Following on from last weeks quiz about what makes you interested or disinterested, this weeks quiz is all about whether you centre yourself too much in other people’s actions and thoughts causing you to be a ‘Blame Absorber’, someone who finds a way to soak up any negative thing that happens around them and make it their fault, which plays into their self-fulfilling prophecy and the negative things they believe about themselves, and distorts their perspective while removing the responsibility from others.
Which of the following statements do you agree with:
1. When someone annoys or upsets me, I often think that it must be because of something I’ve done or a ‘flaw’ that’s triggering it.
2. People who are loveable and worthy don’t have others treating them badly and taking advantage of their boundaries.
3. If they don’t reciprocate my interest, I wonder what is wrong with me or what I could potentially do to ‘win’ them over.
4. In a current or past relationship, even though the other person was doing and being things that were counterproductive to the success of the relationship, I’ve believed the responsibility of the problems in the relationship were mine to bear.
5. If a partner cheats on me, I believe it’s because I have failed to meet their needs.
6. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and but I have often wondered what it is that I did wrong.
7. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and who I know had not treated others well either but I still wonder what I did wrong and why they can’t be different with me.
8. I believe that when you love someone, if that person has ‘problems’ and basically things that need to change for the relationship to work/me to be happy, that they should want to change.
9. I believe that if I love enough that the problems will no longer exist.
10. I am involved with someone or have been involved with others, where I have wanted them to make me the exception to their rule of behaviour.
If you’ve agreed with any of the statements, it’s time to readdress your tendency to absorb blame and remove responsibility from others. Read on for the ‘answers’….
1. When someone does something to annoy or upset me, I often think that it must be because of something I’ve done or a flaw that’s triggering it.
There’s such a thing as placing yourself far too much in the centre of other people’s actions and thought processes. Some people behave like jackasses because that is their way. Others lack empathy and don’t consider the impact of their actions. Others act as they do through a lack of boundaries on your side, which they take as a green light to take the piss – that means you’re enabling what someone is inclined to do anyway, not causing. And sometimes people unintentionally eff up but don’t mean you ill harm and regret and apologise. To believe you’re responsible for all that others do to you, is giving yourself too much credit and removing their accountability.
Stop internalising every wrong action of others and allowing it to change how you feel about you – unconditional love of self is fundamental to self esteem and healthy relationships.
Instead ask: What is it about this person or what’s happening in their lives that they are behaving in this manner?
2. People who are loveable and worthy don’t have others treating them badly and taking advantage of their boundaries.
You’re effectively saying that bad things happen to bad, unlovable, unworthy people, which is fundamentally untrue. To assume the wrongful actions are intrinsically linked to your value creates a very distorted view of the world and you and in reality, you see examples in life that clearly demonstrate that your belief is unfounded. The reality is that even with some boundaries, others will attempt or manage to do things that cause us to feel bad, however we can lessen the opportunity for it by ensuring that we don’t place ourselves around people or in situations that detract from us by treating ourselves with love, care, trust, and respect. This means opting out or where appropriate taking protective measures.
3. If they don’t reciprocate my interest, I wonder what is wrong with me or what I could potentially do to ‘win’ them over.
Why does something have to be wrong with you that they’re not interested? It’s impossible for everyone to reciprocate and there could be any number of reasons why they’re not reciprocating and not one of them may be an indication of your ‘flaws’. They may have other things going on, different values, not attracted, involved with someone else, not ready for a relationship, whatever. The point is that it doesn’t have to mean something bad about you and ultimately, just because we feel interested, doesn’t mean that ipso facto it should be returned. Lack of interest means ‘back away from the light and wind your neck in’ – don’t try to sell yourself like a used car salesman. You will devalue yourself in your own eyes by trying to make people see your value.
I doubt that you feel interested in every person that shows an interest in you – is that because there is something ‘wrong’ with them?
4. In a current or past relationship, even though the other person was doing and being things that were counterproductive to the success of the relationship, I’ve believed the responsibility of the problems in the relationship were mine to bear.
Making yourself responsible for the success/failure of the relationship removes the responsibility and accountability from the other person. Take them down off that pedestal you have them on and recognise that making yourself responsible for the unproductive actions of another person will cause you to not only indulge in blame and shame, but to potentially keep going back to ‘fix’ things and try to do the loving and the ‘work’ for the both of you. Fact is that you’re ignoring the real problems that exist and seeing their actions/inaction as a reflection of you – you’re two separate entities and you’re trying to absorb responsibility and take control of the uncontrollable.
You can only work at a relationship where you’re both prepared to acknowledge the real issues. If you don’t, you may be trying to ‘fix’ with irrelevant ‘solutions’.
5. If a partner cheats on me, I believe it’s because I have failed to meet their needs.
People cheat for all sorts of reasons and often it has nothing to do with needs that are not being ‘met’ by the existing partner. It’s often about their own beliefs and values and cheating is like rebelling with a passive aggressive act that undermines the relationship and relieves the itchiness caused by ‘commitment’ and gives them a sense of control. Some people cheat because they can.
Let’s imagine you didn’t meet their needs – is that really a legitimate excuse to cheat?
Let’s turn it around the other way – In believing what you do, does this mean that if your needs are not met, you’ll be cheating on a partner?
6. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and but I have often wondered what it is that I did wrong.
You are assuming that the reason they didn’t treat you well is because you must have done something wrong. In fact, you’re rejecting the base information that they did something wrong in favour of focusing on obsessing about what you did wrong, which causes you to stay invested. However if you spent more energy acknowledging their actions at a very basic level – they treated you poorly – and recognised what that tells you about them, you would see them as a separate entity that has failed to act with love, care, trust, and respect.
Fact is, if you want to pin yourself to ‘something’ you’ve done ‘wrong’, say ‘I obviously didn’t choose a great partner as they’re clearly not right for me because they did X,Y,Z, so next time I will endeavour to choose better by addressing any factors that led to this choice’. This is far more empowering than saying ‘There is something wrong with me because they’re an assclown’.
7. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and who I know had not treated others well either but I still wonder what I did wrong and why they can’t be different with me.
You’re painting yourself into a corner by still feeling that someone should have made you the exception to their rule of behaviour, a rule, by the way, that you’ve seen in action with others so it’s not even ‘personal’ to you. You have no ‘logical’ reason for this – this is your ego and dodgy beliefs talking.
On some level, you believe that your love is better than others love and a key reason for pursuing them making you the exception to the rule is because in being with them in the first place and knowing they’d been the ‘rule’ with others, you believed that it just took the ‘right’ person and the ‘right’ love. You thought it was *them* failing him/her and you believe that love is about someone making you the exception to their rule of behaviour.
Even if it may seem from outward appearances that others think that the sun shines out of the person who mistreated you’s bum, the reality is that you just don’t know the people that they have mistreated. Unless they just fell out the sky into 2011, they haven’t chosen just you to be an assclown to or just this relationship. Don’t get things twisted!
