I’ve finally gotten around to reading Superfreakonomics, the follow-up to the bestselling Freakonomics. Pitched as a “rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything”, authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner are deliciously clever and funny, exploring everything from why sumo wrestlers and teachers are the most likely to cheat, to the economics of prostitution and how they cash in on seasonal increases in demand such as July 4th, much like department store Santa’s rake in the cash in November and December.
Anyway… there is this brilliant paragraph where they explain how they deal with questions of being the exception to the rule that really gets to the heart of why I try to empower people about relationships:
“But while there are exceptions to every rule, it’s also good to know the rule. In a complex world where people can be atypical in an infinite number of ways, there is great value in discovering the baseline. And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking – our daily decisions, our laws, our governance – on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality.“
Here on Baggage Reclaim I’m always emphasising reality because so many people get lost in illusions and create reasons for themselves to be the exception, even though the basis for believing their situation to be the exception may be skewed. Particularly with Mr Unavailables (emotionally unavailable men) and assclowns, holding onto relationships with them is about wishing, willing, waiting, and hoping, that you are the exception.
I wrote a little about our desire to be the exception in my recent post on Forget Mr Good Enough, Mr Perfect, and the Fairy Tale – “It’s the desire for the ‘happy ending’ that lets so many of us try to extract relationships from assclowns and Mr Unavailables. We hope our tale will be different. We want to be the exception.”
One of the most common things that gets said to me by readers is that they cannot believe how similar people’s stories are and how dysfunctional behaviours can be broken down so clearly. Many people find Baggage Reclaim while looking for answers to a problem that they believe to be ‘unique’. Many readers felt alone until they started reading posts that got to the heart of the problem.
By talking about stuff like boundaries, passive aggression, The Status Quo, how we become the pursuer, blowing hot and cold, how to spot emotionally unavailable men, the powerbase, being the girl that cried wolf, the guy that cries crocodile tears, the terms and conditions of relationships, knowing when to fold in bad relationships, return on emotional investment and much more; these act as a baseline for understanding what is highly likely to result in relationships – the love ecomomics or ‘lovenomics’.
Many of us have got caught up in believing “exceptions and anomalies” in the form of stories we heard about that woman who stuck by the side of her Mr Unavailable/assclown and eventually, he saw the light. Eventually could be 5,10,15, or 35 years but this is normally ignored. I also hear about that one woman who slept with someone else’s husband and he left the wife to be with her.
I’ve received a lot of emails from women saying ‘but what if he changes?’ and after the Sex and the City movie came out, my inbox became cluttered with emails basically saying that Mr Big and Carrie getting married shows how Mr Unavailables can change. These are the other types of ‘stories’ – fairy tales based on romantic comedies, actual fairy tales, celebrities, and even royalty – Prince Charles marrying Camilla Parker Bowles must surely be one of the most famous Other Women being a so-called ‘exception’.
Baggage Reclaim is about my perceptions of relationships and the love habits and behaviours that many of us have that are in actual fact counterproductive to 1) personal happiness 2) reasonable levels of self-esteem, and 3) having a decent, healthy relationship.
The love economics or ‘lovenomics’ of engaging in behaviours such as:
- having negative beliefs about love, relationships, and yourself,
- having little or no boundaries,
- having little or no foundations as a basis for a relationship,
- contradicting words by having inconsistent actions,
- betting on potential,
- overthinking and overdiscussing to the point of not actually doing anything,
- loving people unconditionally even when they have little or no love, care, trust, and respect for you,
- projecting our vision of things and sticking with it even when we have real evidence contradicting our views,
- expecting thing from people that we either are not ourselves or should be providing for ourselves,
- accepting lies, ridiculous statements, and outrageous behaviour,
- placing everything on one person and making getting a relationship a vocation,
indicate that the very likely, almost definite result is a relationship that will deplete your self-esteem and cause little happiness with a lot of pain.
