so I'll wait for her because the author, creator and giver of both love and faith is where my faith, and hers, rests. And He will reward our faithfulness as He sees fit.
Regardless of anything else I have said, that is my foundational, unshakable belief and will be until I die.
mud