He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (26 page)

“She did everything she could to make me insecure, then told me I was too insecure to have a relationship with.”

“He did everything he could to make me angry, then said he couldn’t deal with my anger.”

PARTNERS WHO ARE ALREADY DISTANT

When all you are feeling is longing and yearning, there is no room for feeling cramped and trapped. That’s why some men and women find it easier to fall in love at a distance. Yes, there is some question as to whether or not what you are feeling is really love. And there is certainly some question as to whom or what it is that you’re falling in love with. But it sure feels powerful while it lasts.

Some men and women seem to have an almost uncanny ability to find partners who are about to move to another part of the country or the world. This gives them a green light to pursue their fantasies, to exhibit their finest courting skills, and to thoroughly submit to this fleeting vision of a relationship. It’s a perfect setup. Then of course the lover actually moves. The one who is left behind pines, grieves, and is consoled by friends. Poor Alice/ Alex, this always happens to her/him. Will either of them ever meet somebody who hasn’t bought packing tape by the gross?

Of course with distance built into a relationship, it’s more likely that you’re falling in love with a fantasy than with reality. When there’s distance, partners look more perfect. Your time together feels more perfect. The highs are much, much higher. And the lows either escape you or are so strong that they bring you closer together.

There are many ways in which distance can be built into a relationship, and it isn’t always about mileage. What does it mean when someone is distant? Whether it is a lover who lives six thousand miles away on another continent, a married lover at work, or an uncommunicative spouse in the next room, the partner who is distant is someone who is unavailable to you.

Here’s what typically happens when you choose a “distant” partner or distancing circumstances. First, you feel good because the distance increases the fantasy and reduces the threat of intimacy. It feels safe. You don’t feel suffocated. So you’re free to let
yourself go. You feel yearning and romance and desire. It’s easy to open up, to be vulnerable and get more in touch with your feelings. So you have this incredible, intense, compact relationship—a lifetime of bliss in only a few short months or weeks or days. And the next thing you know, you’re at the airport with tears in your eyes.

A relationship in which distance is a given usually presents the following problem sooner or later: The distance is too great for one of the partners. He or she wants to get closer. While one partner’s feelings may have changed, the terms of the romance have not. When people choose a relationship with built-in distance, these choices often come back to haunt them.

FINDING THE DISTANCE YOU NEED IN FANTASY PARTNERS

“My sister is a really terrific person, but she’s crazy. She keeps falling in love with these guys on television, or some guy she’ll see in a store. Her last big ‘crush’ was on this gay guy at work. She won’t even look at anybody who might be interested in her. She has found something wrong with every single guy who could be interested in her. She thinks my husband
is
a jerk because all he does is take care of his family.”

—-KELLY

Kelly’s sister has found the distance she needs by focusing on fantasy. What makes a fantasy partner so attractive, so desirable, so easy to relate to? Is it what you read in the gossip columns, what you see of her breasts on MTV? We doubt it. We think that with certain men and women their greatest attraction is that they are totally, completely, undeniably unavailable to you. They are at such a distance that thinking about them is unquestionably “safe,” and you will never be asked to make a real commitment.

“DISTANT” AND MARRIED

Lots of men and women with very serious commitment problems get married. Lots. Every single day. And their problems don’t go away. Typically they get worse. A lot worse. And they
hide it all behind closed doors, behind the illusion of a marital contract.

Many of the men and women we interviewed talked about a partner’s postmarital transformation. From Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Many never saw Dr. Jekyll again. Whatever commitment problems were evident before the marriage paled in comparison with the ones that came after. So much for the “If I can just get him to the altar” myth.

The most insidious thing about commitment conflicts among marrieds is that it’s the last thing you would suspect. People who can’t commit don’t get married, right? Wrong.

Marriage can have everything or nothing to do with commitment. You can be married and still feel and act ambivalent, or you can never sign a single piece of legal paper and be the most committed partner on the planet. But how does somebody who is married act out commitment conflicts? That’s easy. It’s done with distance.

The spouse who has an affair, the workaholic who never comes home, the mate who is still carrying a torch for an old flame, the “statue” at the breakfast table, a newspaper where a face should be, the lump in the living room interrelating with a television set, the gadabout who continues to hang out with friends, night after night. There are all kinds of ways to maintain distance in a marriage—without ever leaving home.

When we talk about commitment and marriage, men usually get the worst rap. We hear about how they break engagements and leave their brides at the altar, about how they won’t “grow up” and how they spend every waking moment hanging out with the guys. Until recently we heard very little about women who panicked at the idea of marriage.

