Postscript to the L.I.
Since ‘breaking up’ from the L.I. I have been doing a lot of reflection on what happened. It’s very much a story with two halves. One half is falling in love (yet again) with an emotionally unavailable man though this time I managed not to have sex with him – yay, progress! The other half is having recognised it and identified it and consciously engaged with the madness in order to understand it. So progress there too.
The latter activity has been extraordinarily powerful – watching my obsessional thought processes and the descent into emotional attachment has been a combination of claustrophobic, catastrophic, sickening, terrifying, exhilerating and ultimately liberating. I’ve watched myself being pushed and pulled, my emotions manipulated (the L.I. is probably the most skillful emotional manipulator I’ve ever come across – he assimilated emotional information about me with the speed of a Borg and deployed it with the precision of a chess master) and witnessed my own willingness to fall for the game, to let love grow on scraps of hinted affection, to hope with psychotic intensity and to despair at my inability to get his interest.
And I feel such enormous gratitude to him for coming into my life and letting me see myself, for giving me the opportunity to free myself from this horrible curse I’ve lived with for years. He is a lovely man by the way – not in any way evil or nasty. He does what he does from his own set of fears and neurosis and I don’t blame him at all for the way I’ve felt. He has his own path. There is also a Buddhist ‘reading’ of our story, but I can’t write about this now. This has to be about me and what I do, what I allow, what I discount, what I sacrifice, if I’m to move on to a healthier way of being.
I am determined to break this pattern and even if I never do have a healthy relationship, I am going to commit here and now to avoiding unhealthy ones. The one insight which I am holding on to is that I saw, clearly, the first sign that the L.I. was emotionally unavailable very early on. After our first date he asked me out for 2 dates – a weekend day two weeks ahead and an evening meal before that. Very keen, I thought. The meal never materialised. Then after the weekend day which was magical and lovely and seemed to show we got on really well, he went cool and said he thought ‘things were moving too fast’. He had instigated every move. I did feed this back to him pretty sharply and he apologised, but there, right there, I should have said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ because a man who’s scared of a walk in the woods and a brief kiss isn’t going to cope with intimacy, now is he? I carried on with him, however, and I saw every move he made with hideous clarity right up to his last ‘killer’ move – after he told me he didn’t want a relationship, he made a phone call which was (unconsciously) designed to ‘hook’ me back and I saw with such clarity how every tiny element of that call could have done that (and despite seeing it I still ruminated about it for days and watched my emotions being drawn to wanting to connect with him). But I watched it, and I’ve seen it and I know absolutely the level of madness it represents and I don’t want any more of that in my life.
So I’ve been doing some research about being attracted to emotionally unavailable men and came across some really useful materials including this list which I wish I’d had years ago! From the list, here are the ones that have been present in all the men I’ve ever been with (each man has manifested at least one of the signs).
He’s recently separated
He’s very reliant on text messages, IM’ing and email for the majority of his contact
They’re ambiguous about the status of the relationship
You’re not sure when you’ll hear from the next, even though you’ve been dating them for a while
You think you’re in a relationship, but it’s closer to a booty call
When you try to tackle the status of your relationship or any issues, he either tells you what you want to hear and then returns to his normal behaviour or he just skirts the issue. One way or the other, you wind up back at square one.
He says he’s over his ex but he’s quietly still trying to cope with the end of the relationship
He mentions his ex or things that happened between the two of them often
He’s an overt mother lover – mummy’s boy
He’s a mother hater – has an overtly negative relationship with his mother
You feel empty after you sleep with him.
He has a stringent routine that he just won’t deviate from
He won’t take calls either before or after a certain time
He is resistant to involving himself in your life
He talks about his problems, his successes, his life – it’s me, me, me all the way
He determines the momentum of the relationship – you meet up when he wants to meet up
He never refers to you as a girlfriend, partner or any form of significant other
It feels like he blows hot and cold
He’s quick out the gate in pursuing you, gets your attention, and then goes into a slow canter
He tells you that he has a lot of issues that he needs to deal with
He actually says ‘I’m not ready for a relationship’ but is still with youHe can’t commit to anything, no matter how miniscule – everything that he’s asked, such as whether he can do something with you is a big drama to get him to say yay or nay
He’s got about as much emotion in him as a stoneHe may try and sleep with you on the first night
The thing about admitting that I go after emotionally unavailable men is that I then have to admit that I am also emotionally unavailable because that is what all the literature suggests – we are both as bad as each other, both playing a fear-avoidance game. The L.I.’s pattern in the past has actually always been to pursue emotionally unavailable women and run a mile from people who show an interest in him. I know I do the same. It’s time I face up to my part in this mess – not in the ‘blaming’ way which accompanies the pursuit of unavailable men (“why did I say/do that?”, “why aren’t I good enough” etc) but simply be honest about what I want and what I can offer.
I feel hopeful, in a good way.
4 Comments
November 18, 2009 at 3:33 pm
“my own willingness to fall for the game, to let love grow on scraps of hinted affection…”
Oh boy, I recognise that one! I try to *force* love when it obviously isn’t there. I try and be as best, as funny, as entertaining a man as I can be, trying to magic something up when she’s usually made it quite clear that there’s only friendship on offer. A lot of it in my case is feeling that my capital, my always fairly limited attraction power, is ebbing away every day.
November 18, 2009 at 11:39 pm
“A lot of it in my case is feeling that my capital, my always fairly limited attraction power, is ebbing away every day.”
You should think of it the opposite way – you’re a man, every day you are becoming more mature and wise and a better prospective partner.
Now if only I could apply that to myself …
November 18, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Youch. You dont want a man like that. You could add “eccentric, especially when on medication +alcohol”. That’s what’s pissing M off at the moment
November 18, 2009 at 11:41 pm
And rightly so! Cut back on the drinking and you’ll feel a lot better and probably sleep a lot better if you cut it out completely for a while.
[hugs LH] Don’t mess up.