When you carry negative beliefs about love, relationships, and yourself, you inadvertently ending up choosing partners and relationships that reflect these things, not challenge them.
When you have little or no boundaries in relationships, you open yourself up to, at best, being taken advantage of and, at worst, being abused. It’s like wearing a sign saying ‘Kick me, disrespect me, do as you please. I’ll still be here’. We all need limits otherwise we have no opt-out point.
Having little or no foundations as a basis for a relationship means that you love and trust blindly and choose to stay in a relationship for illusionary reasons. You love, and choose to love and stay before you actually have evidence that suggests that you should.
By contradicting words by having inconsistent actions, it shows that neither has any real meaning. When we listen to words and ignore real actions, we dine off illusions.
Betting on potential means that you ignore someone’s consistent behaviour and decide you know better and don’t adjust your ‘vision’ and ‘expectations’ to something more realistic because it doesn’t suit your agenda.
Overthinking and over-discussing to the point of not actually doing anything means that you render yourself immobile by stalling on making a decision and taking action.
Loving people unconditionally even when they have little or no love, care, trust, and respect for you means that you love without any care for yourself in the hope it’ll be reciprocated.
Projecting our vision of things and sticking with it even when we have real evidence contradicting our views means that we have ‘fake’ relationships
Expecting things from people that we either are not ourselves or should be providing for ourselves, means we create unrealistic expectations and set ourselves up to fail at relationships.
Accepting lies, ridiculous statements, and outrageous behaviour means you invite illusions into your life, live in denial, and don’t value honesty.
Placing everything on one person and making getting a relationship a vocation totally distorts your perspective where you will opt for any relationship rather than not be in one. You’ll try to ‘make’ every relationship work.
We have to start examining our desire to be the exception because when we choose someone whose ‘rule’ is to behave in ways that detract from you and are counterproductive to forging a decent relationship, it’s quite a damaging gamble to place on yourself.
Back in part Two.
Your thoughts? How long are you prepared to wait to be the ‘exception’ to someone’s ‘rule’ of not treating you and the relationship with love, care, trust, and respect?
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NML, what a way to start a new month. This is literally coming in like a lion not a lamb! If I was dragging my feet a little this has definately gotten my attention. Thanks for being so forthright. It keeps me in real life.
” saying ‘but what if he changes?’ ”
but what if I win the lottery…it could happen but it’s about a 14million to 1 shot.
How long would I wait..depends if we both see things as not being quite right in a relationship and both are willing to attempt change, be that with a counselling..if it were a new relationship, knowing what I do now – I would walk away, I have nothing invested in this man.
Once again, you are writing directly to me.
I was guilty of ALL of the above, and boy oh boy oh boy was the pain unimaginable when I found out the hard way that I was NEVER the exception to the rule.
I used to be baffled how I could be so successful at the stock market 9where I was cold, cynical, merciless in my analysis and NEVER expected a company to be the exception to the rule)
and then such a flop with men when I ALWAYS wanted to be the exception and ignored every rule in favor of hope and blind stubborness.
It’s taken learning how to be good to myself (and yes, I’ve still made some mistakes, just not as big as before and I get over it faster and see what I was doing quicker) to finally feel like I am very clear on NOT BEING THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE – and being equally clear on feeling good about myself on my own, having a MUCH better idea of healthy boundaries and knowing the rules are there to protect me — not to keep me from getting what I want:)
Thank again NML.
.-= Aurora´s last blog ..February Gardens =-.
NML, you are brilliant!
It is almost embarrasing to admit that I have recently had the “exception to the rule” moment. It was shortlived though and I was slapped back into realiy by Mr. UA. He of course said all the right things talked about a future (I have heard that before) and I listened. You know until I started reading your blogs….I would have denied having self-esteem issues. I would have said no not me I love myself….but my continued attempt to be in something that does not exist says there is a problem. Thank you for the medicine, it is hard to take sometimes but I get that I need it.
I cringed when reading that bit about the hope people feel, from seeing the fictitious Mr. Big marry Carry in SITC.
