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Conference quark::human_relations-v1

Title:	What's all this fuss about 'sax and violins'?
Notice:	Archived V1 - Current conference is QUARK::HUMAN_RELATIONS
Moderator:	ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI

Created:	Fri May 09 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Jun 26 1996
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1327
Total number of notes:	28298

898.0. "How do I live for the future?" by QUARK::HR_MODERATOR () Tue Nov 07 1989 13:13

    The following topic has been contributed by a member of our community
    who wishes to remain anonymous.  If you wish to contact the author by
    mail, please send your message to QUARK::HR_MODERATOR, specifying the
    conference name and note number. Your message will be forwarded with
    your name attached  unless you request otherwise.

				Steve







    I am twenty nine years old, male and live in England, and I want to try
    and  share with you a trauma concerning my life, which has always or at
    least for  the past two and a half years haunted me.

    When I was twenty-five (four years ago) I went to share a house with a
    girl,  whom owned the house. In the following nine months I went
    through an awful lot of personal traumas concerning my health, my job
    and my family.

    All of this time the girl concerned was very supportive and very
    caring, and as  a result of all the pressures I myself became very
    reclusive spending more and  more time around the house.

    After a while the obvious happened and we became involved, but really I
    was  just very insecure and very vunerable at the time and didn't
    realise what had  been going on, namely that she had been manipulating
    my weaknesses to draw me closer to her.

    We became involved for a shortish period of time, but really I could
    never  settle and became unhappy in myself and when I told her I wanted
    to stop, she turned into the type of person I had never seen before,
    storming around the  house, screaming, begging me to marry her !@# and
    so forth.

    Never having witnessed anything like this before I felt totally
    confused, and having kept our involvement secret from others,
    conscious as I was of the way we had met and the fact that she was
    technically my landlady though we had shared the mortgage,I didn't
    know how to discuss it with anyone else.

    The problem as I am now told through counselling was that the
    behaviours she was exhibiting were clear signs of obsession, but like
    a fool I didn't  recognise that and felt guilt at causing her upset and
    stayed around and tried  to treat her behaviours with kindness and
    caring, and a lesson I know in retrospect is that you simply can't
    treat obsession with kindness and caring as it simply makes matters
    worse.

    Why didn't I just leave? Well somehow I was from her behaviours
    concerned  about the likely consequences, about whether she would
    really carry out her threat to kill herself and so forth, and felt it
    better to handle the situation  from where I was.

    She was by the way a few years older than myself though she had lied to
    me  about her age when we were together, anyway cut a very long story
    short but I ended up diffusing her, but she used her dependency upon
    me as a lever to  persuade me to stay while we both got on with our own
    lives separately, but I am pretty sure that she continued to tell her
    friends we were together.

    Eventually we went our separate ways, and she met and married someone,
    for at  the end of the day that was what she was really looking for,
    while I went on to build a fabulous life for myself. 

    I have had some wonderful girlfriends since then, attractive girls of
    my own  age, however, the problem I have had ever since is that I have
    been unable to  take any relationship beyond a certain point, I get so
    close to someone and I just walk away, and I really don't know how to
    overcome this barrier.

    I feel very sad in myself for all of my actions were in kindness and
    caring,  and I have so much love inside of me, and have dreamed for so
    long of meeting someone special and holding down a loving relationship,
    but I don't know if I  will ever cross this hurdle and yet I know I
    must cross it if I am to live my  own life.

    As I say I am taking counselling, and beginning to talk to other
    people,  including girlfriends, but really I can't convince myself that
    anyone might  accept it. I also feel bad about myself for though I
    acted in faith and out of kindness I feel ashamed that I let myself
    get so badly manipulated, or ensnared.

    I think that in some ways you have to take the other view that I can
    learn so much from this event and from my own susceptibility that I
    can derive strength to build myself into a better and stronger person.

    In some ways perhaps it can be described as simply a love affair that
    turned sour, for at the time we became involved I felt that I did love
    her, but it was when I realised that it was only affection which I
    felt that things really turned sour.

    I believe that deep down I am a very strong person, and that perhaps is
    why I  was able to take the consequences of obsession without breaking,
    but also I am conscious that I was to soft on the outside and it was
    that combination that is the root of my problems.

    I am a good looking chap with a wonderful zest for life and a spirit of 
    deep down happiness that won't go away and I just want to be able to
    share it with someone special.

