He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (23 page)

“She was willing to see me, but she had lots of rules. For example, she didn’t want any planned dates, and everything, from sex
to whether or not we went out to dinner, had to be spontaneous. You can imagine, living in another city, how spontaneous I could be. I had to reconstruct my life. Figuring out how to see her under these conditions took up most of my thoughts. I got so scared of offending her that I just stopped initiating anything, particularly sex.

“We would watch television on her couch, and I would pretend to be disinterested in her and interested only in what was on the tube. I knew that if I looked disinterested enough, she would move over to me and start something. I would feel frozen, as if I couldn’t make one move because if I did, everything would be over. One night, I remember, she asked me to please spend the night. The minute I got into bed to sleep, I knew it was a mistake. When I woke up the next morning, I was right. She seemed angry and annoyed to have me there. A week or so later she told me that it was over. She said she was unhappy about all these things about me. For example, even though I was several inches taller than her, I wasn’t tall enough and I wasn’t really her physical type. It was incredible rejection.

“A year later I saw her at a party, and she started the whole physical thing again—rubbing against me, taking my hand. I was tempted, but this time I stayed away.”

BREAKING THE SEXUAL BOND

Sex is one of the most powerful ways that two people can be bonded. When there is a powerful attraction and a passionate sexual connection, it seems to make sense that both partners would want it to continue—particularly if there is nothing else that’s going wrong in the relationship. Yet men and women who are feeling intense commitmentphobic anxiety are sometimes able to break this bond in a manner that shocks their partners.

Barbara, forty-two, recently ended a relationship that had become uncomfortably close. Until she and Stan moved in together two years ago, she had always lived alone. It was her dream to find a partner with whom she could build a life. She was therefore quite surprised by the anxiety she experienced when she finally started living with a man. She says:

“When I met Stan, I had just about given up on all men. I had had so many destructive relationships in my life. Most of the men I went out with had obvious commitment problems, and I had been seriously hurt. Stan seemed different. We had a lot in common. At first we also had very nice sex. There was a strong and very sweet physical bond. That was the hardest thing to break away from. I knew Stan loved me, but I couldn’t stay with him.

“I knew I should be grateful that Stan was so devoted, and I was. I didn’t want to be alone, but having somebody around all the time, and I do mean all the time, is no picnic either. Maybe it was Stan, maybe it was me. All I know is that I reached the point where if he walked into a room, I felt so cramped for space that I had to walk out. I would get headaches, and I felt as though it hurt to breathe. I know it wasn’t fair, because he didn’t do anything except occupy space, but this made me so angry that I became a real bitch.

“I started trying to avoid sex because if we had sex, I thought I was expected to be more emotionally connected. I mean, I got guilty if we had sex, and then I just wanted to be alone. I stopped sleeping in the same bed with him. It was sort of a gradual thing, and eventually we were always in different beds. He kept suggesting that we get counseling, but I didn’t want to do it because I thought then I would never get out alive. You know, when you’re in a relationship, even with someone you love, and you find yourself thinking that you won’t feel human again until you get rid of him, it’s not a good thing.

“Finally we talked about it, and he agreed he should move out. The funny thing is that the day he moved out, I almost fainted from the pain of ending the relationship. I was so upset, I couldn’t see straight. Of course I miss him physically, but when I think about the way I felt when he was here all the time, I know that I had no choice.”

Since Barbara had spent many years in relationships with men who treated her badly, one can’t help but wonder why she was so resistant to seeking couple’s counseling. Why was she unwilling to try to fix her relationship?

“SHE NEVER SAID, HOW DO
WE
FIX THIS?”

Jeremy, twenty-nine, told us that the most frustrating thing about his ex-girlfriend is that she would do nothing to try to improve the relationship. He said:

“There wasn’t that much going wrong between us. Just small disagreements about where to go on weekends or whether to use her car or my car. Nothing major. Our values were pretty much the same. All we had to do was do some accommodating. But she wouldn’t do it. And she wouldn’t talk about it. She never wanted to try to improve the relationship.

“Our biggest problem: She never wanted to make plans. What that meant is that if it was something she wanted to do, we would plan for it. If it was something I wanted to do, she would say, ‘Let’s not overplan.’ If I wanted to take a trip or see a play, it was murder. I would try to find ways to compromise, but she wasn’t having any of it. When we fought, I was always the one who had to accommodate her. Although she kept telling me she loved me, she made it clear that the only way to have a relationship with her was to do things her way.

“I thought we should see somebody to talk about
our
problem, but she wouldn’t have any of it. Finally she told me that she had always had a problem with commitment, and that I was making her uncomfortable. Basically, she said, she loved me, but she wanted her space much more than she wanted to work on a relationship.”

Men and women who are working to maintain space and distance within a relationship want to continue doing just that. Typically unless there is some dramatic turnaround in attitude, they don’t want to resolve the problems in the relationship. To work on “fixing” a relationship is the equivalent of making a commitment. Think about it from the point of view of the person with active commitment conflicts: If you feel that you are in jail and your warden asks you to help him make your cell more secure, how are you going to respond?

HOLIDAYS, BIRTHDAYS, SPECIAL EVENTS

“Everything was fine until my sister’s wedding, and my boyfriend refused to go with me. It meant so much to me to look like a normal person with someone who cared about her, I couldn’t believe that he would leave me alone at a time like that. But he did.”