8. I believe that when you love someone, if that person has ‘problems’ and basically things that need to change for the relationship to work/me to be happy, that they should want to change.
Genuine loving relationships require acceptance. That doesn’t mean you should accept shit behaviour but it does mean that you need to accept them as they are so that you see them in reality and determine whether on that basis the relationship can work.
If you’re not acknowledging the problems and what they actually mean about the person’s capability for a healthy, committed relationship, you may get blinded to the danger by the potential you envision for them and your reluctance to acknowledge the truth of their behaviour.
You’re also basically saying, ‘If you love me, you’ll change’ and the reality is that people have to change because they want to, not because it suits someone else’s vision of what they could be in a relationship. Often when we expect or even demand change from others, we don’t both share the same vision of the relationship and we have a misguided confidence about their ability to change based on our desire, not based on their capabilities.
9. I believe that if I love enough that the problems will no longer exist.
You’re assuming that the solution to the problem is love, which means you haven’t assessed the problem in reality. If someone coming along and loving us was all it took for problems to be solved, what a different world we would live in. The fact is, if someone has a problem, especially one that existed before you came along, you are letting your ego run wild in assuming that it’s your love that cures their problems. If you imagine that it’s like they have a disease and they’ve tried other medicines, you believe that you’re the cure they’ve been waiting for. Lack of love is not the problem and if it’s lack of self love they have, it’s like you’re trying to love for the both of you. You also need to recognise that if your idea of love is based on negative beliefs, your basis for being with them will be unhealthy.
If you have to think of yourself as being the solution to someone’s problem, your motivations for a relationship and how you perceive your fixing/healing/helping self is a problem. You need to feel needed.
10. I am involved with someone or have been involved with others, where I have wanted them to make me the exception to their rule of behaviour.
In wanting someone to make you the exception to their rule of behaviour, it means that even though you disregard the rule in favour of trying to get love against the odds, you do actually know the rule. It is important for you to address your beliefs about love, because at the moment, your idea of feeling that someone loves you is if you extract change through difficult and dramatic circumstances. You believe that the route to love involves pain. You want love against the odds and unfortunately, this means you won’t recognise when to fold and have the potential to end up ‘bankrupt’ in your pursuit of the fairytale.
Remember that relationship insanity is doing the same things, carrying the same baggage, beliefs, behaviours, and attitudes and choosing same person different package and expecting different results.
******
It’s important to address your inclination to factor yourself into everything and take it as some sort of reflection on you, especially because in doing this, you’re directly impacting your self-esteem and in putting the ‘you’ into everything, you’re likely to devote your energies to the wrong things and find it, for example, difficult to move on from past relationships, to let go of destructive relationships, or may even impact your mental health because you’ll let anger within yourself fester.
You’re not an island, you’re not alone, everyone else around you are not ‘saints’, and the reality is that you’re giving yourself far too much credit for other people’s thoughts and behaviour. Fact is, as human’s, we’re inclined to be a tad self-absorbed – we do what ‘works’ for us which means being a Blame Absorber is a futile activity because you’re trying to control the uncontrollable. Take people off the pedestals you place them on as the only place for them to look at you is down and stop being so hard on yourself.
Removing yourself from the equation and considering other possibilities adds balance and objectivity, plus it creates individual entities with individual responsibilities. And remember – if you’re going to work at a relationship, go back to one, or actually put yourself in the position of taking real action to make changes, being realistic about the factors that created problems is critical and that can’t happen while you’re playing the blame game with yourself.
Your thoughts?
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Very insightful, almost scary that you’ve been in my head. I’ve been guilt of all 10 at sometime or another but especially #7. He cheated on ex-wife #1, ex-wife #2, he cheated on me and the woman he left me for he’s now cheating on her (my girlfriend saw him w/ someone else one night then w/ his GF a few days later).
Yeah I use to wonder what was wrong with me and why couldn’t I be the exception but now I know, there is nothing wrong with me He’s an ASS and a JERK and he will never change. Thank God he’s her problem now not mine.
Jaysus he really is a class act. What you now know is that he was the same man, different relationship. It’s not about the women or even the relationship because he is the common denominator in this nasty pattern. You could be The Most Perfect Person On The Planet – he’d still cheat.
“there is nothing wrong with me He’s an ASS and a JERK and he will never change. Thank God he’s her problem now not mine.”
BRAVO!!! Love it!!! I love watching people get stronger (especially myself– and I am…)
I can not believe that there is a living, breathing human being out there on this planet who calls someone “snugglethingy.”
Talk about being retarded! Thing is, he’s making you a THING to make himself feel better about his own (retarded) self.
Anyone who is EU can stay that way, just not on my turf, and especially when they are man-boy-retards, whether as friends, work colleagues, what-not. Ditto for women!
Brilliant post. I too have been guilty of many of these…..after ending it with AC over the holidays I started with the “what do I lack” crap and believed that because I saw his “potential” and was his biggest “fan” I would win his heart.
Not so much. I am not the exception and that is okay. And I do agree that trying to help someone is about being needed….I am continuously choosing men that have issues. Why?????? I do know that after investing so much of myself emotionally into this man, I have lost a part of myself in the process. I feel like a year and a half of my life was spent trying to be with someone who isn’t going to change.
So it is time to heal those wounds and learn from this experience. And not make the same mistake again. Thanks nat for guiding us through!
It’s time to find someone who will return my feelings and be my biggest fan!
Read my series on being a Florence Nightingale here and here. Use them as an eye opener to understanding your fixing/healing/helping inclinations. You now need to put that energy into you.
Hi Natalie,
In large part to your blog, I finally woke up to the reality of my situation with my EUM of 5 years. It was a “money pit” relationship where I continued to invest without seeing a return. I finally realized that I have to cut my losses and walk away or waste my life waiting for him to be ‘ready’ for a committed relationship. 5 days of No Contact so far! 🙂
I have a question – my story is a COMMON one as evidenced by your blog. **WHY does it seem like there are SO MANY assclowns and Mr. Unavailables these days?** I don’t think there were as many in generations past? Is it due to poor parenting, declining family values, a more transient society, advances in technology (online dating, texting, etc.) It seems there are more assclowns than decent men out there these days. Such a lack of integrity, it’s very disheartening.
I would love to hear your insight/thought on this.
