He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (46 page)

This is your time to think about what your conflicted behavior does to others. Recognize the ways that your fear is dictating behavior. Now is the time to sit with the consequences of your pattern and not blame others for what has gone on in your relationships.

4. Don’t get ex-partners or new partners involved in your quest to “find yourself.”

This is a job for you. It may not be your fault that you attract people who too quickly become involved with your psyche and your emotional destiny. It is your responsibility to be aware of this and not use the people around you in this fashion.

5. Evaluate your reasons for leaving this relationship.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Were your reasons for wanting the relationship to end valid?
  

• Did you honestly give this relationship your best efforts?
  

• Why were you holding back?
  

• Did you engage in unrealistic faultfinding?
  

• Are you still searching for somebody who may not exist?
  

• Did you start running away emotionally as soon as it was apparent that your partner was available for a commitment?
  

6. Don’t maintain the fantasy that you can always have this person back in your life.

Holding on to this belief is what allows you to continue to deny the depth of your feelings. We don’t know whether giving up this relationship is a wise move or the biggest mistake of your life. We do know that you will never have a clear answer if you refuse to investigate the truth about what you are feeling.

WALKING AWAY: A GUIDE FOR THE PASSIVE PARTNER

As the passive partner you are the one who is most in touch with your pain. Whether your ex-partner left or your ex-partner’s behavior provoked you into ending it, you are the one who wanted to work on the relationship. You probably haven’t yet given up hope that things will eventually work out, and you may be in so much pain that you feel numb.

Traditionally the passive role has been the woman’s role, and women often seem to have a tougher time getting over the loss of a love. They often feel they have fewer ways in which they can meet new partners, for example; this can keep them stuck in a “pining” or “longing” mode for an extended period of time. But many men, even though they have greater opportunities to initiate new romances, also get stuck in the recovery process.

Male or female, you can recover from the way you feel no matter how distressed you are, and when you do, you will probably look back and wonder what you were so upset about. You might even look back and laugh. We have talked to many people who were completely devastated by their actively commitmentphobic partners; and we can tell you with a good degree of certainty that there is definitely life beyond this person. There are even other partners—better partners. It’s up to you.

The First Obstacle to Walking Away: Wanting to Understand Everything That Happened at the Price of Your Own Well-being

We believe people should have as much understanding about their lives as is possible, but this is not the time to focus on understanding. This is the time to focus on getting out with all your “faculties intact.” Many men and women in pain from a failed love say that they have to “understand” what really happened. Often this is another way of saying, “I have to continue to have feelings for this person who hurt me.” Understanding is translated into “understanding what the other person is doing, feeling, and experiencing.” This is a definite roadblock to your own happiness.

Think about it this way. You have been on a ship that is about to sink. You are over the side, and you can see the shore. Do you hang around and exhaust yourself by treading water, trying to figure out why the disaster occurred? No, the sensible thing is to save yourself and try to get to shore. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that your partner, the one who sank the ship, is your personal life raft.

Be self-protective. Focus on taking care of you. You can get understanding along the way, but you shouldn’t dedicate yourself to trying to understand your partner’s psychology—no matter how interesting it may be. We agree you should try to understand everything that went on, but it can be done from a safe distance and with more perspective. The emphasis should be on understanding your reactions and your behavior so that your future relationships will be better.

More Obstacles to Walking Away: Believing That Your Relationship Is Different, Believing That Your Ex-partner Is Different

Commitmentphobic relationships are very compelling. They seem so complex and feel so special, it’s almost impossible to believe that anyone else could really understand what happened between you and your ex-partner. It feels almost as if you were predestined to play out these peculiar roles with each other. You may feel that this person is your soul mate and your destiny. You
may feel that no two people have ever loved this deeply or have been so totally bonded.

You may feel it is your karma to work this situation out. You may believe that your loved one is so wonderfully talented, intelligent, sensitive, troubled, confused, or generally messed up, that your situation is special and requires special care. If someone tells you that your reactions are typical, you don’t want to hear it. If someone tells you that you’re not being smart or self-protective, you don’t want to hear it. If someone tells you that your partner’s convoluted, conflicted, or outrageous behavior is typical, you don’t want to hear it.

You are going to resist and resent any friend, relative, counselor, or theory that tries to neatly package and label what is happening in your life. We know that your relationship is unique. But we have also seen this enough times to know that the underlying mechanisms dictating your partner’s behavior and your responses are not unique. You have been with someone who has a serious commitment problem. No matter how special or unique you or your partner may be, the dynamic is not.

Another Obstacle to Walking Away: Believing What Went Wrong in the Relationship Was Your Fault

Often the beginning of commitmentphobic relationships are totally electric and magical. Therefore when they don’t move forward from that spot, the passive partner tends to believe that if he/ she had behaved differently, everything would have been different. We would like you also to feel certain that you are not responsible for your partner’s behavior.

If you think you were not nurturing enough, sexual enough, demanding enough, loving enough, smart enough, tall enough, or thin enough, get rid of the thought.

