He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (32 page)

The Fear of Dependency

This is a major fear, shared by many. For some the anxiety revolves around being overly dependent on another person and losing the ability to take care of oneself. Others worry about the responsibility of having someone else’s welfare and well-being placed in their care. It will come as no surprise to hear that these anxieties seem to be directly connected to stereotypical male-female roles and that women seem still to be more likely to worry about being dependent on a man, whereas men are still very concerned about being expected to “take care” of a woman.

Traditionally femininity and dependency have been closely linked. Many women grew up being told that they were “little” women and that they were expected to depend on “big,” strong men to take care of them. Men were told that a mark of their maleness was their ability to shelter and protect “their” dependent women.

Yet many men worry that they don’t want to spend their lives “taking care” of dependent women, and just as many women say that they don’t want to depend on anyone and they don’t even have that much confidence in men’s ability to “take care.” Dependency: should we encourage it, or allow it, or foster it, or develop it? Even if we don’t think about it very much, we all have very strong ideas about dependency, and some of these translate into ideas about commitment.

The Fear of Being “Found Out”

“My family is nuts. If I date anyone normal and she meets any of them—my mother, my brother, or my sister—it’s all over.”

“It’s my stretch marks. If you’re living with someone day in and day out, they are going to be noticed.”

“I don’t make enough money to attract the kind of women I’m attracted to. I’m always living with the fear of being found out.”

“I owe thousands on my credit card. I live totally above my means. And I would die if anyone knew.”

“I don’t think anyone will put up with the way I’m attached to my cats.”

“It’s the dog. He’s not one hundred percent housebroken. Nobody will want to deal with it.”

“I’m a neat freak. Really obsessive.” “I’m a slob, but I hide it.”

“In truth I work sixteen hours a day most days, and I don’t want to change it. But a normal woman would think I’m nuts.”

“I don’t want to sound like I have no self-esteem, but it’s close, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to figure it out.”

Everyone has at least a few insecurities, a few ways in which we worry that we may be slightly substandard, so to speak. However, we don’t want to spread the news about these “imperfections,” we prefer keeping these things secret. But committed relationships make it tough to have secrets. When we are with our mates, we are about as exposed as we’re going to get. This makes many of us at least a little bit uncomfortable. What are those awful secrets each of us is convinced no one could accept?

All
of us have less-than-perfect bodies, less-than-perfect families, less-than-perfect finances, and less-than-perfect idiosyncratic behavior. Instead of seeing our flaws and struggles as part of being human, we see them as a source of tremendous shame. In fact some of us are so ashamed of ourselves and our circumstances that we live in terror of being revealed. This causes us to hide much of our real life from the world. We keep the terrible truth a secret: an alcoholic parent, a troubled sibling, a child’s medical problems, our own financial problems, a struggle with substance abuse, a terrible scar, a learning disability, a spotty job history, an eating disorder, an embarrassing relationship history.

Why do some of us need to keep secrets like this? Why is being less than perfect so shameful? Not everyone with a less-than-perfect life tries so hard to cover it up. But some of us can’t imagine anyone normal and desirable accepting us if they saw all the skeletons in our closet. The things we keep secret make us feel like damaged goods.

This kind of belief system tends to reflect not only underlying
narcissistic conflicts but also powerful fears of abandonment. Psychology tells us that when a little child feels emotionally or physically abandoned by its mother or father, the child’s thinking is not sophisticated enough to understand the many factors that could be pulling its parents away. The most common conclusion a small child is likely to reach is this: “I must have done something wrong; I deserve to be abandoned.” Given this perception, the child is likely to believe that if it can become perfect, hiding all of its problems and perceived shortcomings from the parents, it won’t be abandoned anymore.

The child then carries this “personal fiction” into adulthood and into all of his or her adult relationships. Often these feelings, as we will see, are instrumental in propelling us into very unfortunate relationships.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL COMMITMENT ISSUES

For each of us there may be several reasons to prefer to stay away from committed relationships. When a forty-three-year-old man worries about taking on the responsibilities of adulthood, we are less than sympathetic, but if a twenty-three-year-old expresses the same sentiments, they make perfect sense. Age, economics, remaining educational goals—all of these provide realistic circumstantial reasons why commitment may not yet be a sound choice. But there are other special circumstances that may also keep one from looking for a permanent relationship.

The Fear of Creating More Problems

Consider someone like Maxine, a single mother with an attitude that she perceives, perhaps rightfully, as both temporary and self-protective. Maxine says that she is completely conscious of her efforts to ward off commitment. She explains:

“It’s the three children. They have such a close relationship with their father that I know if I get involved with another man, they would resent it deeply. I can see it whenever I go out on a date. I suppose if I had only one child, or if my children were younger, or if my ex-husband were less involved, the chaos that
would follow my getting involved with someone would be worth it. But right now, with teenagers, it isn’t. I figure once the kids are out of the house, then I can think about finding someone long-term. In the meantime I know what would happen. And my children are too important to me.