Thank you for your blog…you were the reality check I sorely needed. Keep up the great work…it’s inspiring. 🙂
Hi Adrienne. Emotionally unavailability and inappropriate behaviour isn’t a male thing as there are plenty of women who act this way also. It’s important, particularly in the context of the issue of emotional unavailability to recognise that where there is an emotionally unavailable man, there is an emotionally unavailable woman involved with him. But the reason so many more people behave in this way is due to how we are emotionally schooled as children, societal messages, the impact of past negative experiences, and yes, technology has increased the ‘opportunity’ but it’s not the technology that’s the issue – it’s the people using it. The fact is, in previous generations, casual relationships were not so acceptable and ‘settling down’ was of pivotal importance. On top of that, when you get down to the nitty gritties, there are plenty more women dodging commitment as well and the biggest issue is that there are not enough consequences for not acting with love, care, trust, and respect. Fact is, Mr Unavailable, for example, can be Mr Unavailable and not have to change because there are so many women willing to put up with his behaviour. Where one won’t, there are plenty that will. If it was more socially unacceptable and they experienced real consequences that affected their ability to get laid or have a relationship, they’d change their ways.
Now that casual relationships are socially acceptable, there’s *no* excuse for being disrespectful or dishonest about them. Anyone who is, clearly finds the disrespect and dishonesty rewarding in themselves.
While I take your point Anne, the fact is that there are plenty of times when people are upfront about the nature of the relationship and what they will or will not be doing – the other person ignores it. That’s why two of the biggest search terms and email query topics are ‘can a booty call turn into a relationship?’ and ‘what does it mean when he says that he’s not ready for/doesn’t want a relationship?’. The fact is, anyone who participates in a casual situation, whether it is stated directly or indirectly, is experiencing some type of ‘reward’. Many people get involved in casual relationships *because* they are casual and they are secretly afraid of commitment. A lot of people also have a disposition to set themselves up to fail with this ‘big challenge’ because of the negative beliefs they have.
It can also be that some people are at a stage in their lives where they don’t want anything more than casual. It’s a sort of ‘temporarily unavailable’ rather than being EU as a person all the time. I have asked about this before and would find a post on this really interesting. I was EU after a 6 year healthy relationship that didn’t work out, just wanted some fun etc. Does that mean there is something fundamentally wrong with a person? I am interested to hear your thoughts Nat.
I’ve written about this a few times but basically we all have periods in our life where we are emotionally unavailable – straight after a breakup, after a death or a traumatic experience for example. This is natural. However people who are habitually emotionally available and experience something that makes them safeguard their emotions and avoid intimacy, commitment etc are only it for a temporary period of time and they work their way through their feelings and go back to being emotionally available.
Being habitually emotionally unavailable is entirely different thing and is a consistent, persistent, confusing way of being that prevents real intimacy or commitment.
If someone wants a casual relationship that’s their prerogative but 2 things are key:
They are upfront and give the person the option to opt out
They opt out when it becomes clear that they want casual and the other wants something else.
For the person on the receiving end, they need to opt out if they want something more instead of having thief expectations and needs managed down.
The bulk of people who want a casual relationship want the trappings of a relationship without the responsibility. They don’t like being treated or thought of casually.
What most of these people could stand to do is work on whatever feelings are left over from previous hurts instead of trying to juggle both and messing with the other persons head. Instead we think ‘I’m hurting, I’m not ready for a relationship, I’m afraid of commitment etc but I want sex and attention’.
NML
I’m don’t believe in casual relationships myself. We don’t have casual careers, casual university degrees, casual sons and daughters (well, I hope not), casual sisters, casual friends, casual bosses, casual colleagues. But we can have a casual relationship with someone we have sex with, especially regularly? I just don’t buy it. Anyway, each to his own. I know I can’t do it.
I’m not into casual relationships myself. That’s not to say I haven’t been involved in them but it was not what I intended. Personally I feel that there is rarely such a thing as a mutual casual relationship. One person is always pretending they want and feel less or starts out being casual and ends up wanting more while the other person wants exactly what they started out with.
Grace and Natalie I sure agree with you two on this one. I think a lot of people convince themselves that they were only looking for casual, when in their hearts they really hoped that if they gave him ‘mind-blowing’ sex, he would fall in love with her, become hooked on her and want a relationship with her. But that’s rarely the way it works out. I personally feel it’s no sex before a committed established relationship. And if that means going long periods of time without sex. Oh well! I’m a big girl I’ll live.
Anne
I don’t think casual relationships are seen as fully acceptable, especially past a certain age. I think lots of men like the status of a steady girlfriend or even a wife. It makes them feel “grown up”. It may even help their career and networking to have a wife to bring to company events rather than different random women. So a man could get involved with a woman, especially one that he considers high status (ie beautiful) just for kudos – to make himself look better to .. himself and to others. He does want her to stick around, meet the parents, meet his friends, meet his colleagues so it’s not exactly casual but he doesn’t actually want a proper relationship either, hence the jerking around.
Adrienne
I don’t think there are more EUMs/ACs around these days. History seems to be littered with them. It may be that we expect more from relationships (not a bad thing) ie love and respect rather than just economic advantage and kids. Anyway, what I really want to say is – don’t run away with the idea that you won’t be able to find a decent man. If there are EUMS everywhere there are also decent men everywhere. We don’t notice them because we LIKE EUMs. It’s what we look for. If someone is not our “type” (ie trouble) our eyes glaze over and we literally don’t see them!
Hi Natalie, I’m still loving your blog and this post is another great one, as I think second guessing myself, and making sure I gave the benefit of the doubt is maybe my biggest weakness in relationships. Also feedback from others can make me have setbacks. Here I have a question or maybe ask for clarification.
“It’s important, particularly in the context of the issue of emotional unavailability to recognise that where there is an emotionally unavailable man, there is an emotionally unavailable woman involved with him.”
