He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (40 page)

Learning to Behave Differently Despite Your Conflicts

How do you act when you meet someone new? What do you worry about? What do you say? What don’t you say? In the very beginning of a commitmentphobic relationship the groundwork is established for what may follow. Time and time again the active partner starts out by shaping and establishing the kind of interaction that he or she will later come to fear and resent. Time and time again the passive partner commits to a fantasy of a relationship that doesn’t exist and goes along with a questionable scenario. Is it possible to change these patterns?

Following the publication of
Men Who Can’t Love
and
What Smart Women Know
, reader response prompted us to start facilitating nonprofit recovery-support groups for those who needed more understanding and information about making and keeping appropriate romantic commitments.

The following section, which reflects some of the most common issues raised in those groups, is meant to help you redesign your relationships and provides a series of guidelines to help you manage your conflict and behave appropriately and responsibly. We hope it helps you protect yourself from destructive and self-destructive behavior.

CHANGE THE SETUP

If you want your relationships to be different, you have to be different from day one. If the setup is always the same, despite your best intentions what follows will be the same. Change is necessary because if you act the way you have always acted and send the signals you have always sent, the odds are your relationships will always be the same.

In the best of all possible worlds you have come to this book just as you are beginning a new relationship. Successful management of commitment conflict requires a great deal of groundwork, and this is most easily accomplished at the beginning. But regardless of whether you are in the beginning, middle, or end of a relationship, or currently not in any relationship at all, here’s your chance to make a commitment to start changing and becoming more responsible to yourself and others in relationships.

The following material is broken into two sections. One is for those with active conflicts, the other for those with passive conflicts. We recommend that you read both sections to get a better understanding not only of your own behavior and feelings but of your partner’s as well.

Managing Your Relationships:
A Guide for Those with Active Conflicts

THE BEGINNING—THE SETUP FOR A LETDOWN

As the active partner you will actively choreograph the “pursuit portion” of your relationships. This means you construct the setup, and you select the “operating system” from which all future “programs” in this relationship will run. You determine the intensity, you choose the style, and you set the pace. Typically you set it up so that you will have control and power. Regardless of how good your intentions are, the potential to abuse this power is enormous.

In the beginning your goal is seduction, be it emotional or physical,
and everything you say and do is a means of accomplishing that goal. Typically you place emphasis on information that will get a positive response and withhold or downplay information that might serve as a warning. You want to be with this new person, and you aren’t considering any ambivalence that might follow. In addition your seduction will be fueled by your fantasies; all of your hopes and dreams are going to be expressed through your words and your actions—with no thought to the expectations these may provoke. Given these feelings, how can you act responsibly? How can you be certain to attend to both sides of your conflict in a way that is fair to both your new partner and yourself? We urge you to follow these guidelines:

Don’t Rush In

You know that when you get yourself in too deep too fast, this level of involvement makes you panic when the fantasy lifts. You have to keep reminding yourself of how badly you react when relationships start to get real. You also need to think more about how your behavior is making the other person feel. Your breakneck pace sets up a whirlwind. If it doesn’t scare your love interest away, it’s so compelling, it can only provide the basis for an enormous fall.

There is one very simple way out of this: SLOW DOWN. Take your time. Let the intimacy develop gradually. Think before you leap. Avoid breakneck courtships and start evaluating a relationship step by step as it’s developing. What you need most are constant doses of reality. It’s easy to get so caught up in the tension of the chase that you lose track of whom you are chasing. How is he or she reacting to your behavior? If your own insecurities keep kicking you into fast forward, that’s something you may want to examine.

Don’t Give Partners Unrealistic Expectations

You have to understand the weight of your words. Phrases such as “I’ve never met anyone like you before,” “I’m never this attracted to anyone,” and “I can’t wait for you to meet my sister—the two of you will really get along,” are incredibly seductive.
They evoke a feeling of specialness that encourages your partner to have high expectations as well as placing heavy pressure on you to come through with a commitment. Sure, romance is fun. But to many people romance means love, and love means marriage.

Watch your words. If you use words that convey caring and the promise of a future, the other person may respond accordingly. Certain phrases can cause even a first date’s attitude toward you to change totally—sometimes from casual to “overboard” in a single evening.

Your words can make you sound as though you’re planning to be together for a long time—very long. But the reality is that you aren’t ready to plan a future together. You haven’t known each other long enough, and you don’t know each other well enough. That takes a lot of time. Until you’ve had that time, don’t act as though you’re certain “This is it.” Better to save your words until you’re ready to back it up with something real.

Don’t Misrepresent Your Romantic History or Your Romantic Attitude

Don’t make it sound as though your previous relationships ended because your ex-partners were somehow lacking. It’s important that you accept responsibility for your participation and learn as much as you can from it.

Blaming your exes can also deceive your new partner. Someone who likes you is going to want to accept what you say at face value. If you tell someone, “You’re different,” he/she wants to believe you. If you say, “I want this relationship to be different,” or, “I think this relationship can be different,” he/she wants to share that hope.

Don’t convey attitudes without thinking about what you are saying. For example, if you mean “We don’t know each other well enough to have sex,” don’t say, “I would never go to bed with anyone unless I was certain the relationship is going to work out.” Otherwise the moment you go to bed, your partner is going to assume it means a long-term commitment.

Keep in mind that at this stage you have no idea how the relationship will work out. You may want it to be different, but wanting is not enough. Until you are totally sure, avoid implying
anything that can confuse your partner about your past or your intentions for the present—or the future.