—ASHLEY, twenty-six

“We spent Chnstmas together, but I could tell she was distant. Then a couple of days later she told me that she wanted to be alone—with friends—on New Year’s Eve. You can imagine how I felt.”

—RODNEY, thirty

“Harv and I went out together for five years. For every one of those years he disappeared regularly on my birthday, my son’s birthday, Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day. He said they didn’t mean anything to him. They meant something to me, though.”

—SYLVIA, thirty-six

You will notice from many of the stories in this book that men and women with active commitment issues can be particularly adept at causing crises around those moments that most of us like to think of as special. If you are involved with someone with active commitment issues, holidays and special occasions are almost certainly going to set off the conflict. The reason: Most of these events involve family and togetherness. Consequently they can be perceived as setting up tremendous expectations and obligations, which the person with active conflicts often doesn’t want to meet. One man we interviewed describes his feelings:

“I know I really hurt her on Christmas and New Year’s—several years in a row. But I couldn’t help it. I felt that if her family saw us together on those days, then I would have to marry her. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want the world to think of me as her husband—tied up with her for life. I didn’t want to think of myself that way.”

WHY IT ENDS WHEN THE BEST HAS JUST BEGUN

The commitmentphobic relationship is far more likely to fall apart when the going gets
good
than when the going gets tough. People with active conflicts may get unhappy when their relationship isn’t working, but they only panic when their relationship is working too well. They may be uncomfortable when there’s too much distance, but they’re paralyzed when there’s not enough. Sometimes the better the relationship, the
worse
they feel.

The active avoider thinks,
If it gets any closer, I’ll never be able to leave
. An overwhelming amount of fear rushes to the surface. The avoider starts thrashing about. Next thing you know, everything is in pieces. If you don’t have a commitment problem, this makes no sense. If you have a commitment problem, it makes perfect sense. Commitmentphobics
have
to have an out. As their avenues close one by one, they feel worse, not better. The exits are all being sealed off. Loss of freedom is inevitable, and that is unacceptable. It’s a matter of survival.

What most active runners never adequately consider is how painful this can be to their partners. When you leave a relationship at its peak, the effect is devastating. Indeed some people never fully recover from this kind of loss.

HOW COMMITMENTPHOBIC RELATIONSHIPS END

Commitmentphobic relationships typically end in one of three ways:

•
The active avoider precipitates a major confrontation and provokes the more passive partner to break it off
.

When it’s a relationship of some duration, with a real history and many complications, the active avoider may end it by pushing his or her partner up against a wall, using provocative behavior such as infidelity, or boundaries that become ever more unreasonable.

Although it may not appear that way, the active avoider is usually
aware of what he or she is doing, but would prefer not to assume responsibility.

•
The active avoiders withdraw slowly, setting up boundaries all the while, until there is no relationship left
.

Slowly but surely—some commitmentphobic relationships just can’t end any other way. One woman told us, “He just kept seeing less of me. It was still passionate, it was still intense, but there was less relationship and more space. Finally it was all space and the only relationship that was left was a once-a-week phone call, every Wednesday night. Why Wednesday? I used to think it was because we met on a Wednesday, but who knows?”

•
The active avoider ends it suddenly, disappearing like Houdini, offering little or no explanation
.

The person who announces without warning that the relationship is over and then sets it up so that there is no further contact is totally panicked. This can happen early in a relationship, or not for years, but when it does, it is brutally difficult for the passive partner, who may be completely unprepared. Over the years we’ve heard so many disappearance stories that we refer to this phenomenon as the “Houdini Syndrome.” We’ve heard of active avoiders leaving while their partners were taking showers or talking on the phone. We’ve heard stories of men ending long-term relationships by getting out of bed after particularly passionate sex, saying they needed a little air, and then never returning. We’ve heard stories of men and women suddenly announcing, “It’s over,” and refusing, from that day forward, to take phone calls.

RUNNING TO A NEW PARTNER

Since active commitment conflicts are all about running, the active avoider often ends an important relationship by running off to a new partner in what seems to be record time. The passive
partner, on the other hand, typically retreats and takes a very long time before he or she is able to recover.

AFTER IT’S OVER—UNRESOLVED, UNEXPLAINED, UNEXPLORED

The lack of real resolution is the most frustrating thing about the end of a commitmentphobic relationship. One partner—typically the passive one—or both, are left with an extraordinary sense of it not being over. Too much was left undone, too much was left unsaid. Partners wonder, If the communication was extraordinary, why did it end? If the sex was wonderful, why did it end? If the values were so similar, why did it end? There are many unanswered questions, and many ways in which the good elements of the relationship were never fully explored. It feels frustrating and sad.

CHAPTER SIX

Getting Distance

Those with unresolved conflicts typically either find a relationship with distance built into it or they try to manufacture distance in the relationship they already have.

Some people manage this by getting involved in relationships in which there are actual physical boundaries separating them from their partners. They pair up with people who live far away, or they turn a close relationship into a long-distance relationship by moving themselves or traveling frequently. For others even thinking about moving away is enough to ease the threat. Escape fantasies, such as joining the Peace Corps, are not uncommon.