This is what confuses me. The reason why is because I’ve been involved with EUM and I’m not an EUW. For instance the last guy I dated. One thing hard is that all of his family and friends seem to think he’s such a great guy and can’t understand why he can’t get a girlfriend.. I on the other hand know exactly why girls he dates don’t stick around. Even my own brother seemed to have a man-crush on him at first meeting. It was pathetic and my brother and I actually had a bit of a falling out over it as it’s not the first time he’s tried to sell me off cheap, and fawn over a guy who doesn’t treat me well. Also I’ve shied away from the mutual friend too because she thinks he’s so great and really she could’ve just replied something simple to me like, “I don’t blame you, you deserve to be treated better than that”. That’s all it would’ve took for me to feel validated and understood by her. But instead she never texted me back and pretended not to hear me. I find that rude and bordering on hostile from a 20+ year friend. Then couple months later she wanted my address to send me a Christmas card but I never wrote her back. If she can’t behave like a friend then I don’t need a silly card. Anyway going back to my last guy, at first meeting he seemed really shy and quiet. Well he is in fact very quiet, but apparently not nearly so “shy” as he pretended to be. On our first date he was talking about his many female friends, including a female “Best Friend” in a way that was just enough to raise an eyebrow. A few days later I talked to him about that, told him I wouldn’t be ok with certain interactions with other women, and if that’s the person he was, then we should just not see each other again. He assured me he understood and that he agreed with and wanted to continue on my terms. So I agreed to at least try it and see. I was clear about my expectations, and with his words, he pretended to go along, but then after I gave him a chance over several dates, I recognized the set pattern of his behavior (his female “friend” harem, and he also was a classic lazy communicator). Anyway I figured it out (Final straw- he was texting cutesy messages with a 19 year old “friend” while sitting right next to me on a date at a show!), had him take me straight home after the show, dumped him, over the next two weeks, he apologized and asked for another chance so I talked to him about it again. But that second and final talk with him about his issue, it became apparent and clear to me that he wasn’t going to be what I was looking for. Though he kept saying with his words that he was, I could see by his behavior that he wasn’t. And so I didn’t take him back, though there were a lot of other qualities about him that i did like. So I don’t think I was condoning the behavior but had to actually go through the process of dating him first, in order to know what I was dealing with. If I didn’t date him then I wouldv’e been dumping him without even giving him a chance, and dumping him based on speculation, and probably wonder if I was right. Now I know I’m right about my hunch. EUMs don’t wear a neon sign, though it would be nice. So I’m just saying I don’t believe just because I’ve had the misfortune of dating EUM(s) (there are a lot of them out there) doesn’t mean I’m necessarily EUW. But maybe you are referring to women who go through the initial 6 or 7 dates, see exactly what they’re dealing with, but instead of dumping him like I did/do, continue to stay involved with him. I will say though, even if you dump the chump early on though, if you really liked him because of his other qualities, it still hurts, and I felt unappreciated by him and (maybe worst of all) I felt very undervalued by my friends/family. That’s the part that lingers and I feel betrayed a bit. But your blog is definitely helping me because I don’t feel quite so alone in this.
Melanie
being emotionally unavailable can be quite subtle. especially for women. its not about being mean or disappearing (which is what EUMs might do). for women, the disconnect between our emotions and our actions make us stay rather than leave so it might appear that you are available for a relationship. but you’re not really because you pursue someone who has waved a big red flag in your face which you ignored. a woman who is sure that she wants a proper relationship, who trusts her instincts and who doesn’t put up with BS would not bother seeing a man again who talks about other women the way this guy did. she wouldn’t waste her time explaining why this behaviour is unacceptable, nor would she take him back after dumping him. Talking is not the same as being emotionally available, which is the big trap women fall into. Discussing the kind of relationship you want is not the same as living the kind of relationship you want. This guy told you everything you needed to know, clearly, yet you gave him several chances. Not only that, now you have the confirmation he’s a twit, you actually feel that it’s a reflection on YOU. Why do you care if a twit doesn’t appreciate you? His opinion of you is irrelevant. You let him jerk you around basically, and most of that is in your own head. He doesn’t care!
If you’ve been involved with more than a few EUMs (like 2 or 3) than you probably are EU. Like attracts like. EUMs don’t get involved with emotionally available women and vice versa.
You did well to duck out early but if you keep bumping into EUMs you must take a look at yourself and not just put it down to bad luck. Constantly focusing on the man, his problems and his issues stops us from looking at what’s really important and what we can change – ourselves.
Hi Grace thanks for your response. I like your word “twit” that’s funny (and accurate!). My word for him is “ninny” because he is so weak-willed and lacking boundaries with the women in his life. And I especially like Natalie’s ‘AssClown’ as it is a perfect descriptor of certain types. Anyway though I still disagree that I’m EUW. I dating him about 6 or 7 times, he was nice and the signs I saw were quite subtle (except for the final one which made me dump him). And also after I dumped him he asked for a second chance but I didn’t give it to him, he remained dumped. Anyway I really don’t think this means I’m emotionally unavailable, though it’s true I do second guess my instincts to an extent, and when your friends and family love him it sure doesn’t help. I had already met the guy a couple times before through friends and they said he was a great guy who wanted a girlfriend. He said (during our initial talk) he wanted a serious relationship and he hoped it would be with me. So I gave him a brief chance, he blew it, and he got dumped. And also that I’ve met several EUMs over the decades what can I say. I still don’t think that means I’m unavailable for a relationship. I do think it’s because there are a lot of them out there. Once I figure them out, I dump them. I am indeed available for a relationship. I just don’t want to settle for a guy who won’t treat me well. But thanks for the advice though it really is appreciated! I do appreciate your insights I’m just trying to clarify my point of view 🙂
Hi Melanie
What made me wonder about your original post, which I failed to mention, was your second-guessing and doubting yourself. I’m sensitive to that, as it’s been an ongoing issue of mine in the past which I’ve been working on. And your family and friends don’t seem to help your self-esteem. I’m not saying it’s your fault at all, they seem to be sabotaging you! That rang alarm bells with me more than the AC encounter, in fact, as you did get rid of the guy. Maybe there’s issues closer to home that are more pressing than the ninny?
Anyway, I may be barking up the wrong tree but I just wanted to clarify.
Hi Grace thanks for your response! No you’re not barking up the wrong tree at all I think you’re absolutely right and I really don’t understand it, it is frustrating for sure. I’ve barely spoken to my bro at all since and unless my friend makes some effort to show a crumb of empathy for me then she’s not going to be my friend anymore. instead she’d rather bury her head in the sand. I know she knows I’m truthful and I know she wouldn’t put up with any of that from her own husband. The feeling of betrayal by my friends/ bro, that’s not an indicator though that the guy himself was that important it’s just I’ve spoken to my brother about his behavior in the past and even specifically asked him this last time not to do that especially since I’d just had first date with the ninny and was pretty unsure about him. Which bro then promptly turned around and did exactly what I asked him not to. So I had essentially told the ninny I wasn’t sure about his behavior but we’d try it and see if it’s up to par. Then my bro comes in behind me and undermines me and lets the guy know he’s fully accepted and admired regardless of how he treats me. I don’t think that’s being very loyal. I should mention that my bro just happened to be in town, he doesn’t even live in this city, yet he just can’t resist himself from butting in. Oh and Grace you are right I have (I think) pretty good boundaries but I do have a tendency to doubt myself, especially since the feedback I get from family and so-called friends is so unhelpful. It seems they don’t want me to be happy and don’t think very highly of me, don’t think I deserve to be treated with basic respect and appreciation by a man. But the second guessing I don’t think that necessarily means a person is EU. In my case I believe it’s because I do want to make sure I’ve done the best I could (within reason). Thanks again for your input!
Melanie, you said:
“But maybe you are referring to women who go through the initial 6 or 7 dates, see exactly what they’re dealing with, but instead of dumping him like I did/do, continue to stay involved with him.”
I think that is exactly the point. People who do not have commitment issues (are not EU) themselves abort the mission, as you have done, when they see the warning signs. The rest of us battle on regardless.
