Mr Big and Carrie: The most famous Mr Unavailable and Fallback Girl of all time?
June 16, 2008 by NML · 26 Comments
If you plan to watch Sex and The City: The Movie, I suggest you don’t read this post because the ending is discussed!
A couple of weeks ago, I went to finally see the movie version of what I regard as one of my favourite programmes of all time. I’m not a woman who believed that I was one of the characters but I did identify with aspects of each of these women. When Carrie got her great big fairy tale ending at the registry office with Big at the end though, there is no other way to describe this, but I was fuming and extremely disappointed!
Now I’m not the responsibility police and these women are hardly role models, however the Sex and The City movie would have been a far more empowering story for women if Carrie had told that emotionally unavailable, flip flapping, good for nothing, Mr Big to go take a run and jump. In fact, I would have applauded if she had gone to the apartment, hurled herself into his arms, shagged him, and then bade him goodbye and walked out of the penthouse with her head held high, leaving him dazed and confused!
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Relationship advice: Why is she the girlfriend and I’m the Fallback Girl/Other Woman?
June 13, 2008 by NML · 10 Comments
Cheryl has been in touch with me on and off since last year. Here’s the situation:
Cheryl has a male friend, let’s call him Bob. Bob and Cheryl have been ‘friends’ for several years. She has supported him emotionally through his various trials and tribulations and was in love with him the whole time, but knew that he didn’t want a relationship. Naturally, being a Mr Unavailable, Bob not only had an ego massage on tap, but they also started sleeping together.
Cheryl assumed that by sticking at his side and showing her support, that she would be first in line when his various problems were sorted and he was ready for a relationship. In true Mr Unavailable style though, he announced that he had a girlfriend towards the end of last year…
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Relationship Advice: He’s abusive and possibly a narcissist but I love him. Will he change?
June 12, 2008 by NML · 7 Comments
Steph recently contacted me with regards to her ex boyfriend. They broke up more than six months ago but she can’t get over it. Like the typical Mr Unavailable, there was an amazing first month and then he seemed to transform into a bit of a nightmare.
He could be verbally abusive, flying into rages, lying, suddenly only having time for partying with his friends, abusing alcohol and drugs, and even occasional physical attacks on his friends (yeah I know, this guy is a real catch!). He even claims that he owns the town and can make her life hell, which may go beyond the usual ‘narcissistic tendencies’ I associate with typical Mr Unavallable’s.
Steph blames herself for the end of their relationship and rationalises his behaviour with the belief that “nobody is perfect”.
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Reader story: He did me a favour by cutting contact.
June 11, 2008 by NML · 7 Comments
Dee has kindly shared her thoughts on The No Contact Rule and she is a great example of how you can turn the tables on him and your negative experience and gain something really positive - YOU.
“My No Contact actually began by HIM cutting off contact with me…. completely! The relationship ended over a heated argument/situation. I panicked, called incessantly, text messaged etc, and he stopped replying or never replied at all.
I then came to my senses and stopped the madness!
Now I am thankful that he cut off all contact because he did me a favour - I’m grateful for it!
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Guest post: Love’s Antihero - Insatiable Restless Souls
June 5, 2008 by NML · 2 Comments
I had to share this poem written by Baggage Reclaim reader Elizabeth Scott a Fallback Girl who has been reading this blog for the past six months. She wanted to say thank you and share her poem, which captures the essence of the emotional stone wall, that is being involved with a Mr Unavailable.
Running from the arms of one yet to another
Desperate for love, but afraid to smother
Restless souls whose passion briefly burns bright
Quickly fading to ash in the dawn of real love’s light
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How to end up being the Other Woman
May 21, 2008 by NML · 3 Comments
on this post
I’m currently working on the chapter about the Other Woman for my book Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, and I have put together a list of reasons why the Other Woman may find herself in this dubious understudy role:
You’ll find yourself in this dubious understudy role if:
You have had a painful break-up or divorce that has left you feeling distrusting of relationships or men.
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Carrying Men’s Excess Emotional Baggage (Part 2) It’s time to check in your baggage at Baggage Reclaim!
May 12, 2008 by NML · 13 Comments
In part one I talked about why excess emotional baggage is a recipe for overloading the emotional plane and in part two I show you why it is so damaging and give you a way to access whether you are ‘overweight’ in the baggage department…..This is another excerpt from the soon to be published Mr Unavailable & the Fallback Girl….
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Carrying Men’s Excess Emotional Baggage (Part 1)
May 8, 2008 by NML · 14 Comments
In another little excerpt from Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl Book Two, I talk about adding more baggage onto your already overflowing load….
I doubt that there is anyone on this earth that can claim to have no emotional baggage, but there’s baggage…and there’s BAGGAGE! Not only do you love men that scream “Help me!” or “I’m really f*cked up!” but you love letting these men put their baggage ahead of you. So when he has a girlfriend, a wife, a gazillion kids, a babymother, an ex girlfriend that he is still secretly or even openly pining for, something in your brain goes “Ping!” and you’re all over him like a rash. When men put us down their list of priorities, it caters to that voice that follows millions of women with “You’re not good enough” and you then make it your vocation to get him to prove that you are good enough by moving you up the chain and throwing off some of his baggage.
The trouble with taking on men with baggage is that you go into overload mode because you are already carrying far too much baggage of your own. However his baggage detracts from your baggage so you don’t have to look too closely at yourself, but baggage does attract baggage. It doesn’t have to be like for like but you have to have some issues of your own to be willing to take on a crash landing waiting to happen…
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Are we dating our fathers? That familiar “daddy feeling”
May 7, 2008 by NML · 14 Comments
In another excerpt from Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl: Book Two (I promise to explain the when’s, how’s and the delay), I explore the all too familiar “daddy feeling” - Basing many of your relationships and dating choices on unresolved issues and beliefs that derive from your relationship (or lack thereof) with your father and unknowingly creating a familiar comfortable (yet still uncomfortable) feeling in your adult relationships.
“With parental relationships, it can all be about setting the tone. You may or may not have a good relationship with your mother, but your chances of having a bad relationship with yourself and future partners, further increases with a dubious interaction with your own father or strong male figure.
The pattern of systematically being involved with emotionally unavailable men can be deep rooted due to patterns that we have learnt in our childhood. It doesn’t have to be an absentee father or a ‘bad’ father; it may just be that the significant male figure in our life didn’t express his emotions or made you work hard for his attentions and affections, and for all intents and purposes, he was emotionally unavailable.
It’s called going after what you know.
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Betting On Potential in Relationships
May 6, 2008 by NML · 13 Comments
This is an excerpt from…Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl Book Two. Yes it has been delayed a bit…more on that very soon but here is an excerpt from the chapter ‘Betting on Potential’ - one of the recurrent destructive behaviours that keep Fallback Girls rooted in dubious relationships…
“Potential is something that should be derived from the promise of actual actions that have already occurred, not the blinkered fairy tale in your head. Potential is about the potential of the relationship, NOT the potential of what the guy could be if only x, y, and z were to occur. Here is the difference:
You should see potential in a relationship that has the positive hallmarks of a relationship with direction. This normally occurs because both parties are getting to know each other, there is consistency, there is no ambiguity, there is communication of feelings, and both parties have both their feet in the relationship.
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