Astelle, a regular reader of the site commented yesterday “I still believe that for some of these emotionally unavailable men (Mr Unavailables), control is more important to them than actually being with you, I think due to the narcissistic tendencies.
Could you post something about it?
Looking back, my clown is a narcissist, I have no doubt and me chasing him was all about control for him and I have no doubt that in his sick twisted mind he still expects to hear from me.”
Well, it is about control for Mr Unavailables but much as we may not like to hear it, it is just as much about control for Fallback Girls, it’s just that one is more successful at it because one is devoid of empathy and concern with an overinflated ego, and the other is overflowing with the wrong emotions and attitudes due to low self-esteem.
Always remember: Emotional unavailability is not a one way issue. If you are there habitually and you don’t tell these guys to take a run and jump as soon as you note their poor relationship behaviour, you are emotionally unavailable and you have poor relationship habits.
Two things that make Fallback Girls particularly guilty of control:
Betting on potential – Having an assclown in front of you who has occasional glimmers of charm or who hasn’t shown a decent side to him since he’d wooed you in the early days, and deciding that because you love him, and because you’ve got a fantasy of him in mind, you’ll bet on potential.
I Can Change Him syndrome – The quintessential situation of trying to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. You refuse to accept the reality of him and decide that because you are at his side and because you love him that you will get him to change.
For Mr Unavailable, he likes to be in control of the situation even though he doesn’t want you.
He is a dog in a manger – He doesn’t want you but he doesn’t want you to not want him and only wants you to stop wanting him when he decides it. This is where the narcissistic tendencies spring from.
This is why he blows hot when he wants to reel you in, blows cold when he wants to manage down your expectations so that you stop wanting, needing, or expecting anything from him, and then starts blowing hot again whenever he thinks he’s in danger of losing you and your ego stroke, or when he needs to manipulate the relationship back to a comfortable level. He doesn’t like things too good, and he doesn’t like things too bad. He likes things just right…for him.
He is deluded, he no matter how many times you tell him to take a run and jump, probably still thinks you want him, which is why, he may turn up 20 years later playing the childhood sweetheart card if you knew him in your younger years.
However, you, as a Fallback Girl are just as guilty of control, and yes, sometimes even manipulation; you just try to control different things.
You want to control your experience. You say you want a great man and a relationship but you have a hidden, sometimes even unknown to you agenda where you choose men that reflect negative things you believe about yourself. This way, choosing crappy guys, you get to fulfil the self-fulfilling prophecy, avoid change, and avoid confronting your problems.
You want to control with your ‘love’. Many Fallback Girls decide that they love a guy practically straight out of the gate and without any real basis for feeling this way. Most Fallback Girls have distorted ideas about unconditional love, and the great majority believe that because they think they love their Mr Unavailable, he should love them. So you keep going on about how much you love him and care about him, sticking to his side like glue, forcing your ‘love’ on him.
You want to control with your imagination. He’s thinking ‘We’re hooking up’, and you’re thinking ‘We are soulmates’. He is saying ‘I don’t want a relationship with you’ and you’ve changed it to ‘He doesn’t know what he wants. He’s f*cked up, wounded, and I’m the right woman for him. I won’t push him and eventually he will see what a great woman I am and reward me with what I want.’
You control with expectations, both communicated and uncommunicated. You have expectations that far surpass the quality of the relationship. When you do communicate them, it’s to try to back him into a corner and extract some commitment from him, and when you don’t communicate them, you’re expecting him to guess what you expect because he should know because you love him.
You want to control with sex. You confuse sex with love and because you overrate your sexual connection, some of you do believe that you can shag him around to your way of thinking.
There are many ways that we openly and subtly try to control our environment. Of course some control is worse than others but at the end of the day, control is control. Better to change your relationship habits and lose your interest in Mr Unavailables so that you stop trying to control the uncontrollable.
Remember, take the focus off him and put it back to you. He’s an assclown that’s unlikely to see the light. You’re on a path of change learning about yourself and evolving into a more positive you.
To understand how controlling you both can be, read about The Status Quo.
Your thoughts?
If you want to understand why you’re attracted to Mr Unavailables, check out my new book Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.
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I love how you shoot straight from the hip, and how accurate you are, NML. You are right, I have been guilty of ALL of the above.
What I love even more is that by reading here every day and keeping conscious of it, I know I won’t be blind again anymore, ever. And if I ever start to falter, I’ll go back again and re-read the e-book.
WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE ON OPRAH, NML ? More people ought to be able to know how wonderful your inisghts are !!!
Yup. I’m guilty of all that as well. I’m shaking my head at myself. What a waste of 2 years of my life! I’m on day 31 of NC from the EUM that I let suck the very soul out of me into nothingness.
NML, your posts help so much. What I recently discovered about myself is that because I had no clue what I wanted from a man, I let myself bend to his way of thinking. When I found I didnt like it, I forced myself to bend to his way of thinking. I fought it the entire time we were together, but never let him go – because, just maybe he would change. ….
LOL. Good one! I was never even a person to him. Just an object. He is like a dog digging for a bone. He cant tell you why he wants that bone (he really doesnt care why) he just wants it!
Finally, finally I am changing. I’m not even going back to my old self, I’m going to change into a new improved self! I am going to love myself and respect myself and spend some quality time with that special someone … myself! 😀
I think I don’t love myself enough to protect myself and make the right decision for me. I do fine sometimes, but then I slip and end up with guys like Steve. That scares me.
I knew he was emotionally abusive. I had vowed to leave next time I was in such a situation but there I stayed.
How I ended up with him was scary. It was if it was fate and out of my hands.
