Part 2: UBPDgf dumped me today

[formflier]

RF,

Lots to think about and reflect on. 

When you get a chance if you can spend some time helping us understand the changes you made to the "story".  They seem very thoughtful, so I have to imagine they are significant in meaning.

Perhaps some have some emotion attached...I'd like to understand that part better as well.

Best,

FF

[RomanticFool]

. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. .  

This is from Corinthians isn’t it? I’ve heard this read at weddings and is indeed a beautiful definition of love. My gut reaction is that it’s as idealistic as my limerence view of love at the beginning of the relationship that we’ll love happily ever after. Not sure I know anybody who has adhered to this version of love. Especially the people married for many years who have done battle with each other. Perhaps we should add, ‘Love is About endurance..’  In the St Francis prayer that we use in AA there is the line ‘It is by self forgetting that one finds.’ I think these are all great ideals to live up to but the reality of life is that human beings are often concerned with their own wants and needs. Isn’t that a survival instinct? I’m not dismissing these ideals, I’m saying that they are extremely difficult to live up to.

In fact your next bit of advice is about standing on my own without a relationship to cushion ‘the unbearable lightness of being.’ (My quote not yours. My feelings about being on my own is that nothing seems like it means anything. I want to share my life).  Isn’t it an intrinsically self-centred thing to focus on myself. I think one of the reasons I keep getting involved with relationships is because I need the human contact and love sharing my life with someone special.

I agree that I need to find my integrity. Not sure what you mean about masculinity. I know in The Sopranos, Tony was always talking about men being more like Gary Cooper, the strong silent type. I was brought up in a family of matriarchs. My father is a passive co-dependent man who relied heavily on my mother. All of my strong role models were women. I don’t want to be a classic masculine man. The fact I am more in touch with my emotional side makes me feel more emotionally intelligent than some meathead men I meet. I do agree that I have to break away from unhealthy attachments though.

I like your definitions of what love should be. I think often the limerence stage of a relationship can turn into love though. I often think that you need that strong physical and emotional attraction at the beginning of a relationship to sustain the tougher times. In my case I also need to find a woman who is actually interested in me as a person, not just my status and what I can do for her. This has been something that has been missing in my life for some time. Some of the women I’ve met have been more pragmatic than me. The words of love belie an agenda that is really sizing up if I am up to the job of addressing their own needs. I find the way some women have behaved is contrary to the Corinthian version of love described above. For that to work both parties need to be selfless, otherwise you find yourself having demands made of you and becoming a passive provider. That’s not a good place to be. One has to be honest about what one wants in a relationship otherwise you end up resentful and having your own emotional needs neglected.

This idea about seeking to give because I am a man is a little presumptuous. I gave a great deal to my recent ex. I drove her to work in the mornings. Made her dinner many evenings. Took her to cinema, theatre and other outings. Built her a wardrobe, cleaned her kitchen and took her on holiday at my expense. Her default response when I ever challenged her on anything was to declare me a selfish narcissist. I think she was very unfair at times. In the good moments she told me I was a generous man.

In terms of whether I’ve had the Corinthian version of love, I would say the closest I got to it was the early years with my wife. I find that most of the women I’ve been involved with have been sizing me up for the role of life partner and I’ve come up short time and again. Who wouldn’t want that selfless, trusting and drama free version of love. I’m certainly not going to find that with emotional vampires like some of my exes. The most recent one really did behave outrageously towards me at times and I’m still trying to cope with my hurt feelings. Her actions were not of somebody who was committed to me. She sent me an email at 9pm last night in reply to my wishing her a good day and saying I was thinking of her as it would have been our one year anniversary. Her reply was some 12 hours after I sent mine and it said, ‘Thanks for your email, hope you’re ok, hope work is going well...’ That kind of sums up her level of commitment to me. Perhaps I need to find somebody worthy of selfless love...

