Why did this happen to me?
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| Sat, 11-24-2007 - 9:34pm |
I posted this on another site but thought this was a good site to put it on as well. Help me out please....
What in the world did I let happen to me?
Okay I was with this guy for only about a month. He is a single father that raises his daughter 100% of the time. I am a single mom as well. Everything was super great in the beginning. A little too perfect. He told me he loved me after a week and that wigged me out. He stayed at my house every weekend. We are long distance. My kids starting loving him and I was starting to love his daughter. He had planned our christmas together and then talked about taking all the kids to Disneyland next year. I know you all are thinking...WOW....after only a month. Remember....we are both single parents so we know what we want. A family.....not that dating around junk. So everything was great until this past week. Our phone calls seemed shorter and just not the same. Well Thanksgiving he had planned on coming to my dads with me. He is/was good friends with my dad and step mom. I told him that my kids dad was getting them and he got angry. He really wanted the kids as his own I think. So anyways he called me that moring and said he would be there in a few hours and that he loved me.

Not really sure what his problem is, but be thankful that he's gone!
This is a great article--thank you for sharing Soonee--my only question is what do we do instead?
April
This is a really thought provoking thread, Soonee. The article seems rather pessimistic, do we ONLY get that chemistry for people who are our worst nightmare? I doubt that. Lord knows my X fit the pattern of having all the worst traits of my parents in spades (LOL) and I was forever rebelling against his trying to turn me into his mother. Now that I've met M's parents, everything that drives him crazy about his X are the same behaviors of his mother's that make him crazy. So that kind of explains why we picked the people who we married.
But now, we've both spent a fair amount of time figuring out that we DON'T want someone who has those traits. We both have resolved a lot of childhood baggage issues. M is nothing like my X and nothing like my father, well they're the same height and ethnic background but that is pretty much it. We both accept we have our respective mother's pack rat tendancies and are accepting of that behavior in one another. But really, now that I'm thinking about it, I'd have to say if we are getting a chemistry thing for one another due to some unresolved longing from our childhoods it is with our relationships with our closest siblings. My older sister has always been the member of my family I share the tightest bond with, and she and M are almost exactly a year apart in age, birthdays just a few days apart. Maybe I am now attracted to being with a person who is the first born and has that type of personality. And M's sister is my age and very stable like me, values education and the arts, she and I get along very well. She and I are both middle children and M adores her as his little sis but also respects her.
So maybe as we age, if we work out the kinks in our own psyches, we can move forward and break the pattern of being attracted to the same kinds of people who just make us miserable. Maybe then we get that initial spark for the kind of person who can be that lifelong best friend, the kind of person that in younger days we'd have written off as just a friend kind of relationship.
So I'd say the solution stems from resolving those issues from your childhood, working on finding completeness within yourself, before you let somebody else into your life.
QueenBun, who is trying to figure out if she is in some increasing over time chemistry phenomenon or stepped over into total addictive love already, because I am just pining away with M still in FLA and me back in AZ
I think the article Soonee provided us was very insightful about dating and love.
I guess the one thought or lesson I take away is that you cannot seek the instant connection and get so swept up in the moment of infatuation that you forget your values and make decisions you will later regret.
I believe that if you take the time to put your life in order - that is - to be financially sound, get the kids going well and create a good life for yourself as a single and deal with your past issues - whether those be from parents or previous partners - then you will be more picky. You will come up with a good must have and can't stand list so you recognize someone who might be good for you. You will be less inclined to be swept away in the moment with someone who has a lot of red flags.
As I have been going through this process myself - in putting my life back together after a divorce and figuring out my issues from my parents and past relationships - I have developed a great knowledge of what a healthy relationship takes along with a must have and can't stand list for who I want. And now I am WAY more picky and a lot less needy. I find I do not seek that instant connection and chemistry and I want to make more of an educated choice and take time to build chemistry and attraction. I feel more confident and sound for making a better choice. Knowledge is power!
I think the article was trying to explain instant attraction.
I don't know what SMAD stands for but I bet I have been inflicted with it. As in Smadly