He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (42 page)

Don’t Talk About Problems Unless You Want to Work on Them

Because you want to create distance, you start looking for problems in the relationship—big things, small things, whatever you can find. You know that these are just excuses and rationalizations to get away. You know that you don’t really want any of these problems to be resolved. But your partner doesn’t know this. If you present this person with a list of problems, it seems you are pointing out these problems because you want to work them out. Your partner may start trying to make changes. And that makes you feel more trapped and more resentful. If there are issues you want to resolve, talk about them. But you need to keep the non-issues to yourself.

Do Get Help

At this point in the relationship you have two options: You can hurt someone else, or you can help yourself. You may need someone to help you sort things out. No one says you have to struggle by yourself. There are many people who are trained to help, and counseling can make a critical difference at this point in your life and your relationship.

Do Get Honest

If you know, in your heart of hearts, that this relationship isn’t going to work out, it’s time you shared that information honestly with your partner. If you are completely torn by ambivalence, it’s
time you shared that information—without placing blame or responsibility on your partner. We realize that your partner doesn’t want to have this conversation, but telling the truth—without any mixed or confusing messages—will make it easier for your partner to adjust.

THE END—SCARED AND RUNNING

We hope you don’t reach this point in your relationships, but we know that for many of those who are unable to manage their conflicts, there ultimately comes a time when the pressure becomes too great. Perhaps the passive partner is pushing for more of a commitment or is insisting on more accountability. Whatever the reason, you, as the active partner, may feel as though you are gasping for air or experiencing a full-blown phobic attack. All you can think about is reducing the discomfort, and to you that means getting away. However, even at this stage you’re probably unsure because you still have so many feelings for your partner.

Remember, this level of conflict can be directly attributed to the depth and closeness of the relationship. Despite your ambivalence you and your partner may share an intense emotional involvement. When we interview people about their commitmentphobic relationships, we always ask them to describe the ending. An amazingly large number of people describe almost identical scenes: The active partner, the partner responsible for the breakup, is sobbing and talking about how much love he or she feels for the person who is being rejected. In other words, even though the relationship is about to be finalized, the conflict hasn’t diminished.

If you have active commitment conflicts, your relationships tend to end in one or a combination of the following three ways:

1. Your behavior (often infidelity) and your ambivalence push your partner into provoking a final argument.
   

2. You construct so many barriers, allow so little intimacy, and introduce so much distance that the relationship dies slowly—and painfully—of attrition.
   

3. You end it so abruptly that you seem almost to disappear. Often you immediately establish another relationship that serves as a barrier between you and the partner you have left behind.
   

All of these options are hurtful, and none are honest. If you have reached what you believe to be the end of a commitmentphobic relationship, before you do anything, we would like to ask you to consider the following suggestions:

Spend Some Time Trying to Figure Out Precisely What You Are Running From and Why

You need to think seriously about whether your behavior will accomplish what you want. You may think you’re escaping from your partner, but you may actually be running away from your expectations, from your projections, from your fears, and from yourself.

Maybe ending this relationship is the answer. But there is a chance that it’s not. You need more information, and you need it immediately. If you’re going to run anywhere right now, we firmly believe that the first place you need to run is to a place where you can get help with your conflict. Ideally this means finding an understanding therapist.

This is not the time to jump to conclusions. Once you have engaged yourself in the process of self-exploration, you may see a way of working with this relationship that you couldn’t see before. Or you may truly understand why this relationship could never work and you may learn how to establish better relationships in the future. Whatever the outcome, at least you won’t be swinging wildly in the dark.

We can’t make you go for help. That is of course your decision. But we can ask you to minimize the kind of hurtful behavior that typifies these endings.

Don’t Provoke Your Partner Into Ending Your Relationship

We realize that you may be feeling much too guilty to want to face ending your relationship honestly and directly. Under these conditions it’s very tempting to drive your partner into doing the
dirty work. If you propel your partner into drawing a line in the sand, you can pin at least part of the blame on someone else. No guilt, no responsibility—it becomes the perfect scenario. Right? Wrong.

Your partner doesn’t want to end the relationship, you do. Pushed to the wall, your partner may end it, but that’s clearly not what this person wants. It’s what you want. Later, when you’re feeling relief, your partner will be feeling horrified and thoroughly confused by what has happened. Your partner will be filled with doubts and regrets wondering whether he/she may have jumped to conclusions or not been understanding enough. Your partner may even feel guilty.

Here are some dos and don’ts:

• Don’t hurt and demoralize your partner by leaving “evidence” of another romantic interest lying around for him or her to find.
  

• Don’t indulge in provocative behavior such as breaking dates or not phoning when you say you will.
  

• Don’t pick fights or become unrealistically faultfinding.
  

• Don’t become childishly uncooperative.
  

• Don’t ruin special occasions.
  

• Do maintain a sense of respect for your partner and the relationship you have shared.
  

• Do understand that your partner wants to be with you and is bending over backward trying to adjust to and accommodate your needs.
  

• Do understand that any faultfinding you indulge in will make it even harder for your partner to recover a sense of self-esteem and get on with life.
  

• Do understand that announcing infidelity (real or planned) by leaving evidence lying around will create tremendous confusion for your partner who doesn’t know whether to believe what is seen or what you say.
  