I mean, marriage is a life step, surely, but the ceremony, getting married isn’t the reason to pick a partner. The reason to get into a long term relationship has to be being married and staying married (or together, or handfasted, whatever your beliefs or chosen style).
A wedding is just one more scary transition. Thoughtlessly reading too much into actually getting the wedding part done, but overlooking whether the partner will be there for life, and will be a good partner after the wedding, is just an expensive bit of social recreation.
.-= Brad K.´s last blog ..br: Looking for Relationship Success – is seeking the wrong goal =-.
My concern is that women are taking a fictitious television show/movie and equating that on any level with real life! I have just removed myself from a “relationship” with an EUM and am now actively dealing with understanding why I allowed myself to stay vested in an illusion but I am so happy that I am at least not THAT delusional!!
Great way to start the month !! Just what i needed as i was feeling quite weak the last few weeks BUT i held on and did not make contact. Thankfully i feel myself slowly climbing out of last weeks phase. Cant wait for part 2 🙂 Thanks to everyone who gave advice to me last week, it really helped and its still NC for nearly 4 months now.
@ Brad K i hear what you are saying, for me its even one step further. I dont really believe in the whole marriage thing, i think its an outdated ritual to be honest. People get rich off these poor people spending thousands of dollars on the day, the dress and so forth. For me, im either committed or im not. I dont think you need to be married to show you are committed. Commitment is shown when you make the big decision to intergrate your lives, moving in together and working towards your future together and individually. The marriage part seems to be this big fairytale thing that costs a crap load of money. It almost feels like a lot of peole believe that marriage is a way of having some kind of control over the love/relationship. You cant ever control love or another person, you can only try to find someone with your values and morals, compatiable, who is a good person, wants to be committed to you with both feel in the relationship and so forth. However thats just my thoughts and i do get why people want to get married and I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Im a fan of SATC and i remember years ago thinking “oh great she got Mr Big” now that im a bit wiser, it kind of makes me angry that she ended up with him, it doesnt give a good impression to women or men for that matter. When you really look at it Mr big was a pain in the neck and put her through hell, then even after she got him in the end of the series, in the movie he still managed to break her heart, yet again. Aidens character is the type of guy that we should aspire towards, he was projected as loyal, kind, committed and so forth, yet we all clapped when she ended up with Mr Big. Im off to read your blog now 🙂
Hmm a very intersting article – wonder how many men leave their wives to start relationships with their mistresses who belive their relationship will the one to survive and be the exception to the rule? has anyone actually been there and it happen?
Hi Lalxx,
I’ve been there, but before you yell at me, here’s my story.
I met a guy who said he was a widower and his wife “died” of cancer 5 years prior to us meeting and he has a 7 year old boy. So, I believed him. Who would lie about such a thing, right?
Yep, you guessed it, I discovered his poor “alive” and healthy (thank God) wife was fine and he was still married. This was 6 months of dating him. I’d spent the weekend in his house, no sign of “any” woman in his house. His house was plain and it wasn’t really that nicely decorated where it would have a “woman’s touch”.
Make a long story, short, on the eve that his wife and I discovered that we existed and that his husband was the link to that existence, he left her for me stating, “I’m in love with Sherry and I want to be with her”. HA! As if I wanted to be with him! I didn’t accept him nor did I even wanted to have anything to do with him! I was traumatized to my core. How can anybody can say such a horrific thing all to get laid. He was one sick prick!
I helped his wife through their divorce and told her of a “secret bank account” that he was hiding $160K from her.
I also got a restraining order because the idiot was stalking me and my child.
So, yes, some men are stupid enough to start a relationship while married and leave their wives before getting a divorce. If I’d known the idiot was married, I wouldn’t have started or gone out with him in the first place.
I don’t like hurting other women by taking their man.