Ok thanks Fearless. I think there’s got to be a distinction there. Of course in some cases there’s no way for us to know if the guy is a lose-er if we don’t go through the process of dating him. In my case I saw it for what it was fairly early on on dumped him. Sometimes though it’s pretty obvious right up front and we don’t even have to go through the process of dating him, we can see what he is from a mile away and avoid! I guess it makes me feel a bit defensive to hear that maybe somehow it’s my fault I got tangled up with the wolf in sheep’s clothing. I guess I just don’t want to absorb blame when in fact I should be proud of myself for getting out when I should even though everyone else seemed to think he was so great. It’s not my fault, there’s not something wrong about me (EUW) that made me date him, or get hurt by him. I’m a normal, healthy EAW and he is a lose-er. I truly do not believe I am EUW I believe I’m EA for a relationship. And I don’t stick it out and try to work it out with Mr. wrong, once I recognize him as a lose-er I get out (maybe 15 or 20 years ago I would have done that, but I live I learn, and I don’t do that anymore). I turn down a lot of interested guys too if it’s obvious they’re losers and if I can see issues before dating them. Countless times I’ve turned down men because of EUM issues that I recognized, that none of my friends recognized, but I didn’t care I could see it so I didn’t date him, or dumped him, so I do think I’ve got a pretty decent grip on trusting my instincts, although not perfect. But the fact remains there really do in fact exist a lot of lose-ers out there, and I’ve yet to have found a keeper.
This is a very interesting thread to the blog and I would like to add a dimension about EU people that I think gets overlooked. This is not to excuse the bad people out there, but there are all kinds of bad people, EU or not. Not all EU people should be shunned as damaged, some can actually be very good, loving people, they are just not available to really commit to someone from their own deep seated fears. I am an EU woman, and I have a ton of friends, great social life, get along well with my family, nice to the people I date…but here is the bottom line: I had a bad relationship with my father, who was a low level Narcissist. So there is EU set up #1. Lots of people have been “damaged” in childhood by bad parenting. But the bigger issue is rooted in tragedy. I lost a young child to cancer. The pain was so devestating it almost destroyed me. So take this EU person and add a loss that is so huge, you end up with a emotionally damaged person who is still a very good person in many ways! So the people who are “in” my heart were ones that were there before it happened. No one else gets “in” now. When it comes to really loving a man, which in my mind I would love to be able to do, my heart is so afraid of loving and losing (they may leave me, they may cheat on me, or God Forbid, the love of my life may DIE on me) the very thought of that level of emotional intimacy (dependency!) scares the sh*t out of me. I am working with a counselor to try to “fix” this, but in the meantime I am meeting lots of nice men who are falling for me and I am hurting them, not on purpose, but because I just can’t return their love at that level. And I am very honest about this upfront, but they don’t hear me! Am I at fault then when, having been warned, they get too close and I push them back (disappear, close down, etc.). Mention “exclusive” to me and you just killed the relationship. Should I just become a hermit and not date so I can protect them from me? So while I don’t enjoy the fall out of being with EU men, they are safer to me because they will not ask of me what I cannot give. My goal right now is not to find a nice EMOTIONALLY AVAILABLE guy, but to find a NICE emotionally unavailable guy (not married would be a good start, working on that :-))! I believe they are out there because I am not an Assclown. I am fun, treat men well, and yes, I will have fantastic sex with them! but I do hold them at arm’s length. Another good friend of mine is a great, great guy. Lost his fiance to a car accident right before the wedding. You could be the greatest woman ever, he just will not take the chance to love that way again. And those of us who care for him feel sadness for him, but do not condemn him for his EU issues. Any woman who tries to love him is playing with fire, she will most likely get hurt. But, if she can accept what he is willing to give, she will have a great guy to hang with. He just probably won’t marry her or be consumed by her.
So I guess I am saying just because someone can’t give you what you want/hope for/reciprocate does not always mean they are assh*les. And who knows, maybe if the right guy came along who I decided was worth the risk of loss, he would be my exception and he would end up with a really great woman (although I will always battle EU and he would have to be ready for that ride too). Just wanted to maybe share a more compassionate version of us EUs out there…..and you may never know the situation that lead them to who they are, because I do not tell anyone about my daughter. So some may just call me a b*tch for not giving them what they thought they could get if they just loved me enough. It’s not them, it’s just not for sale.
So Oldenoughtoknowbetter,
what you are saying is that if someone is emotionally unavailable for whatever reason from their past, they are okay poeple in themselves just unavailable to meet someone else’s emotional needs or participate on an emotional journey. That sounds okay in itself if someone is upfront about it and tells people straight, but they don’t.
Have you really told people:
” I am not wanting any real emotional involvement with you and what we will have will be on my terms, so that I can protect myself from any future hurt or loss . I have my own issues I am working through and I have no slack for emotional entanglement. If you are okay with me using you for my needs then we can date”
I think emotionally available people who are wanting a relationship would run like hell away from that offer even if the person making it is really very nice in every other way and great in bed!
Oldenoughtoknowbetter – I think you and a few others are missing the point. One of the reasons why I say that it’s not about good or bad or saying that someone who is emotionally unavailable can’t change is because if you habitually get involved with unavailable people, you’re unavailable yourself. I used to be unavailable and I’m not a bad person and I did change – off my own back and off my own steam, not because someone told me I had to or tried to twist me to their agenda.
In fact, I don’t even know where you’re going with the whole good and bad thing. What I do know is that while I wasn’t a bad person, I certainly wasn’t good to myself when I was unavailable and I wasn’t really an appropriate candidate for a healthy relationship with all the stuff I had going on with me that was completely counterproductive. This is why I say to readers when they are slagging off unavailable partners and damning them, to be careful because it cuts both ways. It is not to excuse the behaviour of others but we must own our part of the problem. The fact that I again and again went after unavailable people and felt perpetually disappointed, while they have their own contribution, I have mine. I feel you have taken it to some sort of micro level and made it about good and bad, good vs evil and I think if you’d read *enough*, you would know that, for example, Mr Unavailables emotionally unavailable partner is a Fallback Girl (or vice versa). She is often quietly unavailable and often unaware of it, but unavailable herself. She’s not a bad person so why turn it into that? At the end of the day, we are 100% responsible for ourselves. I know unavailable people who are upfront about who they are and their limitations. Some of them don’t date at all as it’s easier than being upfront and then still having to deal with the issue anyway. Others are upfront and if the person than reveals that they want more, they opt out, no messing around. But most of these people in knowing their limitations are actively working on resolving the source of those limitations.
I feel for your friend that lost his fiance to a car accident and of course, for you and your own loss. I know people who have experienced similar circumstances and they have taken a different path. That doesn’t invalidate yours or his path but your path is your prerogative and the fact is, if someone *is* looking for a healthy, emotionally available relationship without limitations that can progress, neither you or your friend are appropriate for that. If someone wants to pass time and have a limited relationship, that is their prerogative also. Again, read the blog enough and you’ll know that I’m all about owning your choices. But fact is, people are human and they want to love and be loved and those that do, will want more than what you can offer.