• Do assume responsibility for your feelings and for what is happening and act accordingly.
  

When Leaving, Walk Out the Front Door So That Your Partner Can See You Going

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you back away gradually, over time, it won’t be noticed. You want the relationship to slowly fade to zero for two reasons: (1) It may hurt less to withdraw slowly; and (2) you won’t have to take responsibility for ending it.

You think if you give less and less while building bigger and better barriers, you can reduce the relationship to dust without ever having to say you want out. You think that by doing it piecemeal you will spare yourself the intense pain of total separation. But that’s not fair. When you take a relationship away piece by piece, it chips away at a partner’s self-esteem. Sometimes the worse you make a partner feel, the more he or she will want you to come back and make it better.

In the meantime, as you back away, your words and your actions are probably totally out of sync. For example, you tell your partner that the two of you are still together, even though you rarely see each other. Or you may take a different approach: You say that you want less of a relationship and then spend several days making passionate love.

Your partner doesn’t want to think the relationship is over, so if either your words or your actions deny that it’s over, your partner is going to listen to that message. Your partner will probably accept your excuses, your explanations, your impossible boundaries, and your behavior. Even when the relationship isn’t even a blip on the radar screen, your partner may still be there, trying to be loving and to do the right thing.

It’s not enough to say that you have “demons.” You owe it to your partner to describe those demons. It isn’t fair to keep one foot in the relationship while you’re busy removing every other piece of your body. You think your partner will “get the message” from your actions. We’re here to tell you that it won’t happen. Your partner will just keep staring at that foot. As long as you keep denying that it’s over, he or she may keep waiting and hoping.

A few specific dos and don’ts:

• Don’t use the “I need more time” excuse.
  

• Don’t continue to involve your partner in your emotional
  sturm und drang
  .
  

• Do encourage your partner to find more of a life, independent of you.
  

• Do keep your words and your actions in sync.
  

• Do state the facts.
  

• Do be honest.
  

Don’t End a Relationship Without Saying Good-bye and Explaining Yourself

We know why you want to disappear. You’re in so deep, you truly believe it’s the only way out. But you have no idea what this will do to your partner. You said a great many things you wish you hadn’t said, and you made emotional promises you can’t keep. Now you want to forget all this and pretend it didn’t happen. Before you leave the state, disconnect your telephone, or move in with—and thus hide behind—some stranger or ex-lover, you need to stop for a moment.

To disappear from a relationship at the height of its intensity is like ripping out a piece of your partner’s insides. For your partner it’s a perfect setup for a painful obsession. For you it’s a setup for guilt, remorse, and possibly your own obsessive thoughts.

As difficult as it may be, you have to accept responsibility for what happened in this relationship. If you don’t do this, it is almost as if you are denying that the relationship ever existed, and that means denying a part of yourself.

We realize that your partner may be refusing to let go. We recognize how difficult that makes it for you. But if you are clear about your decision to move on, then you should be able to have an appropriate and necessary, albeit uncomfortable, conversation. Many people find it helpful to go into counseling together for a few sessions in an attempt to work out a way of ending things that is more satisfactory and less painful.

Ask yourself whether or not your reluctance to formally close doors is a reflection of your continued ambivalence and unresolved issues.

Some dos and don’ts:

• Don’t stop calling completely.
  

• Don’t refuse to take your partner’s phone calls.
  

• Don’t indulge in a Houdini-like escape and disappear from view.
  

• Do behave responsibly.
  

• Do get immediate professional help if you feel overwhelmed by guilt or a hopeless feeling that you can’t do anything right.
  

• Do try to come to your own understanding of what happened.
  

• Do help your partner understand what happened.
  

Managing Your Relationships:

A Guide for Those with Passive Conflicts

THE BEGINNING

If you are the passive partner, you are responding to someone with demonstrable ambivalence about permanent relationships. Although you may start out with serious reservations about this new partner, you typically ignore them. For example:

• Even when this person presents sufficient evidence, either through words, deeds, or history, that he/she is commitmentphobic or otherwise unavailable, you are likely to hold nothing back.
  

• Even when you recognize—or others tell you—that this person is not emotionally reliable, your fantasies and hopes become focused on cementing a permanent relationship.
  

Sometimes it seems as though you respond almost as if you are being tested on your ability to respond. Perhaps because you sense that your partner is not fully capable of commitment, you are inappropriately frightened of losing this fledgling relationship. For reasons that are illusory, you quickly become overly committed to what you perceive as the relationship’s potential.

This attitude leaves you vulnerable and exposed. But instead of attending to this condition, you may take pride in being able to achieve this high degree of involvement and responsiveness. You may tell yourself that your ability to trust, before trust is earned, is proof of your capacity for love and sharing.

Although it is hard to accuse you of being irresponsible to others, you are probably not being responsible to yourself. Your tendency to cooperate with an agenda designed by someone you barely know leaves you open for disappointment and confusion. You need to be more self-protective and to behave more wisely. Here are suggestions for changing the course of your relationships:

Keep Your Fantasies Under Control

You know by now that you have a very active fantasy life and that at the beginning of a relationship you immediately adjust your fantasies to include this new person. This can’t help but influence both your behavior and your expectations.