After a year of reading these posts, after finding out how many of us have been duped (when we are otherwise smart, wise, healthy women) the only thing that puzzles me is Why? Why do these people do what they do; why do we respond; why is it on the increase (narcissism is, apparantly); why have we become so tolerant/crazy; why do the protagonists thinks it’s OK? It seems that all us bright, sassy, liberal women, who won’t take s**t anywhere else, are like carrion to these men. What’s going on? And what’s going on with the men who feel the need to prey on tough women? Is it that feminism (and I am a feminist) has emasculated them? Is it that we deep down believe we need a man to be in charge or that we are worthless without a man? Personally, I don’t buy into either of those but – hey, when did I become an expert on relationships? Even though I am long past the EUM phase, I still can’t make sense of what happened and WHY.
SATC was really good until the last few editions, and the film was tripe. Mr Big is an ass***e, soooo like my EUM. But, I am now married and it feels great because he has stepped up to the plate and shown the world his comittment to me, to us. And no, I never thought being married was the be all and end all. But, now it’s here, I love it. We have the most boring life (just fitted a new bathroom suite and I’m grouting the tiles – so romantic) and he has man flu now. Nuff said. When I have The Hump he’s here and humouring me. When he is grumpy because the plumbing isn’t right, I make him tea. OK, you don’t need to be married but, don’t write off the man who is going to deal with It, whatever It is, from your chin hair to your madness, with calm and loving and gentle acceptance. When that happens, you find it easy to reciprocate.
I just started reading this blog and I must say I am so relieved!! I now know that I am not the only woman that was strung along for years by a Mr EUM. I have dealt w this mans tricks and his tugging at my heart for 14 yrs off and on. I’m so embarrassed that I allowed it to go on that long. Posts like the one I just read about letting the fairy tale go will hopefully help me step into reality. I have a long way to go b/c I still say things like “what if he does change and its for another woman?” I still don’t know how to let that one go. But my personal happiness is worth more than this man can ever give me. So I will try my best using all of the guides and support of this blog. Thank you all so much
My father fell in love with my mother ‘at first sight’ – they knew each other for a month when he proposed and they (apparently) lived happily ever after until sadly he died aged 60. I thought that was the norm – it was, in my family. On top of that I read lots of romantic novels as a child. So I have found it really hard to understand that it really isn’t like that. I have believed in an exception, because it was my parents – so in my world it became a rule. So when I was 17 I fell in love with a boy and stayed in love with him for another 19 years until I finally got him. I really thought my dream had come true. 12 years and 2 children later I finally admitted to myself that it had all been based on an illusion and left. He is emotionally unavailable though a decent guy at heart. Now at 53 I feel really cheated. I wonder about all the men I might have met in those 19 years when I ‘waited’ for my Prince Charming to come back. I made myself emotionally unavailable because I thought that proved my love to my first love.
I’ve read many posts here, but this one really struck me. It struck me on two levels. The first, I once was the exception to the rule. A major exception to the rule. At the time, I read all the statistics and I thought, hmmm maybe, but HE will leave her for me and he did. Well, I am here to say becareful what you wish for because it might come true. Being that coveted exception has brought me over 10 years of misery. Not because he is an assclown, at least not the kind we discuss here, but because of all the baggage he brought along with him. It has been a living nightmare. The second, as I recover from my experience of being an exception, I have found myself wishing to be an exception again. Again!! Who am I kidding besides myself? Does lightening strike twice in the same place? Who wins the lottery twice? And yet, I cannot convince myself I will NOT be the exception this time. And I cannot make myself understand I probably don’t want to be based on past experience. Moreover, this new guy is an assclown in the truest sense of the word. I think that what I am trying to say is that I really understand how hard it is to shake this delusion despite all evidence to the contrary and even while having much experience in knowing all the glitters is not gold.
Dear NML,
As I’ve gone through my “journey” as a young girl, one of the hardest things I had to accept is the way my Father was. He was the original EUM in my life, the first man I ever loved.
