MARK!!!! Where are you?? I need your...
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| Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:46am |
serious advice.
Not only because of the male perspective, but I met up with RF last night and OMG, I am seriously upset about the outcome.
You were totally right about how me saying what I said, made him think about if we did have problems and then he over analyzed the entire thing (darn, scorpion) and he turned it into such a snowball I was floored.
The main reason I need your advice is his soon to be X wife and your past marriage with your X wife. He talked to me about it last night and I felt like it was you talking. I wanted to cry because it seems his X has put some serious damage on him.
I guess from past conversations, she is a controlling person, but it seems that wasnt' the extent of it. RF told me that she would always make him feel bad and inadequate, no matter what he did. He told me that when I began to ask him last week if something was wrong, he felt bad and worried that I was disappointed, because he thought everything was great. However, he decided to shrug it off until I talked to him Monday night and questioned him about spending too much time together and that I didn't want him to think I was pressuring him to spend time with me, because he never asked me to spend time with him.
Anyway, obviously, he felt inadequate and bad that he disappointed me, which brought up past issues that his X made him feel. He suddenly started making me feel, that opening up and communicating with him, was going to always make him feel bad and inadequate. That wasn't my intention at all. I just wanted us to be on the same page.
He told me that he wants to be with me and with no one else. That he has strong feelings for me and would like to work on a long term relationship with me, but that we have to make it a healthy relationship and not one that is unhealthy. I told him that I can't live in the shadow of his soon to be X wife (they've been separated 18 months, divorce is final in November) and I cannot walk on egg shells, worrying if he is going to feel bad if I communicate my needs with him. I told him that I felt that it wouldn't be fair to me to feel like I have to watch my every move in fear of him breaking it off at some point, because I'm doing something that he feels reminds him of his X. UGH!
What did he do? He slowly got out his wallet, put money on the table and walked out. I followed him and he said, he can't believe I broke up with him and his head is spinning and he felt sick. That he was stunned that I broke up with him and that he can't talk to me anymore today. Then he got in his car and drove away, like a bat out of hell.
Now what do I do? I feel awful that he's going through these demons, but I am unsure if I can help him through this. I have my own demons of abandonement issues that I go through and last night I felt that if I didn't do exactly what he expected of me, that I would get the boot.
I need your wise advice, because I know you had some serious healing to do. Maybe a book that you suggest that I can give to him or something that I can say to him, to make him understand that his expectations of me, make me feel threatened as well.
WHAT A MESS!!!!!!!!
Edited 10/15/2008 9:48 am ET by myprecioustwo

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Yup, sure enough, this is what I just got:
Catherine,
I turned off my phone and was in bed before 9:30 last night, trying to pray and meditate without much luck.
I feel horrible.
I thought we were working through the issues, and I was trying to be open about my potential issues. But you seemed quick to throw in the towel. You have valid reasons for not wanting to be with me. It's made me realize that I'm not right for you, at least right now. I'm sorry that I made you sad and hurt you, because that's the last thing I would ever want to do.
RF
I am almost afraid to admit this, but PP went through a phase like this as well, his ex was very controlling and verbally abusive towards him, just beat him down.
Wow!
I totally agree: He is battling his own demons.
I also agree that he wants to be assured, which I didn't do last night, because I told him I can't be in a relationship with him comparing to his X. Just saying the word "can't", seems to have gotten him a tizzy that I broke up or threw in the towel. He wasn't even thinking: Can't means: You need to also assure her that this won't happen.
I'm thinking of the best way to respond.
Dr. Joy Browne has said that you need to heal from your marriage after divorce before you start dating again or else you use the other person as an "emotional band-aid," i.e. he's using you to make him feel good/help him heal rather than doing the work himself.
From my experience (being on both sides of a hurt relationship), I would take a time out from him.
Well, did you break up with him?
If you didn't, I would suggest starting there.
Lay out what it is you said, and then ask him why he heard a break up in there. Tell him clearly that you don't hint around at things- if you wanted to end it, you would come straight out and say, "RF, I'm DONE."
RF and I have clicked so well and things went so well. We avoided discussions of our past, his current proceedings with the divorce (we still haven't talked about it) and things we want and need. Instead, we just tried to have fun and not discuss those things. Usually, it was always about getting all the past out first and then going from their, but this time, I think we both just didn't want to go that route.
Unfortunately, this should have maybe come up sooner, but then I wouldn't have gotten to know him as I know him now. He is a good sweet man, so I feel bad (not sorry) that he has these issues.
Like you, because of our great click, I don't want to just throw in the towel. But I plan on responding to his short email and let him decide what he really wants to do, but let him know clearly that I do NOT want to give up.
Take care.
RF-
Maybe the setting last night wasn’t the one we should have been in. I didn’t want to meet you at your place, because I wasn’t sure where the conversation would go and I didn’t want to meet at mine for obvious reasons (the kids).
I’m going to say this once and you can take it however you want to.
I care about you and I want us to get through this together. The things you feel are very valid and I want nothing more then to work through them with you together. However, you also must understand my feelings. I do not know enough of what happened in your past, you do not know enough about mine. It’s something I think both of us just wanted to bury and try not to bring up in this new relationship. However, it seems that my not knowing some of the fears you have, caused me to go about things all wrong, without my knowing.
I never threw in the towel last night. I only told you that I can’t be in a relationship where you might possibly always compare me to your X wife. You didn’t even try to counter argue that. You just left.
I am not without my problems, no matter how many years have passed, but I am more at peace with myself now then I have been in the past. The point is, I have had abandonment issues. I have been hurt on things I didn’t have control over. I am not saying that maybe in some of these cases, such as my X Husband that I was a little blinded, but overall, I had no control of some of the things that happened.
Overall, it has left a lot of scarring and fear of being in a new relationship. That is why it’s taken so long for me to get back into one, let alone deal with one, when I am in one.
The more time you and I spent together, the more I realized we are more alike then anyone I’ve ever met. I realize we do share the same fears and worries. However,I don’t want those fears to blanket the fact that we are so great together, because we are great together. When I am with you or not, I think of you and how good we've been in such a short time together.
What you endured in your marriage was bad and toxic. I want to help you, but I know that is something only you can do and only I can be supportive for you during that journey. However, I can’t live in the shadow of L. I cannot worry that if I open up to you or do something that isn’t intentionally to hurt you, but to try to communicate, learn and grow with you, that your hyper-sensitivity is going to go hay-wire and you’ll abandon me (which is my fear and issue).
My concern is that I will not be able to exceed your expectations of me. That you won’t see me as a completely different person from your X. That I will always be scrutinized and compared to her. Does that make sense?
I repeat: I care for you. I want nothing more then for us to have a healthy relationship. That is something I’ve always wanted to have, but more-so now, because I see that being possible with you, if you let us. My fear is, if I continue to be with you, I will fall for you and then one day end in a broken heart. No relationship is guaranteed, but knowing that you will possibly base our relationship to your past, is something that I see as a serious problem.
I am not sure how we can overcome both of our fears, but I know that I want to, because I want you. But that means we both have to give one another a fair chance and leave our pasts behind.
I am here for you. I just can’t take all the burden and responsibility of that. I feel counseling may help you with your problems and that I can be their for you by giving you my hand and my hugs. I don’t want you to shut me out and do this alone, but that is your choice. All I ask, is that you be fair to me and separate your monsters from me. Kind of like in that book where you told me about the angry monster, being different from the child in front of you. I want you to remember, I am not L, I am Catherine. I’m learning and I want to learn about RF, because I care.
- C
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