Single Objective

Posted by fxckfeelings on March 19, 2012

Everyone knows how hard it is to find someone to love who will love you back for who you really are, but few people acknowledge how much they’re willing to hide themselves in order to make a one-sided relationship seem reciprocal. If the person you’re with can’t deal with your faults, you shouldn’t make yourself deal with trying to be faultless. Better to end something with Mr. Right and be alone than stay with someone who thinks you’re just Ms. Meh.
–Dr. Lastname

I lost the love of my life by hanging on to her too hard, and now I’m trying to let go in order to get her back. We had a good relationship for 2 years and I was always able to ignore the fact that she didn’t love me the way I loved her, even though she sometimes shoved me to the periphery of her life. We spent lots of time together because we shared common interests, and I should have been content with that. Instead, I lost control one night and told her how angry I felt, and she said it’s over because she didn’t want more drama in her life. Now, when I run into her, I try to be friendly but distant, because I know that any reaching out will cause her to back off. My goal is to get her back, and I wonder whether there’s anything else I can do.

It’s relatively easy to get love started, but it’s much harder to sustain it, and even harder to survive it.

That’s because there are lots of ways to control initial attractiveness, from a slick haircut to an arsenal of clever pick-up lines. Once chemistry is established, however, no haircut can contain or control it. Even couples therapists have the same divorce rate as the rest of us.

So, regardless of how much you want a relationship, respect the basics, one of which is that you must both be able to accept one another when you’re at your least attractive. We’re all dancing bears who can look graceful and cute for a long time but eventually have to get down on all fours.

If your significant other runs away when you start to make simple demands, lose your temper, or just fart, you’re in trouble that can’t be cured. Put a lid on the addictive side of your need for her and ask yourself whether she can ever give you basic acceptance, and if she can’t, don’t blame yourself for the fact that your rear legs alone are not strong enough to hold your weight forever. Relationships like this basically test one partner to see how long they can hold their breath, over and over again; no matter how long you can hold out, eventually, you need to come up for air.

Learn your lesson; that pursuing someone who does not accept the real you is worse than living alone…except, of course, for shrinks like me, who make our living off people who have not yet learned this fact of life.

You had good reason to be angry, but not at her. You gave yourself the impossible task of winning someone who could never be won, instead of finding someone who, for some inexplicable reason, finds you naturally winning.

Yes, you need to live alone until you find someone who meets this all-important criterion. Until then, get a dog, find a hobby, and enjoy the fresh air.

STATEMENT:
“I feel as if my anger and neediness have driven my partner away, but I have always known that our relationship is not strong enough to tolerate my darker feelings. However obnoxious these darker feelings are, I know I could tolerate them in someone else if I loved them, and I realize I need someone who can tolerate them in me. I have no power to make a relationship work that lacks acceptance. I do have the power to recognize acceptance when I see it and tolerate loneliness until I find it.”

I thought my boyfriend and I were very close and on the path to getting married, until one day, when he suddenly get a nervous look in his eye and told me he was really sorry, but he thought he needed a break. I agreed, because I knew he’d married young and had left his marriage because he felt he and his wife didn’t really connect, and I wanted him to be sure that our relationship was what he really wanted. When he came back, after a week, I congratulated myself on doing the right thing and thought we’d weathered the crisis pretty well. What’s wrong is that it’s happened again and, this time, he says he isn’t coming back. I feel horrible, can’t stop thinking about him, and don’t know whether to reach out or give him even more room, hoping he’ll change his mind. My real goal is to get him back.

There are certain, very likeable people who can’t tolerate close relationships, don’t necessarily know it, and sure don’t show it. They think the periodic break-ups of their long-term relationships are due to falling out of love, discovering unacceptable flaws, reacting to being smothered, or any number of reasons that take the blame off of their shoulders. If you’re unlucky enough to be their special someone, they seem perfectly committed right up until they break your heart.

This isn’t mixed feelings—mixed feelings are easy to spot—but a flip-flop from love-to-see-you to I-gotta-go. It’s one sincere part of the personality taking over from another.

So don’t feel you should have seen it coming. Going forward, however, you now know to screen out guys who don’t have a good reason for leaving their prior relationships, e.g., she walked out, was shooting up, or tried to kill the cat. I fell out of love is a red, red flag (falling for a possible cat-killer isn’t so hot, either, but “I fell out of love” is worse).

It’s not a question of whether you can get him back, but of whether he could do you any good. The answer is that he can’t, but it’s not personal. That doesn’t stop your wanting him, particularly because his prior personality was such a good, responsive, loving friend, but that personality has left the building. Now you’ve got a mountain of yearning to endure and ignore.

Go ahead, if you need to, and try whatever you think will get him back (short of killing his cat). The trick you’ll eventually learn is that it’s better to convince yourself, not that he’s gone, but that you didn’t do anything wrong and that you don’t deserve this.

In the long run, your memory of this debacle will help you choose better next time, which is what you deserve, while his lack of memory and broken character will keep him falling in and out of love until he falls off the face of the earth.

STATEMENT:
“I feel bereft and can’t stop myself from thinking of ways to get him back. I know, however, that I need and deserve someone I can count on and that this guy is disqualified. Meanwhile, I’ve got to expect short-term sorrow and long-term loneliness while I get back my strength and independence.”