    Any advice gratefully recieved.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
898.2		ICESK8::KLEINBERGER	Satin and Velvet	`Tue Nov 07 1989 17:04`	30
	I hate to agree with Eagle.. but as I was reading your basenote, I was thinking EXACTLY the same EXACT thing, that you have just described what maybe 87% of all divorcee's go through, or are going through. Counseling will help to some point, but in the end, its just you that is going to have to jump the hurdle yourself... I can only speak for myself, and that is, you describe me to a "T"... and yes, I went through 3 years of counseling, and yes, I still pull back today, and won't "fight" for what I want in life when it comes to relationships... I'm just too frightened to ever really love anyone the way I would like too. I'm not too worried about it though, I figured that if it is right, then he and I will work through it together, because if something is worth having in your life, they will be willing to help you work through it... Meanwhile, enjoy the relationships that you do have, and learn from each of them, and when its right, then work on that last hurdle... it will be the hardest to get over, but I'm told from those that have conquered it, they have considered it worth it. I understand your position, take some courage from the fact that you are not alone, and that others are struggling with exactly what you have and are and will be going through. There are no real answers, but the answers are within you, for when you are ready, the answers will come out... at least that is what I was and still continue to be told. Gale
898.3		ACESMK::CHELSEA	Mostly harmless.	`Tue Nov 07 1989 17:09`	31
	Re: .0 >I also feel bad about myself for though I acted in faith and out of >kindness I feel ashamed that I let myself get so badly manipulated, or >ensnared. Some people know exactly how to use kindness in others. Most people are socially conditioned to avoid confrontation and unpleasant scenes. When we find our selves in the midst of this, we react by placating the disruptive force in order to get out of a socially uncomfortable situation. Chances are, you did what you did to avoid hurting someone else. Chances are, you got caught by somebody who was very good at what she did, somebody who had lots of practice manipulating others. It wouldn't be at all surprising if you feel "once bitten, twice shy." I'm not sure how you would best overcome this. Obviously, going out and meeting people is a good move. Perhaps you could consider how you've changed. You said you went through a number of traumas when you met her; now, perhaps, you're not as needy as you were at that time. Perhaps you're not likely to develop an emotional dependency that would feed an obsession. And now you have some idea of what to avoid and what the bad signs are. Perhaps you could spend time figuring out what you need from life. Then you have a way to determine if your needs are being met. If you don't really know what you want from life, it can be difficult to articulate what's wrong or why you're not happy. I know it seems silly to say "Don't worry about it" since you're obviously at least a little worried. But try not to feel like time is running out. Chances are you'll live another 50-60 years. In the long run, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference if you have 54 or 55 years together.
898.5	try for a positive experience	YODA::BARANSKI	Happiness is a warm rock in the sun	`Tue Nov 07 1989 23:45`	12
	Don't you hate it when you describe your sure-it's-fatal malady to your doctor, and he yawns and says 'typical ... symdrome, take 2 asprins, call me in the morning'? :-) I won't say typical, because I don't know enough to say. I will say that I've had the most success when faced by a fear or habit by bulling on through it. If you can succeed in getting past the fear the first time, it's downhill from there. Having an understanding ear helps to preserve your sanity. You can deempathize a failure in the past with a success now. Jim.
898.6	Ask yourself this...	POGO::REINBOLD		`Wed Nov 08 1989 00:21`	26
	Ask yourself this question: How many relationships do you REALLY REGRET walking away from? In most cases, I think a person walks away from a relationship when it starts to get close, because the relationship really isn't right for them. How many of those relationships were just right, and the woman was just what you wanted, but you just couldn't take it anymore? Really be picky about those women when you look back. If you can say, "she was really nice, and really considerate BUT..." and fill in anything you didn't like about her or the relationship, no matter how trivial it may seem, it probably was not really right for you. Was she too wimpy, too aggressive, not sexy enough, not a good dresser, too sloppy, too neat, a spendthrift, too narrow-minded? Some of us are just very picky. We can sometimes blame ourselves, and ask ourselves what's wrong with us when the answer is "Nothing." It just wasn't Right. If you are really walking out on good women for no reason except fear, then counselling should help. Don't be too hard on yourself. Good Luck! Paula
898.7	A brief interruption from the base note...	ICESK8::KLEINBERGER	Satin and Velvet	`Wed Nov 08 1989 12:09`	58
	.4> Boy, we sure have come a long way since Friends.Note haven't we .4> MS. Kleinburger (sic) ??? There was a time when Eagles weren't such .4> nasty, rotten birds. But that just goes to show you what 3 years .4> of not having counseling does for old men who try to think young. Steve... (mind if I use your real name here?).. I don't think that is the issue. I think the three years allowed for growth that some people either choose to use, or not to use. I'm not saying that either of us have grown or not grown, I'm just saying that maybe one of us has a different perspective on life then we did from the old days of friends.note. Is that bad or good? Guess it depends on how one addresses the outlooks they had, versus the outlooks they now have... doesn't _exactly_ make one a nasty, rotten person, just makes one a different person, with views that they didn't have three years ago. If you believe you fall into the nasty, rotten person category, then that is only you that can decide, and can decide what, if anything, to do about it. .4> So you prefer to keep even former Friends at arm's length with a .4> few well-chosen words intended to hurt the other person and prevent .4> any chance that the other person will like you and thus you will .4> not get hurt again? Is this the tactics they teach in counseling? What is taught is counseling is only a guideline to take and adjust to how it fits into your life. Counseling, if done right, does not give you answers, just gently leads you to the answers you already have, you just might not have the perspective to get to those answers. It also allows you to talk about how to act on the answers you have come to. If doing the above is the right answer for a person, then perhaps that is an avenue that person has to take on occasion. The above might allow a person to grow in an avenue that the person needs. As long as the person can recognize what they are doing, know why they are doing it, and learn, then perhaps the above is even an okay scenario for a period in their life when they need that protection. .4> Brother Gary once said you will need 2 or 3 years to get over a .4> divorce - and the only difference between having s psychologist .4> and NOT having a psychologist is (1) it co$t$ lot$ more, and (2) .4> there will be somebody around who will listen to you after you .4> have driven away all the old friends you won't be able to get .4> along with anymore now that you are no longer half of a couple. Well, brother Gary is right in the year spans... what he is wrong about is the rationale behind a psychologist... I contend that a psychologist is a path to use to help one grow through a period that they might not be able to grow through without some direction in their life. .4> ~--e--~ Eagles_Never_Did_Get_Past_the_Driving_People_Away_Phase... When YOU are ready to work on it, and have the strength to work on it, I'm sure you'll get over that hurdle. Meanwhile, if you ever need the name of a good psychologist, don't be afraid to ask, there are several of us in this file who would even drive you to theirs :-)... Gale