[RomanticFool]

Hi I Am Redeemed,

I did do step 4 in AA but it was a long time ago. I have been sober for some 16 years plus. Often people in AA find that their conduct in relationships shows signs of addiction, notable love and sex addiction and many of us end up going to SLAA to deal
With these issues. I was given a popular book on the topic of love addiction which was helpful but the fallout with my ex has completely emotionally devastated me. She ended in via email and last night was the first time she’s replied to any of my emails with a short cursory response. Once I deal with the emotional ramifications of this failed relationship, I will need to focus on my conduct for securing healthier relationships.

RF

[RomanticFool]

FF,

My responses were aimed at explaining in less brutal fashion the thought process that led me to having an affair. Skip characterised it as emotional abandonment of my wife, whereas I would say it was more lack of emotional intelligence on both sides. Perhaps we didn’t understand that to sustain a relationship you need to make an effort with each other in terms of intimacy. I’m not talking about sex, but caring for and nurturing the other person. My wife had sleeping problems when we used to share a bed and her decision to sleep in another room led me to feeling lonely. I think this had a direct impact on our relationship. I should have challenged it at the time but I kind of sulked and thought if she doesn’t want to share a bed with me then so be it...

It’s significant that my previous ex didn’t have a young family but grown up children. Like many women she raised her children and then became bored with her life. Add to that addiction and her self-image issues and she needed the validation that I gave her. However, she was never really committed to a relationship with me. We are now friends and she is doing a psychology degree and has qualified as a counsellor. The ultimate irony in this situation is that she has been helping me deal with my emotions over my most resent ex and has good insight into the situation. It’s ironic that we are friends but I have to say she has been a lifeline at times. I think we like each other as friends rather than lovers. So that is unexpected.

When I first met my recent ex I told her that my marriage was not in a good state and that I was intending to leave. Within two weeks I had told my wife that I had a crush on another woman. I wanted to get out of my marriage as it was a source of deep frustration and I felt this was an opportunity to live an honest life. However, my wife broke down in tears when I told her and since I’d seen some red flag behaviours in the new woman, I decided to delay to make sure I was doing the correct thing. My wife was talking about relocating to a different town and I didn’t want to put her through all of that if the situation with the new woman was going to be a short lived thing. This was either the worst thing I ever did or the best thing, depending on who I talk to. My AA sponsor says I should be thanking my lucky stars because he feels that the volatility with the new woman would have happened much quicker and had I vacated my home to love with the new woman, I could have found myself homeless if she kicked me out and my wife played hard ball financially. On the other hand it would have been a more honest thing to do and I wouldn’t have been living a lie and the new woman may have trusted me more. I’m not so sure about the trust thing though or whether it would have made a difference long term. Seeing her volatility and reactions to my character defects and the way I argue, I think it could well have been extremely volatile if I’d moved in with her (which was her initial suggestion. Her view of the relationship when she ended it was that I’m a narcissistic abuser and she would have never let me into her life had she not been vulnerable in early recovery). I would have loved to have given it a proper go with the new lady but in the last year I have seen enough in our reactivity together to make me feel it would have come to a very combustible ending.

I flag up her insistence at the beginning of our relationship that she only ever had healthy relationships because this was a manifest lie. She recently altered that version to ‘I only had healthy relationships before my marriage ended.’ Since she left that over 15 years ago, this does not give me an accurate picture of her relationships. Indeed she told me on holiday that one of her relationships was criminally abusive and she was the victim.

Despite everything, I adore this woman and I would still love to be with her but I feel that would be impossible now. The relationship became extremely toxic and featured her attacking me several times and me pushing her physically to defend myself. We almost had a car crash on a motorway due to an argument and the last two times we went out she accused me of physical abuse after I grabbed her wrist to prevent her walking off when she told me to go home after a trivial disagreement (we had already arrived at the theatre.) and the second time she said she didn’t want to see me again, after another trivial argument and I tried to stop her storming out of the car. I was becoming frightened of my own rising passion and resentment in the face of her push/pull behaviour. She was demonstrating an extreme lack of empathy in so many situations, finger pointing blame and then to characterise me holding her wrist as ‘abuse’ and conveniently forgetting the times that she had punched me, illustrated to me that she was stepping up the rhetoric of the relationship and kind of declaring emotional war against me. She probably ended it to avoid the consequences of all of the above.

[I Am Redeemed]

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