NML
Hard to hear but true. I made the decision not to date for a while after a major break up (major to me, he didn’t care) a few years ago. I’d joined a singles organisation and a seemingly nice, decent guy wanted to meet me again. I said no because I hadn’t got over the ex. I had to wonder why I put myself out there if I didn’t want a relationship. Even though I didn’t go out with the guy and the damage was minimal I’m sure he wondered “what’s wrong with me?” I felt I was misrepresenting myself and decided not to date until I was ready.
Ultimately, if you want sex, you want affection, you want someone to hang out but DON’T want a proper relationship someone’s going to get hurt. It might even be you.
As a man, I do have some insider knowledge on this question.
First of all, please, let’s call a spade “a spade”. Why say “emotionally unavailable” when we really mean “only wants sex”?
The reality is that there are huge numbers of men who would bend over backwards to please women in long-term relationships and marriage but that women simply *don’t find these men attractive*.
That’s the real “mystery” from a male perspective. Why the men who offer women what they *say* they want are so consistently rejected!
Women need to be honest with themselves about what makes a man attractive to them and then realise that the very qualities they are drawn to in a man actually make him *less* likely to commit.
workshy
maybe those men are like us, they say they want a proper relationship but in fact they chase women who don’t want to give it to them. or they sit at home sulking about it.
I laughed very heartily out loud Grace. Very witty!
B-i-n-g-o!! The nail has just been hit, on the head, and, as usual, by Grace.
…and the very same men want the “nice girl” after they have been bit in the ass by the “vixen”.
This “theme” is played up in movies, literature, etc. (see especially “Great Expectations”–but the Loser in there STILL wants the Bitch throughout, even when he KNOWS, time after time, that she is EU, MEAN, AND COLD!! She was TRAINED and BROUGHT UP to be that way, too!!).
Hence the sayings, “Nice girls finish last,” and “nice guys finish last.”
You sinish last b/c you START OFF last…by lagging! CHOOSING to lag behind.
This begs the question of attraction.
Why do both men and women “bark up the wrong tree” with such depressing regularity?
Because in both cases there is strong disconnect between what they want and what they say want.
???????????
So you agree, then, that men and women are the same–that they SAY they want a nice, normal person, but what they really want is the person who will make them worl/suffer/pain for their “love”?
Then we are all nothing but masochists! And everyone SHOULD play games…which is what I am starting to believe should be the case, at least until someone is ready for marriage. That’s when you start to up (and maybe even act!) the honesty, generosity, trust, name-your-good-quality, etc. traits.
Of course, the above also entails admitting to the fact that a good reputation counts for naught, and that everything is about luck. Under the above scenario, the selfish WILL finish first, no matter how you look at it.
I look at everything from the outside, and I cry for anyone under 30 out there. And wonder how to raise my child. Make him a good person, so that he’ll get chewed up and spit out? Or make him a selfish jerk, who has no empathy?
Workshy Joe, if this was only a sex thing, it would all be so much simpler. You’re getting too basic here. Fact is, for every woman I get email from saying she’s being used for sex, I get an email saying that the guy is emotionally unavailable and doesn’t want to have sex. Sex is part of the issue, but not all of the issue.
Also emotional unavailability is not just a male thing. Women are too.
It’s also very easy to say that these men would bend over backwards to please women in long-term relationships – fact is that’s easy to say when you’re involved with an emotionally unavailable woman who is also avoiding commitment.
People who actually want to be in a committed relationship and are emotionally available don’t try to commit with emotionally unavailable people.
But yes, women *and* men need to be honest about what makes someone attractive to them and recognise that in ignoring shared core values and pursuing less important stuff that tells you little or nothing about the character or values of the person and their ability for a relationship, they are setting themselves up for pain.
Hey NML,
I love your blog, I think there is some great stuff in here, but I don’t think the concept of “Emotional Unavailability” is very useful for either gender.
From your defintion, it lumps together very different problems under the same label.
1. Guys who only want sex.
2. Guys who have lost sexual inerest in their partners.
3. Guys who are emotional “cold fish” or just not particularly animated around their partners.
I’m just concerned that women will use this label to avoid looking at cause and effect in their relatioships.
Um…that’s certainly not what I think or portray plus the fact is as a whole, it’s an issue that affects both sexes and ultimately, one of the core messages is ‘Take the focus off them and bring it back to you’. At the end of the day, you can investigate the crap out of what someone does and why, and play armchair psychologist. You can blame them for everything but ultimately, we’re the only recurring element in our relationships and the only thing we can control. It’s not about changing them, it’s about working out who and what you are, what you need to deal with, and if at the end of the day, you sorting out yourself means that you can approach your relationships differently, feel better about yourself, or even breathe life into the relationship you’re in, great. You’re a bit obsessed with the ‘sex’ element and you seem to think it’s the chief aim. It’s a part of the problem but it’s not all of the problem. Oh and I’ve never said anything about animation as that’s really something else entirely. Really, it’s not about emotional unavailable or assclown or narcissist or any other name. It’s once you recognise the issues asking yourself – why am I still here putting up with this? When you answer that question with a genuine answer, not just the automatic BS one, you can then start working at the issues.
A man of integrity and character who “bends” for the relationship is a good thing.
A man who “bends over backwards” has no spine. Maybe that is why they are unattractive to women.
GOLD.
Thank you. This gets to the nub of the issue.
Women look for strong character, emotional independence and congruence in a man.
Unfortunately, most men have NO CLUE that this is the case.
Workshy Joe,
It’s what Natalie calls the “make me the exception” thing. It’s a HUGE “validation” to someone with low self esteem to get a horrible guy to “make her the exception.” So, if you are a good guy, there’s no “validation” involved because we feel we don’t deserve this. So, it’s not that women don’t want it, it’s that you are meeting women with low self esteem who want “validation” by wanting guys who can “validate” them by “making them the exception.”
But don’t change yourself.
JJ2,
You’re too late. I already did change myself. All the needy, spineless, “nice guy” crap had to go.
My girlfriend and I got back together recently after a break lasting six months.
I used the interval to work out where the hell I was going wrong. I simply didn’t understand what women wanted from men. I have a much better idea now.
However, I find it extremely ironic that Pick Up Artists focused on one night stands told me what I needed to know about the psychology of long term relationships.
If I had sought counsel from “relationship experts”, I would still be scratching my head wondering where the **** I was going wrong.
Workshy Joe
there is nothing “Nice Guy” about needy and spineless..
Needy just means that YOU have needs you want someone else to fill because YOU don;t know how to fulfill your own needs and “spineless” just means you don’t have positive enough boundaries to be able to protect yourself. Maybe YOU could be an emotionallu unavailable man. What do you think? Think of the emotional benefits YOU could reap if you could understand that possibility and then identify how to be emotionally available for a mutually loving and respectful relationship heaven forbid loving committment and even marriage!