Frequently when someone with an active commitment conflict is running away from a relationship, his or her behavior seems so odd and out of control that the passive partner feels that something can be done or said to change the course of events. This is not the case. Anything you might do to try to stop it, no matter how loving, will be interpreted as a kind of entrapment. It does not make things better.

Write this on your mirror:
A real relationship and a real love requires two real people
. One person can end a relationship, but it takes two to make it work.

Another Obstacle to Walking Away: Believing That You Are Responsible for Your Ex-partner’s Fate

By the time a commitmentphobic relationship ends, the passive partner may be totally invested in the active runner’s life. Active commitmentphobics, who are particularly skillful at leaving bits and pieces of their psyches and their souls scattered about for others to deal with, often encourage their partners to get involved in coping with all the “demons” and conflicts that seem to be at work. This is very seductive and speaks to a very deep place in many of us. We want to be perfect helpmates, and we want to make a difference. But forget it. This is not an appropriate place to put your charitable energies.

Turn the following statements into your own personal mantras. There is nothing you can do to solve this other person’s problems. There is nothing you can do to change this person’s problems. There is nothing you can do to make this person work on his or her problems. You are not responsible for this person’s ultimate salvation. It is not your fault, and it is not your responsibility. All you can and must do is take care of yourself and resolve your own issues.

We realize this kind of advice is given so often that it becomes tiresome. We also realize it’s not what you want to hear. You want to hear about the little tricks that will make your partner’s conflicts manageable, or about the extraordinary epiphany that will make him or her change. We believe in miracles as much as anyone else. But unless your partner wants to change and wants a miracle, nothing is going to change. You have to work on your own change and your own miracle. The fact that you are reading this makes it a real possibility.

The Most Important Rule: Get the Support You Need

Often the shame of losing “the love of a lifetime” stops us from reaching out for help. We are afraid to tell our friends, family, and
others how we are hurting. Sometimes we feel so deeply that we don’t know how to express it. Other times we feel foolish and are afraid of being seen by others as failures. While the loss may be terrifying, reaching out to others can be terrifying also. Yet not reaching out can lead to painful isolation.

There is another reason why you may be isolating yourself. The relationship probably felt so special, and the loss so devastating, you can’t imagine that anyone else could comprehend what you are feeling right now. Your plight feels so unique that you are convinced it is yours alone. We know that your pain is enormous. But it is our experience that there are many people who do understand and many who can help.

Right now you need all the support you can get. You are not supposed to be able to manage this by yourself and you don’t have to. We encourage you to consider all of the following:

•
Turn to others
. For some people, getting support means turning to their most loving friends or family members and letting them know how intense the pain is.

•
Get professional help
. For many others, getting support means finding professional help—a therapist or counselor who has experience with this kind of loss. This is something we strongly recommend, with the understanding that therapy will focus on getting you out of pain and back into life, not on understanding your partner.

•
Find a support group
. Support groups that focus on codependency or love addiction can be lifesavers. These groups exist in most cities and towns. If you can’t find groups where you live, contact your local hospital or your local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. If that fails, talk to local clergy for referrals. Or start your own group. All it takes is a small personal ad in the local paper. You would be amazed to know how many people are wrestling with these very same issues. Over and over again, we have seen the extraordinary value of sharing your struggle with others and listening to others share their struggle with you.

Here’s the bottom line: there is no such thing as too much support at a time like this. Do whatever it takes, but do it.

What Are You Grieving?: A Relationship Lost, a Future Lost

Commitmentphobic relationships are usually filled with magical promises, expressed or implied: promises about next week, next month, next year, and forever. It’s what helps make these relationships feel so unique and so powerful.

Promises create the feeling of potential, and the commitmentphobic relationship is almost always a relationship that seemed full of potential. A relationship with this much potential is going to feel incredibly special. There is so much to look forward to, it is truly captivating. How could this relationship not be “the one”?

Given all of the promises and all of the potential, the loss of a relationship such as this seems cataclysmic. It’s not just a person that you are losing. You are also losing all of the hopes and dreams and plans that this person represented and you believed in.

In essence you have lost a dream and you have lost a future. This future may have been a fantasy, but it’s a powerful fantasy. If you are going to heal, you need to grieve the loss of this fantasy every bit as fully as you need to grieve the loss of what you really had. While grieving the lost relationship is bound to be painful, grieving the lost potential—the future you envisioned for yourself—can be overwhelming. It helps to have a clear perspective about what you are mourning.

Clarifying Your Perspective: A Reality Check

Promises and potential can be so powerful that they can easily blind you from seeing your ex-partner with any objectivity or clarity. Do you know what you really had in this relationship? Do you know what you really lost? Before you try to answer these questions, consider the following information.

In a typical commitmentphobic relationship the active partner begins withdrawing or pulling away from the relationship just as the “fantasy” (“everything’s perfect”) phase of the relationship is ending and the “reality” (“I love this person and I want to make a
commitment to work on what we have”) phase is beginning. This means that the passive partner rarely gets a chance to clearly experience a not-so-perfect here-and-now relationship with a fully accountable and present partner. Also, because the active partner starts pulling away when things are going well, it tends to leave the partner full of questions and confusion.