Don’t Knock Yourself Out Trying to Impress a Potential Partner

When you pull out all the stops to make an impression, your actions are saying, “This relationship is very important to me; I want to make it work.” That may be true right now, but how will you feel in six weeks or six months? Today you are overwhelmingly interested; tomorrow you may just feel overwhelmed.

Everyone has a different method of impressing dates. What are yours? Do you share the most intimate details of your life right away? If you do, your partner can’t help but think you are already clear about your intentions for developing a very sharing and exclusive relationship. Do you spend excessively on restaurants, gifts, or trips? Do you cook wonderful meals or bring elegant gifts? All of this makes it appear that you’re taking the relationship
very
seriously, and it puts a lot of pressure on you to keep delivering.

The reality is that you can’t possibly be ready for something this serious this soon. Your behavior needs to reflect this fact. If you have a history of eventually being haunted by everything you gave in the beginning, it’s time to become comfortable with giving less. No one who is interested in you is going to walk away because you didn’t tell them your deepest, darkest secrets during your first phone call or take them to Paris on your first date.

Don’t Mess with Someone’s Kids; Don’t Mess with Someone’s Life

What most impresses a struggling single parent? Someone who cares about the kids. It shows that you are sensitive, caring, and well intentioned. So you try to include them in your plans. Bring them along. Bring them gifts. Why not? You probably like them—you’re not faking it. It seems harmless enough. But it’s not.

Getting someone’s children involved in the courtship is a powerful sales technique, but it isn’t fair to the kids and it isn’t fair to the parent. Involving children suggests that you must be thinking long-term. The kids start to count on you, and your partner starts to count on you. But you’re not ready to think long-term. Right
now you need to be working on this relationship one day at a time. Besides, you know how this kind of pressure makes you feel: trapped. If you’re not absolutely certain that you will be there for these kids way down the road, this level of involvement is totally inappropriate right now. You’re not a parent or stepparent and you’re not their best friend. Later perhaps. But not now. What these children need is someone who is sensitive to their emotional needs and boundaries. That means you need to keep your distance.

The same kinds of rules apply when it comes to another’s life. Respect this new person’s reality, and don’t mess it up. Don’t encourage someone to change jobs, pull up stakes, or abandon an ongoing life-style to fulfill some momentary fantasy. Think before you do or say anything that has long-range consequences.

We know that getting someone else involved in your long-term fantasies is a very efficient screening process. If your new partner goes along with what you are saying, you have the advantage of knowing that this person is serious. But this isn’t fair if you aren’t fully committed to these joint plans.

Stop Talking About How Important It Is for You to Have a Committed Relationship, a “Normal” Life, or a Settled Pattern

When you tell someone you are looking for a committed relationship, it seems as though you are ready for and capable of handling one. If you speak about wanting children, needing a family, or trying to develop a normal, settled life-style, it’s natural to believe that you have thought these feelings through. Even if this new partner wasn’t thinking about commitment before, he/ she is going to start thinking about it now. Your words may be music to someone’s ears … until the music suddenly stops.

There is no need to introduce the concept of commitment so soon. By talking about it right away you only put additional pressure on yourself. It’s pressure you may not handle well and don’t need.

Don’t Confuse New Partners by Immediately Including Them in Everything You Do and Think

This behavior gives the impression that you will
always
want this person to be included in your life; it makes someone feel needed. For example, if you have an appointment with your doctor, you make this person part of the experience. If you have an important exam, you ask him/her to help you study. If you have a problem at work, you tell him/her all about it and ask for advice. Once again the underlying message is “I
need you
to be part of everything I do and think.”

This behavior is giving your partner expectations. These expectations can easily make you feel pressured and resentful, but when you start acting on those feelings, your partner will be stunned by the change.

Starting a relationship with someone who really excites you is exhilarating. You want to be together all the time … at least until the deal has been clinched. But you can’t upend your life for someone now if you’re going to resent it or take it away later. Sure, you’re feeling nervous and vulnerable, but what about the other person’s feelings and the other person’s vulnerability? Let the relationship evolve at a reasonable pace.

Don’t Call All the Time

Here’s why: All this attention is going to make the person on the other end of the line feel like a priority in your life. He/she is also going to start counting on those phone calls. Sooner or later you’re going to resent this.

It’s easy to understand why you keep reaching for the phone. You’re on a romantic high, and you have so much to say. You could talk for hours and hours. Your mind is running wild. Of course you want to call again and again. The problem is that it sets up a false intimacy before the relationship can handle it. You need to stop working the phones.

Don’t Act Like the Perfect Partner If You Can’t Sustain It

You’re going out of your way to do everything you can for this new person because you’re trying to sell yourself. If you’re not always going to be this way, you shouldn’t be acting this way now.

Look at what you’re doing. You’ve only known this person for a few days, weeks, or even hours, and in a wide variety of ways you’re indicating that you want to be the perfect helpmate. You certainly don’t look like someone who is afraid of a committed relationship.

But you
are
afraid of a committed relationship. And that means you need to keep your distance in the beginning. Sure, you’re enjoying it, but if it’s an act, you’re not going to enjoy it for long. The more you lead your partner to expect it, the more you’re going to resent it. You don’t need to do things like this to be liked.

Skip All Future Talk

It’s fun to fantasize about the future, but it’s another thing to share those fantasies with someone you’ve just met. Using words such as
us
and
we
imply a real future, not a fantasy. Talking about the things you’ll do together next month, the family wedding in the spring, and the trip to Europe next year suggest your readiness for long-term commitment. But you don’t know what you can deliver next week, let alone next month or next year.