He was my world as a little girl, he treated me like his little princess “when he wants to” and ever since I was a little girl, I craved and did everything I could to get his attention and get that “feeling” of euphoria from my Father. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the man with all of my heart, may he rest in peace, but I also know what kind of a man he was and how much he’d damaged me emotionally and mentally. Our relationship was unhealthy to the point where I was constantly waiting for him to come around and give me love. Whenever it was convenient to him, I ran to him for love and attention. It was a parent/child love, nothing sexual, I wasn’t abused sexually, but I was rejected, neglected via love, attention and acceptance. His love was inconsistent and he played similar “word and mind games” as you’d described on your post above except it was more geared towards to a daughter from her Father.
“I’ll bring you lots of Hershey’s kissed baby when I come home” … yet, he would leave on a Monday morning to go to work and I wouldn’t see him until Thursday night and there were no Hershey’s kisses.
“I’ll pick you up on Friday night at 7pm baby, be ready by the front patio and wait for me, we’ll go see The Muppet Movie”… yet, I waited until 11pm on that Friday night and he never came to pick me up nor he even called to apologize.
Then, whenever I’d be upset with him for doing these things to me, I used to yell at him. “Baby, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but I was out with my buddies and one of them, his wife got into a car accident and he needed me to be there”. WTF? He ditched me for his buddies and I was only 11 years old and I’m supposed to understand and forgive him for that and make things all okay?
The pattern was set at that young age, the pattern of taking sh*t from men.
I’ve worked years and years on that shortcoming that I still carry with me till this day. However, whenever I see an AC or an EUM, the time it takes me takes me to realize that it’s not going to work is much, much shorter now and I now have the strength and the tenacity to move on with life to seek something and someone who’s healthier. And I’m emotionally and mentally healthier now, walking away with confidence knowing that I’m walking away from something that’s no good to me.
I’m aware now and able to “see the signs” and “read between the lines” .
Most of people’s roots on our issues today must have stemmed from childhood. The reason why is that’s when we learn how the world works, through our parents. Undoing the deeply seated, unhealthy roots is tough to get through, but it’s not impossible.
Most of us are women in here and perhaps most of us got this way because of the foundation and the fundamentality of our childhood and our relationships with our Fathers and Mothers or whoever our guardians were.
I still long for a man’s attention, but I’m no longer subjecting myself to destructive behaviour. I believe that men can be taught on how to treat you. And like you said, those boundaries must be in place from the beginning.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I never want to get to the latter part.
Thank you again NML,
Sherry
Hi Sherry,
What you wrote spoke to me and has helped me understand so much.
“The pattern was set at that young age, the pattern of taking sh*t from men.”
“Most of us are women in here and perhaps most of us got this way because of the foundation and the fundamentality of our childhood and our relationships with our Fathers and Mothers or whoever our guardians were.”
Now for the million dollar question-what do we do now that we know this? How do we learn to think and be different so we don’t get into this situation again and again?
This is so DEAD ON. My Handsome Assclown actually said the words “I kept picking people I knew I didn’t want to marry until I met you because I wasn’t ready…You are the exception though, and I want this to work.”
three months later….”I haven’t loved any of my girlfriends for the last decade….I just don’t know what I want.”
Well…..I do.
-Myrtle
Recovering assclown addict, no contact since January 10th, 2010
Myrtle–
The handsome ones who stay on the market too long are the worst men. First, they know they are handsome, and most of them use it to their advantage. You know the logic: “no sense in having power unless it is abused”. Second, b/c they know they are handsome, they feel entitled to the fairy tale, too: they want The Perfect Woman, and will see multiple women at one time, like crazy, until they find Her. (Even non-handsome, but usually successful, men do this, too.) They will never have a mature relationship, loving a woman as a person, for all of her, warts and all. Third, as a rule, they never devote themselves in their minds (and maybe even physically, too!) to any one woman, wife or girlfriend.
These types of EUMs end up marrying the woman who is in front of them when they are ready for marriage, or the woman who “stood by her man” while he played the field (and will continue to play the field while married).