The PUA stay that way, PUA, even when they are married. Maybe even especially then. After all, the gf they dated and ultimatelty asked to marry put up with their PUA ways when they were dating, didn’t she?
Any PUA I ever dated (and even most of the nice guys) STILL checks me out when wifey is not around or not looking. These guys are not 10% devoted to their wives. I would HATE to have a husband like that!
Maybe your gf is insecure. If you still like/love her, and the sex (which is obviously of supreme importance to you, and that you probably missed greatly!!) is still great, then good for you!
She will want you to be a nice guy in the long run. Especially when kids get involved.
Oh, and I am sure she is 100% faithful to you, too, at all times, broken up or not.
Joe,
I think you’re making some big generalizations here, as they certainly do not apply to me or the majority of my friends.- But, I do agree that many women go for these losers due to their own issues
Re. the “emotional unavailable” man: I was already sleeping with my ex -had no thoughts of making it serious at the time, as it was new-when he started proclaiming his love and a need for a future together. It freaked me out out, as it was too soon! When I reciprocated his ‘feelings’ some months later, he bailed. This seems to be a common theme on this site. He came back a couple of months later with the I love yous’, but repeated the same strange behavior. I had enough! He really did a number on me!
So you see, he didn’t have to tell me he loved me to get sex. I think you should read more of the articles and posts, and expand your knowledge on the topic.
Also, we are speaking of long-term relationships, not casual flings.
I have to say it’s been my experience that men who label themselves “Nice Guys” … often aren’t.
I second that one Melanie. My xEUM often spoke of how nice he was and how much people liked him, but in reality, not many people did.
Melanie, I second that.
The most narcissistic, downright evil human being I know will tell anyone, straight up, what a great guy he is…while his horrifically walking-wounded traumatized baby-momma who he PIMPED OUT (yes, pimped her as a prostitute, not kidding or exaggerating and totally,utterly believed with sincere conviction he was HELPING her) is sitting in the corner crying because of some crap treatment (and she’s being unreasonable according to him) and the baby is in the corner, nobody except me even acknowledging the baby’s existence, she’s being treated like furniture. This is an ex who is well known in our city…he owns a high-profile venue in a major city and all of the patrons think wow he’s such a cool guy…and he will agree…and I think they all see the seamy side of his existence yet turn a blind eye to it. He certainly does.
And he will say with utter conviction and sincerity, he’s a Really Nice Guy. He’s not one of “those” a-holes.
My experience is that Nice people just are. They are busy really BEING nice, not dividing up the world into Nice people and NOT Nice people.
To Charla and Sunshine, yes i agree. I also believe if something’s true then it doesn’t need to be said. A nice, honorable man with integrity wouldn’t go about mentioning (read: bragging) about all the babies he’s kissed, all the old-ladies he’s helped cross the street, all the soup-kitchen’s he’s volunteered for. He just does it, and if anything downplays or hides it because he wouldn’t want to appear to be getting glory for it. Guys who brag and receive glory like that, they try to appear to be altruistic but by definition they’re not. They are seeking a payoff in the form of glory and adulation therefore they’re only doing their good deeds on a quid pro quo, tit for tat basis.
LMAO. That’s not “Nice Guy Syndrome”. That’s Fifty Cent.
Good observation.
Have you visited the “OmegaVirginRevolt” blog?
Reading this post makes me feel kind of foggy, not clear. When in a relationship where I’m feeling bad, the back and forth in my goes like this: “I didn’t like what they just did.” “You overreact. You’re a drama-seeker, making a big deal out of nothing. You’re expecting too much from people.” “Okay, I’ll try to be more accepting.” No one in life is good all the time, right? The people closest to you end up being the ones that hurt you, a bit, because you’re the one that’s around when they’re not at their best, right?
I mean, even my roommate gets on my nerves sometimes. Isn’t there an aspect of love that puts up with annoying flaws?
Your question, “I doubt that you feel interested in every person that shows an interest in you – is that because there is something ‘wrong’ with them?” made me think. Yeah, I kind of do think that. If they are interested (and truly available), and I’m not, considering how eager I am to be in a healthy relationship, it’s usually because they have shown some trait that puts me off. Otherwise, wouldn’t I give them a chance? Isn’t that what’s happening when someone gives me the blow off?
Maybe I need to come back to this post. I guess I have never felt as though I really know how to choose people. Interacting with pretty much anyone eventually ends up with me feeling like I just don’t know how to be. Not exactly like I have done something wrong, but more like, I just can’t do this whole relationship thing “right.”
Everyone else seems to be more relaxed, except the people I get close to, who are as neurotic and negative as (I guess) I am. I guess I feel comfortable with them. Getting together with well-adjusted people always makes me feel inferior. Argh! But I have to keep pushing to hang out with more solid folks and ride out the insecure feelings, I guess, otherwise how will I learn what to expect from solid relationships?
I had a reasonable interaction with a few new people last night, and I think in part it was successful because I had decided beforehand that no matter what I did ‘wrong,’ I was going to accept myself and not yell at myself. There was a very attractive man among them who was giving me no more interest than friendly. I know that usually I might have felt somewhat rejected by his lack of interest. Meanwhile, another guy was giving me a little too much interest, and this time I felt a little weirded by it, instead of flattered. At the end of the night, the second guy was offering a space in his bed to me and to another woman in our group! Ew. The first man asked, respectfully, if I would like to be accompanied back to my car (it was late). It was strange. The one who I normally would have perceived as rejecting me (for having something glaringly wrong with me) was the much more restrained, respectful, and solid of the two.
This believing I’m not less-than, and therefore destined to crap treatment, takes practice! It’s kind of tiring!! But good.
Hi Lynn, I think it’s the back and forth in your head that you need to address because you’re actually invalidating your feelings. To take the attitude of “no one is good in life all the time” is to suggest that we should all just kick back, relax, and take inappropriate behaviour. While we all have off days, fact is, me having an off day doesn’t ‘hurt’ my partner. You seem to think that love is pain, that people who are close to you “hurt you a bit”. Yes if you have people who are close to you who are doing things to hurt you. There is also a big difference between someone having a bad day/not being at their best and someone specifically doing something that hurts you. The former doesn’t require you to make it about you. If they’re not feeling their best it’s about them. We’re not performing seals – we must have good and bad days and trust that those around us will still be there to love and support us. We mustn’t feel that we can’t have an off day because someone else will be like ‘Ooh you not being your best hurts me’. When someone does something that crosses your boundaries, for instance, that has nothing to do with not being at their ‘best’ – it’s because of their characteristics and values. You also need to address the belief that you can’t do the relationship ‘right’ – fact is, by thinking that, you’re keeping yourself at a distance and not putting yourself in because you think you’re going to fail anyway. It’s not about being ‘right’ – we’re not perfect people. It is about shared values, mutual love, care, trust, and respect though.
