Earlier this week, I belatedly discovered that there isn’t going to be a series three for Netflix’s Friends From College because it was cancelled within weeks of the second series’ launch. It had a really good end of series and I wanted to know what happened — and now we never will. In this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I talk about how we (and others) open up loops in our mind. Thanks to our curiosity or our desire for a satisfactory ending that matches our view of things, we can sometimes find that we overinvest in certain situations in our desire to ‘close the loop’.
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Nuggets From The Episode
- When someone who we weren’t actually planning on seeing again says “I call you”, this opens up a loop. When are they going to call? Do they want a relationship? Wait, why didn’t they call when they said they were going to?
- Someone intimating or outright promising something opens up a loop. If they don’t follow through, it’s an unsatisfactory ending. We need resolution. This is especially so if they made themselves (and us) out to be the best thing since sliced bread and now they’ve done a runner or turned into a nightmare.
Sometimes people say and, yes, promise us stuff they’re not actually going to do because it makes them (and us) feel good at the time.
- When we beat ourselves up because the story didn’t turn out the way we thought it would and we have an ‘open loop’, we’re opening up more loops. Now we need resolution to why we weren’t ‘good enough’.
- Wondering why an ex who we cut off with No Contact isn’t trying to contact us, opens a loop.
- We will feel as if our relationship or breakup has an unsatisfactory ending if part of what we rely on to make us feel good about ourselves is about getting validation in the form of something we don’t actually need. We will do things that scratch the proverbial itch and maybe close the loop, but then open other ones as a result of what might be self-defeating actions.
Seeing someone as a romantic possibility opens up a story loop. We often feel compelled to find out what will happen or convince ourselves that we’re in a rom-com.
- We all have our individual and, to some extent, collective ideas about what constitutes romantic possibility and interest. Because of this, if we experience something that we think signifies this, it opens up a loop that we often pile lots of story and plans onto. This means that sometimes we’re trying to resolve stories that really only exist in our mind.
- Often, it’s not really us that’s bothered about the resolution of a story; it’s our ego.
Links mentioned
- What’s The Baggage Behind It? (ep 2)
- Dating anxiety and ‘efforting’ (ep )
- Entitlement and The Lean Period (ep 139)
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Hi Nat,
I wanted to bring up the specific nightmare I’ve been living. I’m a childfree woman in my 30s, and my (as of today ex) boyfriend (35) has a 6 year old daughter. I began to notice that the child would have a total emotional breakdown anytime he took his attention off her for more than 5 seconds. I formed a special bond with her, but she would not let us interact – this is a boundaries issue – his boundaries – he is raising a daughter to not be able to exist apart from him. I told him that, and he acknowledged it, but I do feel I was essentially punished for addredssing it. I began to notice other things that felt off – he sleeps with the child every night in his underwear and she tries to take off her clothing, too, in the middle of the night. He takes the child on late-night dates with champagne, on month-long vacations, and clearly – he lets her control his adult relationships. I found the term ‘spousification’ and a weight was lifted off my shoulders. When a parent places their child in the role of spouse, when their adult partner is too difficult to deal with for them.
I wanted to mention this term and my experience as potential inspiration for content since many of us are dating people with kids, who are separated and divorce, and it’s hard to communicate without overstepping.
Thanks, Nat!
Wow, that sounds very intense, Raine, and, well, unhealthy. I did have to go back and double-check that I’d read that she’s six! This a dynamic that he’s cultivated, not her. She’s just a child who’s being raised to be the way that she is. On some level, she likely feels that she will lose his love if she doesn’t do what she’s doing. His setup, while it’s not an isolated incident, it’s not your atypical father-daughter relationship and is likely to be a source of grave concern over the coming years. This goes beyond an issue of ‘overstepping’; given the nature of their relationship, your presence is an overstep. It’s right that the relationship ended, as hard as it must be for you.
Thanks, Natalie. She’s a very imaginative, enthusiastic kid, and this is totally not about her being ‘demanding’, which he usually uses as his excuse in over-giving to her. I didn’t mean to insinuate child molestation, but it’s inappropriate, for sure.
I’m glad I spoke up, even if we’re no longer together. I said she should sleep in her own bed, and reminded him that the best way to show up for his daughter is to show her that he’s fulfilled in an adult relationship. Who knows – maybe that will sink in eventually. I feel bad for his ex-wife – understanding his dynamic with his daughter now, I believe he excluded her when his daughter was born. According to him she was ‘jealous’ – I now see otherwise. Twisted.
In the words of Sadie Frost: “it’s not my nightmare anymore.”
I really enjoyed this episode. In a way, I feel like almost everything that’s ever happened to me is still an unresolved loop in my mind, especially the negative things! Letting go can be a challenge.
For example, I haven’t had a conversation with my dad in over two years. He’s a good hearted person and all, but for a million reasons, it’s just completely exhausting to be around him and his wife and two sons, who have been raised like princes. I finally reached the point of “enough” two years ago. This was not our first period of estrangement, and yet it feels permanent in a way that the others didn’t.
Still, I find myself going back into that loop and feeling really bitter, unappreciated, rejected, misunderstood – and angry! I could blame my dad’s wife, who attempted to remove all trace of my brother and I when she married my dad, and their incredibly spoiled eldest son who reminds me so much of Dudley from Harry Potter that it’s not even funny, but at the end of the day, it’s my dad who hasn’t cared enough to make an effort with me, and has been hurtful and insulting more times than I can count. He’s the one who emotionally abandoned my brother at 14 and left me and my mom to pick up the pieces.. and there have been a lot of those. He’s the one who yells and asks why I even visit him ay all whenever we have an argument, or flies into insults at the slightest provocation, and says he is a “package deal” now, and the only time he will visit me is if I go to his house and interact with his entire family. At the end of the day, while I believe he cares to some extent, I don’t think he wants to have a relationship with me. And he definitely doesn’t love me like he loves these boys.
There are so many other examples of loops in my life, but that’s one that comes to mind and feels like a trap. I feel stuck in other ways too, like procrastination is a central figure in my life, and I’m a hamster in a wheel with my work, fitness, and everything. I always feel like I have time to do things later, and so many of them don’t get done. I feel like I’m moving through tar, trying to learn the same lessons and accomplish the same goals and never really making it through the way I want to. It’s so frustrating!!
I guess you could say that the idea of loops resonated with me!! Haha Thank you for another insightful episode.
Dear Natalie, I’ve really enjoyed this episode, and it has been delivered to my inbox right when I needed it most. Sometimes the need of a resolution only creates more heartbreak, keeping you trapped in the stories you keep telling yourself.
Many thanks for your wonderful work! It always helps to listen to you.