I will, however, say that the “Bad Boy” handsome guys (with money from daddy or their own business) who are not EU and who got dating-many-women out of their system in their youth and early 20s usually do want the classy, nice girl, and will pursue her like a man and treat her WAYYY better than the clean-cut, white-collar, well-educated handsome EUM!
Nowadays, both many women AND many men want someone who doesn’t, who can’t, exist: the Perfect Person. Funny part is, the smart “almost perfect” women who meet “almost perfect” men are smart enough to grab the opportunity and run with it! Not so the men! So emotional unavailability and this desire for What Is Perfect are the driving forces behind a lot of men, EU or not…but especially the handsome ones.
I actually wanted to clap after reading this comment. Spot on!
Used, thank you very much for this post. Every time I find something that matches my own experience with EUM I feel liberated a lot. This fits 100 %.
I can only add that even if this sort of EUM decides that you are the Perfect Woman for the time being and they even may start feeling ready for the marriage at that point, through the course of time when you are working towards that fairy tale happy ending you suddenly stop being the Perfect Woman because
a) he got used to you and you no longer “amaze him” and stop being the “Perfect Woman”
b) you might shift your focus from yourself to the relationship and start planning and doing things for the two of you and you might let your own gym, hairdressers, fashion hunt etc routine slip a bit, so you no longer look like a Perfect Woman
c) you will probably get a bit stressed by his EU approach to the relationship or his criticism for you not being perfect on certain occasions, which may get you down a bit and you no longer feel like a Perfect Woman
d) they are actually already devoted to their mom, sister, or any other significant person in their life and if you don`t like it, you are not the Perfect Woman….
All in all, you can never be the Perfect Woman forever, only for a very limited period of time ….
Myrtle….your post had me cracking up. I totally can relate to you though…I am still in the early stages of recovery. I have not been laughing very much about the situation, it has not been funny. I am learning to find the humour in what the AC say.
I love your signature. I couldn’t help but giggle and I’m glad you know what you want because he has nothing to offer x
Because that is what western girls were taught. I’m of nonwestern origin and our women weren’t taught the fairytales that are taught in western culture. I’m sure most of you are aware of the original versions of those fairytales. Kind of reminds me of western religion.
A good post and this is the same idea that is conveyed in the book “he’s just not that in to you.” However, I would just like to comment that in the reverse I also think that at the foundation of women who fall for Mr. Unavailables is a fundamental belief that they will never be the exception. By this I mean, I am single, therefore every relationship for me has not worked out, so when when I meet the next guy would I ever believe that this one will work out and I will become the exception i.e. the one he marries? So I think we do enter in to our relationships actually believing that we will always fail or be “the rule”.
Does this make sense?
Dazed–
Just read your comment.
Answer: yes. Totally. It applies to the men, too!
I have been NC with my EUM since early Dec. 09. It is STILL a struggle for me. I am now at the point where I’ve started to dream of him,,, being an exception to the rule was something that i “worked” so hard at with the current EUM, and the last EUM (which I actually won over after 4 years of chasing him) – it ended up being a complete disaster being his girlfriend, and i wanted out the entire time. The jealousy and emotions that i CRAVED for years came out, I FINALLY opened the gates to where his “emotions” were hiding for so long… or so i thought! More like intense paranoia and jealousy beyond belief. I was living in hell. All i kept thinking was “this is what i’ve been waiting for all these years?? this guy’s a fuckin’ tool”
Now at 27 you would think I have learned my lesson. I wished to be the new EUM’s exception for years…. now feeling so embarrassed that i put up with so much of his crap… only for it to get worse as the months flew by.
NML – i’ve been reading your book (a few times now) “The No Contact Rule” I love it, and it helps ground me every time i get carried away with thoughts of him – seeing me out looking smokin’ hot, with another guy, yelling at him and making him feel small.. blah blah….
It’s just that, i’m going on 4 months and he’s still “THERE” I know i can get through this… i guess everyone heals on their own time.
Thanks for listening.