Emotion Denied
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 21, 2013
Whether you feel so strongly that you can’t figure out where your emotions are trying to take you or so rejected that you can’t let your feelings take you anywhere, you know the name of the website so pointing out how stupid it is to rely on feelings would be redundant. What does help, however, is to get in touch with the deeper values in your life that make it meaningful to make painful compromises in close relationships. Once you know what these values are, you can always find a compromise to respect, regardless of how it makes you feel (or how we feel about feeling in general), and take action that makes you proud.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been in a relationship with the same guy for the last eight years—we met when we were in high school and have been together ever since. We live together and have talked seriously about getting married and starting a family, but I am not sure I want any of this with him anymore. In recent months (and I’m not sure whether this is a cause or symptom of how I feel about my future with my boyfriend) I’ve developed a giant crush on a guy at work– I really, really like this guy, in a way I didn’t think possible outside of high school, to the point where I wish I (and he) were single. But this crush also makes me feel horrible – I feel like I am slowly but surely destroying my relationship, I worry that I am just going to hurt my boyfriend, and to top it all off I know deep down that I will never be with the guy at work (for various reasons – he has a girlfriend, I’m not really sure he likes me in that way, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t ever date a co-worker anyway). So I don’t know what to do. I love my boyfriend and I still want to be with him right now, but this has made me think that we maybe aren’t going to work out in the long run. On the other hand, the thought of leaving him to live alone is really scary/sad – I don’t have a lot of friends who live nearby, so I think I’d just be by myself a lot, which would be incredibly depressing. I also just don’t think any place would feel like home without him, although I’m not certain this isn’t because I have no idea what life would be like without him. So it just seems pointless to leave what really is a good relationship to live alone and sad, as it is unlikely (as I said above) that my crush and I would ever get together. So, my goal is to determine what I can fix in my relationship with my boyfriend so we can move forward into the future, and to get over my work crush so he and I can just remain friends.
Maybe people who get big crushes need to get their wishes granted, at least once, and have a love affair with someone who ends up breaking their heart and crushing their notion that love is the most important thing in the world.
Without that big heart-break, they can’t break out of the same cycle that you’re in—trying to figure out whether a big crush will run rampant and break up your current partnership without your having any control over it or getting anything good out of it.
In other words, you know you’re in trouble when you have the same sort of fears about having a crush that you do for getting bitten by a zombie.
It doesn’t help that you don’t mention any goal other than love; the more you care about the bigger things, like a career or family, the more reason you have to size up a partner in terms of his impact on what you want to do with your life, rather than just on your feelings. If you haven’t been lucky enough to experience such a goal—you’re not passionate about having kids or your job—love expands into the vacuum left by the fact that love is all you want.
A positive step would be trying to strengthen your sense of where you stand with life, apart from the strong feelings you have for a couple guys you know. No, of course you can’t force yourself to know what you want, but you can exercise your mental muscles for individuality and independence by asking yourself certain questions and discussing them with a friend or therapist.
Consider what you want a guy for, other than company when you’re lonely, sex and/or someone to love, and where you want to be in ten years. Push uncomfortable questions on yourself as a way of practicing being an individual facing life alone, like how you’d get through a period of serious poverty or illness on your own. Remember, you’re not trying to discover inner feelings; you’re trying to force yourself to face tough risks and find something that you value other than feeling good.
If you keep plucking daisy petals and ruminating about do-I, don’t-I-love-him, you’ll enhance their importance without getting closer to the things in your life that should be more important, so put down the daisy and take a good long look at the dangerous world you live in and the limited time you have ahead. Then start talking and thinking about the alternatives that will give you the most satisfaction, regardless of whether you’re loved or alone.
In the end, you’ll respect yourself more and have a much better chance of finding a love that works and lasts, which is to say, a love built on so much more than love itself.
STATEMENT:
“I feel torn by love and afraid to make a decision about whom to be with, knowing that my heart could easily betray me. In truth, however, I will be able to make a good choice once I have a better idea of where I want to go in life and develop a commitment other than love to be my guide.”
I respect my father because he’s a good man and totally committed to our family, but he was more distant with me than with my sister, and it hurt. I kept my negative feelings to myself, however, until about five years ago, when I’d had too much to drink at a Thanksgiving dinner and he happened to be doting on my sister, and I let him have it. Since then, there’s been an icy silence. I’ve reached out to him, told him I’m sorry, explained I really want a closer relationship, and he just gets quiet and doesn’t look at me and never answers the phone when I call. It’s gotten me down, and I wonder if it’s time for me to give up on him and stop calling. My goal is to figure out why our relationship bothers me so much and I just can’t make it better.
It’s tough to get worn down by an icy-cold, ice-age-long grudge from someone you love, and it’s natural to think that the best long-term solution for protecting your self-esteem and ending your pain is to deliver a hearty kiss-off. The trouble, however, is that a kiss-off doesn’t do justice to your love and good will for your father, and instead draws you into the infectious nastiness he’s trying to send your way. Fortunately, there’s a better method for managing your relationship, even after your failed kiss-off has resulted in a blow-off of epic proportions.
Instead of telling him you’ve had it with his silent treatment, tell yourself that you’ve done a good job, even if you haven’t been able to convince him that he’s been unfair to you or that you deserve better, and know you probably never will. If your goal is to live in a fair universe and find the words to get through to your dad, however, then you need an expert in space exploration, not a shrink.
If, however, you can accept the sadness and unfairness of his distance, you may be able to thaw his icy heart a bit more, without hurting yourself nearly as much as you’ve done so far. All you have to do is give up your accusations and demands for an emotional heart-to-heart, and tell him that you think he’s done a great job, you love him, and how about them sports. Don’t lie, just eliminate the negative and any request for emotional sharing since you know he’s allergic to both. Tell him whatever you honestly can that’s positive, then quickly change the subject, drop the eye contact, and talk to someone else.
There’s no guarantee, of course, that this method will warm him up. What it will do, however, is give you protection from your own yearnings and the repeated rejections you’re enduring while also giving you a chance to say what you would most regret not saying. Delivered with enough manly restraint and deliberate friendly disregard for his response, you may make him comfortable enough to express the love you know is there, but which makes him squirm.
With luck, you’ll see signs of global warming, i.e., he won’t leave the table the moment you sit down or continue to avoid your calls, but if he still freezes you out, you’ll have lost very little and gained the satisfaction of sending him off in your own loving way.
STATEMENT:
“I’ll always feel sad that my father and I couldn’t connect, but I know it has nothing to do with me and I’m determined my disappointment won’t make our distance worse. I’ll try to make him comfortable while honoring what I admire about him in the hope that he can put aside his fear and anger and get some satisfaction from our relationship before it’s all over.”