Stories about the anxious bride and the claustrophobic wife used to be very, very rare. Yet now we hear them all the time. Whether these women are only now coming forward and admitting to what they are feeling or whether this is a new phenomenon that reflects recent societal changes, we have no way of knowing for sure. Our guess is that it’s a combination of both.

From the women we talk to we’ve learned how many are genuinely surprised when they discover themselves married and conflicted.
What they often do is try to create little spheres of activity in which they are apart from their mates.

For example one divorced woman we spoke to said that while married, she spent much of her time trying to gain distance within the marriage. To do this, she would lock herself in the bathroom and stay there smoking a cigarette trying to get calm. In the meantime her husband would distance himself with the television set. She found that most of the time one or both of them would be involved in an activity that purposely shut the other one out.

CONFLICT, CONFLICT, CONFLICT

How can one adequately describe the behavior of a person with commitment conflicts? It’s bizarre, contradictory, perplexing, endearing, and incendiary. It’s charming and it’s vicious. It’s passionate and it’s detached. It always makes perfect sense if you remember this one rule about men and women with full-blown commitment conflicts: They can’t commit to yes and they can’t commit to no. Commitment means forever, it means “Good-bye, freedom,” it means death. But saying good-bye to a loved one is also forever. It’s also a commitment, a commitment to losing someone from your life. It’s a double bind.

That’s why so many of these men and women don’t say anything. Or they say, “Maybe … I’m not sure … I need more time … I’ll let you know tomorrow … Maybe in a year I’ll be ready … I want this to work, but I need some distance … I love you, I’m just not sure about the future”—all classic ways of avoiding the end. Saying no triggers the same feelings as saying yes. It represents finality and the closing of doors.

This is why there are so many actions that aren’t clear. They ask you out, then they cancel. They say they’ll call, then they don’t. They take you to Paris, but they won’t take you to a family picnic. They ask you to move in, then they resent the intrusion. One action is always canceling out the other.

And in their relationships the need for distance is always canceling out the need for intimacy.

PART TWO

Understanding Your Fears
and Facing Your Conflict

CHAPTER SEVEN

Recognizing Your Pattern

Commitment conflicts affect more than your romantic life. They come into play anytime you have a decision to make. That means they can influence the way you handle your career, your money, and your friendships. Deciding to marry means you’ve chosen a mate. Deciding which VCR, computer, or car to purchase means forgoing all the other types on the market. Deciding on a career means turning your back on the other possibilities. The possibility of ambivalence exists every time we decide to choose one course of action, no matter how small, and give up another.

Nothing says that you have to be committed to anything—a person, a cause, a schedule, or even a major purchase, and nobody says that having conflicts is not normal. Complex people have some fairly complex emotions. But by not looking at your conflicts, your insecurities, and your behavior patterns, you’re giving your fears more power than they deserve.

BUT … IF YOU DON’T WANT A COMMITMENT, DON’T MAKE ONE

From where we sit, this book is not about whether you should make a commitment or whether you need a commitment. The purpose of this book is to make you aware of your conflicts so that you don’t make relationship choices that bring you pain. This is
about not getting clobbered in your personal life. It’s about understanding the kind of people you choose to get involved with and why you make those choices. It’s also about handling your conflicts in a responsible manner so that you don’t inflict needless pain on others. It’s about knowing what you’re running away from and what you’re running toward. We want you to take a closer look at some of the ways in which your conflicts might be sabotaging you in the nonromantic areas of your life. We want you to be able to decide for yourself whether some of your patterns in and out of love are causing you problems, and we want you to be able to alter your behavior accordingly.

LOOKING AT YOUR PATTERN IN PAST RELATIONSHIPS

Do you have a relationship right now? What’s happening in it? What happened in each of your past relationships? What do you want for your future? The best way to lay the foundation for constructive change is to spend some time exploring your relationship history. To get a better sense of your pattern, let’s take an honest look at your choices, your motivations, and your behavior.

We think this is one of those times when it helps to get very concrete and specific. For that reason we encourage you to take out a pen and pad of paper and start writing things down.

Before You Start

Going over personal histories can sometimes be upsetting. We all make mistakes, and just about everyone has survived a fair amount of pain, anguish, and shame. It’s not fun to look at. Many times we would just as soon forget these relationships—and the way we acted in them. In fact some of us have worked very hard to do just that, and this makes a great deal of sense. The only reason to excavate all this material from our past is to help us shape a different kind of future. Taking this kind of rigorous inventory can be overwhelming, so we suggest that you do it in stages. Let’s start by getting a better sense of your pattern in relationships.