“Some of my friends tell me that this is an excuse and that I’m still involved with my ex-husband, but I
know
that’s not the case. I’ve seen what happens when someone with several children remarries. It happened to my cousin. She married a nice enough guy, but he couldn’t adjust to the children, the children couldn’t adjust to him, she was torn in half, the children suffered. Now her kids are very resentful, and she has a terrible family problem. That’s not for me.”

Maxine is very clear that she is making a choice, and for her right now it feels like the right choice.

The Fear of Giving Up a Good Lifestyle

If you’re happy, if your life is working, if you don’t feel lonely, and if you feel that you have a satisfying life, you may be afraid of rocking the boat by looking for a commitment. For many people this makes perfect sense. Zoe, forty-six, says:

“For the first time in my life everything is working. I love my work, I love where I live, I love my friends…. I love my life. Why would I want to change it now? I’m not going to have children, and that’s okay with me. I’m old enough not to get involved with any jerks. It may change, but right now I’m happy the way I am.”

One cannot fault such logic. When your life is working, it’s working. As Zoe points out, her attitude may change, but right now she is circumstantially unavailable for commitment.

The Fear of Making Another Mistake

If you have married badly one or more times, you may have a circumstantial fear of making the same mistake all over again. This attitude was repeated to us many times by those who claim to suffer from cirrhosis of the heart. If you’ve been burned on commitment too many times, you may be more than gun-shy about
the prospect of yet another attempt at permanent union. They say that after a bad experience or two a little self-protective voice cries out,
Hey, you can’t do this to me again
.

The Fear of the Financial Implications of Commitment

Many people have a fair number of fears concerning how their money situation will be affected by a committed relationship. These fears may not seem realistic to you, but try telling that to someone who has been divorced several times and gone through the hassle of dividing or giving up assets. You don’t have to go through a divorce to be afraid of the financial implications of commitment. When you’re committed, you’re responsible. Some people, both men and women, take that responsibility very seriously. They worry about having enough to cover emergencies. They worry that if one person gets sick, the other will bear the burden. Older people marrying for the second time worry how this marriage will affect their children’s financial rights. Let’s not forget those folks who are a bit squeamish about sharing in general. The idea that someone might actually expect them to be generous can be extremely threatening.

The Fear That There Is No Room in Your Life for Another Person

Working day and night to establish your career; studying day and night to get the degree you think you need; struggling day and night to get your business off the ground—demands like these sometimes make us feel that we have little left to give. We’re barely able to relate to the television set and the sickly looking cactus on the windowsill in the kitchen. Who would want to make a commitment to us? We’re simply not fit for human companionship at this time in our lives. Maybe someday, but not now.

This is an attitude we hear more and more, particularly from professional, goal-oriented, men and women who say they don’t have time to meet appropriate partners.

The Fear of the Realistic Burdens of Marriage and a Family

Many of us carry images in our heads of a successful couple sitting in a large, well-furnished space, a pricey Range Rover in the garage, entertaining exciting friends while their adorable toddlers frolic happily nearby. Not only is the couple committed, they are madly in love, incredibly successful, and overwhelmingly rich. They have romantic vacations, unlimited resources, and superb household support. If we ever get married and think about raising a family, this is what we want for ourselves.

But while these images flitter through our heads, we carry with us another, more realistic, attitude. Sexual stereotyping and life experience may combine to make you afraid of certain types of realistic roles you may think you will be expected to play. Women, for example, may fear getting stuck with an unfair share of household chores and child care. Men may worry about assuming the larger share of financial responsibilities. Statistics tell us that both of these fears are founded in reality. Since most of us know women who are solid breadwinners while they are
also
taking their turns in the carpool, this is also a realistic possibility. Many of us also know men who are trying to earn a living
while
balancing babies on their knees. Do you have a nagging little voice asking if you really want a pabulum-stained suit to be part of your personal image? Does the idea of trying to handle the financial responsibilities of a family on your salary make you tremble? Then you may have some realistic concerns about commitment.

UNDERSTANDABLE FEARS, INAPPROPRIATE CHOICES

If you identified with any of the above fears—and who doesn’t?—then the next step is to figure out whether these fears may be playing a critical role in determining your pattern in relationships. Are your fears driving you away from good choices and pushing you toward inappropriate partners? That’s what the
next chapter
is all about.

CHAPTER NINE

Understanding How Your Conflict Works

The fears discussed in the last chapter express only part of the commitment conflict. But there’s another part: Most of us still want the love and security of long-term relationships. In short we both want and fear stable, permanent relationships. This can provoke amazingly contradictory feelings and behavior. What this all too often means is that while our desire drives us to keep looking for and form relationships, our fears are dictating our choices and our behavior in these relationships.

COMMITMENT WISH + COMMITMENT FEAR = BAD CHOICE

In this chapter we have set up a system to help you figure out how your conflicts might be driving you away from good choices and leading you toward partnerships that are ultimately unsatisfying or hurtful. To do this, we’re going to use a variation of the same list of fears that we discussed in the last chapter. But this time we’re going to phrase these fears differently so that they highlight the conflict. For example, I
want a commitment, but I don’t want to make a mistake
. Each statement will express two separate thoughts: (a) a wish for a committed relationship (“I want a commitment …”); and (b) a fear that reflects a specific reservation (“But I don’t want to make a mistake”).