Invariably when we find ourselves in a situation where we won’t let go of a poor relationship, there’s a bit of illusion holding going on. We’re either wanting him to be the man we thought he was or trying to get him to be the man we thought he could be, if only a number of factors happened to help it along. Part of the reason why so much time can pass is because in order for us to dig our heels in, we end up distancing ourselves from the reality of the relationship and him, and even our own behaviour, and we put our own spin on it, projecting the cosier illusion of things and essentially living in denial.

The trouble is this:

It’s very easy to say that you love someone and that you’re trying your best to make things work when you’ve chosen to be with someone who you know isn’t capable of reciprocating.

It’s very easy to avoid making real change, making decisions, and examining what part you are playing in the relationship when you avoid the reality by holding on to the illusion of him which also creates a false, illusionary relationship based on non existent foundations.

How can you even start to work on issues if you’re not in the real world?

How can you know whether what you’re in is good or bad when you won’t get real and you make up whatever you want,to fill the gap?

If you’re projecting or stuck in the past, how can you have or get perspective?

When you live in fear and choose men that reflect the negative things you believe about yourself, love, and relationships, which then creates self-fulfilling prophecies that let you keep your pattern and cater to your fears, you’ll find yourself in relationships that whilst drama filled and taxing at the best of times, they allow you to not have to fully engage yourself.

You know how these relationships will play out because you tend to choose same guy, different package.

You could be trying to forge a relationship with the type of man you profess to want but instead you try to fit a square peg in a round hole and suffer with Betting on Potential and I Can Change Him syndrome.

You could let go instead of waiting for him to be the one to finalise things, but instead you stay and end up suffering.

You could be emotionally engaging with someone who actually wants to engage on a habitual basis, not just when he’s in need of a shag, an ego stroke, or a shoulder to lean on.

But instead…you opt to engage with someone who is an emotional flip flapper, sometimes or even often, lacking in empathy, or is even just emotionally vacant. It’s a bit like trying to get water out of a dry well – you keep sending the bucket down into black hole of emotion hoping for some drops to be in the bucket, but it keeps coming back dry. So you send the bucket down again….

I’ve asked before why do we keep choosing poor relationships even though it hurts?

Well aside from relationship insanity which has us choosing the same experience again and again but expecting a different result this time, there’s an element of emotional laziness.

You may feel like you’re expending a whole lot of emotion but considering that you often know what you’re going to get back, making it a waste of your energy, you are being emotionally lazy because rather than look a little closer to home, address your own issues, adapt and start choosing better partners, you take the ‘easier’ route of following the pattern that you know, which yields the same experiences, which causes you more pain and drama.

But this pain and drama that you experience is not as bad as the fear that you have of putting yourself out there with real opportunities.

When you don’t believe in yourself and have internalised many of your relationship experiences to end up believing that you’re ‘not good enough’ and unworthy, you become afraid of being with someone halfway decent in the fear that they will see the things that you see, or even find more flaws.

So, you choose someone like Mr Unavailables and assclowns who keep you in your emotional comfort zone – emotional laziness.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s uncomfortable with these men but it’s a familiar uncomfortable and it’s not as uncomfortable as stepping outside of this comfort zone would be and treading into an unknown.

The drama, ambiguity, confusion, outrage, disappointment, highs, lows, ‘fireworks’, ‘passion’, pain, lies, deceit and the whole kit and kaboodle are familiar. The fact that you’ve had poor experiences but haven’t strayed too far from your ideas about compatibility, type, and ‘common’ interests suggests that even though you aren’t happy, the fear of getting real is still bigger than anything else you’ve experienced.

You can attach whatever meaning you want to his behaviour and your relationship, and even your own behaviour, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re struggling to let go of a relationship that doesn’t actually exist.

Your relationship and your perception of him is not rooted in reality so you’re not truly risking yourself.

I know from own personal experience and those of many women I have corresponded with and the comments on this site that it is very easy to say you want a different experience and it’s very easy to focus on him, but it’s not so easy to actually opt for the different experience and focus on ourselves.

But you have to, because if you don’t, years will go by like sand through your fingers and you will suddenly start getting jolts that force you to look at the reality. Better for it to be sooner rather than later so you can start living your life now, and engaging with people who will actually engage back and reciprocate rather than have you jumping through constantly shifting hoops to ‘win’ them.

Get active on you and discourage yourself from choosing what appears to be the easier yet painful option that always yields the same results.

Your thoughts? Do you think you’re emotionally lazy?

 

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