I think I might carry this illness within me forever like any other addict. I must take it one day at a time and never let my guard down. But somehow, I must not give up on love either.
a good mantra for me is “I will stay away from those who make me uncomfortable or hurt me” and “I will not take up the slack in this relationship”
I just started NC again but not with first breaking up with him. It really felt so good to say all the things I’ve been holding in these last few years. I told him that we couldn’t be “friends’…that going from lovers to friends does not work. I told him that I want to be number one in a man’s life, not number two, three or four. We have broken up several times over the last few months, I’ve done NC as well and have broken it but this seems different. I don’t feel that obsession that I almost always felt before like thinking of him constantly, who he’s with, what they might be doing That can drive a person crazy.
Right now, today, I’m focusing on myself., I have a date next week. I’m feeling a fog lifting, like I’ve been asleep for two years and just waking up. If I hadn’t found this site and downloaded your book NML I think I would still crying and deluded ove this man. I really didn’t know what as wrong with me and why I was behaving the way I was until I read your ebook. Now I know that I
OOOOPS I hit the send button before I was ready…LOL. Well to finish my thought
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Now I know that I will never let another man treat me this way again, EVER. Recently a man I was interested in, who I gave my number to, started playing games with me. He would call me and then say he was going to call the next day but wouldn’t’ call until two or three days, later with no explanation.. I no longer talk to him. I won’t be disrespected. If you say you’re going to call then call. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. He called me last night and I ignored him. I won’t be speaking to him again. Before I read your book NML I probably would have let him get away with that. Before I realized how badly my ex EUM treated me, how I TRAINED HIM to treat me, I probably would have fallen back into that pattern again. Not anymore. I have too much respect for myself to put up with that crap.
Thanks NML for having the insight to learn from your EUM experiences and share them with us. You really are helping so many women understand this terrible relationship hell they find themselves in. Even if it takes 10 go arounds with NC, it’s worth it.
I am moving on, meeting other men, living my life and feeling stronger every day. I’m not completely there but I know that I’ll make it this time.
Ugh flashbacks! I’ve been in so many relationships where control was an issue…a couple of narcissists thrown in for good measure. I’ve always know I had to be careful of those narcissistic tendencies in myself because of my narcissistic drama mama. So in some respects I kept control over my control needs (haha..control over my control) but I never really realized my need for it in relationships.
Great post NML. It definitely resonates with me. I’ve been working hard at focusing on me and letting my ex EUM go. He doesn’t come around anymore or try to reel me in like he has in the past. I still see him from time to time at work and I am pleasant, but I keep my distance. It’s a fragile balance and I am aware that I could fall back if I am not vigilant in my efforts not to.
What struck me about this post was how the control is also an issue for Fallback Girls. See, since my ex-EUM has given up on manipulating me – there is still an element in me that is tempted to manipulate him.
I’m not because I keep reminding myself that it’s not worth the pain. Also, he doesn’t deserve my attention after what a joke of a relationship we had. But, I need to pay attention to my temptation to go back to a guy that sure – is charming -but could never give me what I wanted and would always, always underdeliver.
Part of it is lonliness. I have a few romantic prospects but it’s slow moving. My ex-EUM is like going to McDonalds and having a quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and lots of ketchup. He’s junk food. Taste great while eating and for a short while after. But then you spend the next three days cursing yourself for eating that junk.
So I keep telling myself – every door that closes, another window opens and I wait it out.
Last night I had wine filled lunch with a group of friends – we have this lunch every six months. Six months ago, after the lunch, I called my ex-EUM. That reaching out started up flirtation again that ended up in our hooking up a couple times, lots of emails, manipulation and my hurting myself all over again.
Anyway – yesterday did I feel the temptation to reach out? Sure I did. Not as much as in the past but it was still there. But I resisted. And I had a great night’s sleep. I got a workout in this morning, was in a good mood, got my errands done and now am being productive in the office. (except for reading and contributing to this blog 🙂 ). Is he here – maybe – but I am NOT going to check and see. I am going to do my work, and then leave to go meet my friends and enjoy this beautiful Saturday. So – I’m making progress. Not compelely healed but soon.
I definitely agree – Fallback Girls may like to control their situation. Maybe we don’t know what “healthy relationships” feel like. We could be creatures of habit and just acting out of lonliness because we know how to get a reaction.
But – we need to stop. The reaction only gives us happiness for a short time. It’s time to reach for the real thing – and that is worth the wait and the hard work.
I love the ‘junk food’ analogy!
Thank you for this post. The past week has been a rough one and I needed to read this. Everything you wrote hit home. I did bet on potential… he did reinforce all the negative things I think about myself… and worst of all I did decide that I loved him before I got to know him.
I am so glad I found this website. I am stupid. I have been on and off again with a assclown since 2000. This man has even went after my adult daughter when she was 31 years old, I am 16 years older than her. I didn’t have no contact with him for over 2 years until about 10 months ago. He seen me at a redlight in town and called me and I am so stupid, I melted. I really need some serious help.
After waking this morning and finding my self searching on the web for answers, I ran across this website.
I don’t know what to think. It is basically the truth put in writing right in front of my eyes. It is so hard to keep reading, but it is so true.
I currently live with a man that I fell in love with from the first moment I met him. I never spoke to him, but it was a glance we gave each other that caught my eye. We met through mutial friends and hit it off.
Now I sit here, 2 years later, wondering if I am on my way to hitting the block wall (emotionally). Everything relationship I have been in has ended in emotional heartache. When I met the man I now live with, everything was so perfect (so it seemed), but now when I look back, I fear everything was all wrong.
I am currently laying on my floor surrounded by boxes because I took a job somewhere else, and fear when I leave, he will never be a part of my life again….
I don’t know what to do…..but my gut tells me I fell for Mr. Unavailable.