@ Lynn, I’ve experienced so much of what you have identified here. The back and forth conversation in my head, that as Nat points out is a way of invalidating oneself, the worries about inferiority etc. I think it is important to address where this comes from and why it keeps manifesting as the same relationship over and over. This is something I have begun to explore and try to correct – taking a time out from new relationships while I do. The biggest thing I have learned though is to trust my initial gut reaction. It’s often right – until my head gets involved and starts trying to convince me otherwise.
Absolutely Done as dinner – keep trusting your gut.
That’s what I thought with my ex-husband. I thought that our relationship was strong enough that we could be ourselves, that we both accept the good and bad about the other. Apparently I was the only one that felt that way. There were things about him that I didn’t like or agree with, but my love for him was strong enough to overlook them. No marriage is perfect and if people were willing to accept and acknowledge that, I think the divorce rate would be lower.
How do you really know when you are in that kind of relationship. Do the vows you exchange mean nothing? They mean everything to me and I took them seriously, too bad I was the only one.
If you have to overlook something, that in itself is an enormous problem. Love and relationships don’t require you to be blind. If you ignore and overlook, you cannot respect the reality of the person or your relationship or be aware of problems and how to even begin resolving them. The only reasons why we overlook what others do is 1) out of a lack of boundaries 2) loving and trusting blindly, and more importantly 3) because we want the person to overlook *our* stuff.
But based on this comment and your previous, the crux of your problem is this: It’s not about that ‘thing’ you did that he didn’t tell you about or whatever you think the problem is. The problem is that for the past four years you’ve been trying to divvy out the blame like there is no tomorrow. If you were going beyond apportioning fault, you’d be over the relationship by now and living your life via your new lessons. The problem is that you want this to be someone’s fault. That’s not how it works. You’ve both contributed to why your relationship did not work out. Trying to work out who is 62% and who is 38% or whatever it is, is a waste of energy. It will always come back to you because you’re the only person you can control. We’re human, we love and want to be loved and make mistakes. Learning from the lessons and grieving the loss of the relationship and accepting that it’s over and what happened, frees you to get on with your life…better.
I am not talking overlooking big things (i.e. the issues you talk about in your blogs). I mean little things like how they do something, quirky things that were cute when you started dating that aren’t so cute now, etc. Like you said, we aren’t perfect.
For me, I just want to understand what happened. I want to know what he was/is thinking and feeling. Although everyone tells me that I will never understand, so just accept. I am too logical a person sometimes, I find it difficult to accept something without explanation. I was probably one of those kids that didn’t accept “because” as an answer 🙂
TH
Re understanding and analysis, most of us have been down that route, which is why we all say “let it go” and “move on”. It’s not because we are airheads who blithely forget it and skip on with life (I’m not saying that’s what you think of us, just exaggerating to illustrate the point). It sounds trite but at some point you have to stop thinking about it and live your life. You can’t put rules and time limits around it but if you think about it a lot, analyse it too much, look to finetune exactly who was responsible for what, what you could have done differently, it can become a habit you can’t get out of. I was stuck doing it for over three years with a previous ex which ended with me on antidepressants. When I found myself doing it again recently I had to call time on myself and just stop. Okay, it was easier the second time round cos I’d already experienced the futility. But none of us here can say to you “think about it some more, analyse it some more, try to understand his motivations and actions, consider everything that you could have done differently cos that will help you”. We know it won’t. We all flippin tried it.
What is worth your time is making yourself happy. In ways that don’t involve him. Also, if there are loose ends – divorce to instigate, child visits to organise properly sort those out otherwise they’re a constant trigger to start thinking about it all again.
Yep. I am precisely guilty of 1- through to 10. I can’t seem to shake the trance I’m in, to see the reality of his behavior. The day my jerk took off, I was so devastated, I actually went back and blamed myself for everything that went wrong in the relationship including the very last moment.. which was him going out all night, not coming home and me being upset the next morning with him for not checking in. Imagine that, expecting the man you live with to check in with you and come home for a change? I’m embarrassed to say, I thought to myself, if only I hadn’t said anything. He wouldn’t have made that final move to leave me and shatter my heart.
I wondered, who could do it, who could be the very woman to tame this beast? Why not me, what’s wrong with me? I have dissected my personality and my esteem wondering what I could have done better when the truth is, I did far too much already and gave more to him than I have ever even given myself. I couldn’t have done anymore. I guess it seems easier to blame myself than really take a look at the hard cold facts. I have absorbed so much blame in not being able to tame a jerk, that I believe I owe myself a huge apology.. at least I am going to try to.
MaryC, I understand the spousal indiscretions being a bit serial. They don’t seem to care who we are. Tiger is a Cheata, so was Hugh Grant, Jude Law etc.. and they had pretty top notch ladies.. It is true, what they do is independent of us.
Hi Gingerbell, in trying to “tame this beast” you forgot a crucial piece of information – that you were involved with a beast. It’s like getting in the cage with a snake and wondering why it bites you.
I love that Nat! “Like getting into a cage with a snake and wondering why it bites you”
That is exactly right, so why is it so easy to forget? I guess because when you first start out in these relationships you feel like you are the snake charmer. Little do you know, he is just getting ready to strike.
Hilarious! It’s important also for us to remember that snake charmers have been trained. We can’t decide we’re now a snake charmer because we love them!
Gingerbell, from my point of view, the question that interests me is why you even had this desire to “tame the beast” in the first place.
Domestic animal males (aka Nice Guys) are actually far more numerous in the Anglosphere (North America, UK, Australia, etc).
The only snag is that women don’t actually find them attractive.
Your “beast” on the other hand, undoubtedly possessed a strong self-concept, knew his own mind, was totally congruent and answerable to no-one but himself.
That’s what made him attractive to you in the first place.
Workshy
She thinks he’s a jerk though. I think you’re fundamentally missing a point here. We don’t like these guys because they are great we like them because they are “jerks” (commitment dodging liars) or we are attracted to qualities that are in fact of little or no value (good looks, charm). I know that begs the question – why the hell are we doing it? We’re the fallback girls, the girls with low self-esteem however beautiful, successful or intelligent we may be. We look for a man who confirms our lack of self-belief. Honestly, I don’t think a man should want to be attractive to us, lol. We make terrible choices! We end up with men we don’t even like very much, sadly.
And decent guys will find a woman ALL the time. Maybe you don’t see it because it doesn’t fit in with your world view.
Grace,
It sounds as if you are attracted to men who are beyond your control. “Forces of nature” so to speak.
There is NOTHING wrong with that.
Excessive “jerkiness” is easy to fix. Just draw some clear boundaries and blow him off when he violates them.
workshy – i agree that the jerk has to be gotten rid of. i don’t agree that sticking around for him to change will work, not long term. it’s a waste of time and effort. it’s not worth waiting, it’s not worth discussing, it’s not worth explaining. ok, i’m prepared to have a conversation about whose turn it is to cook but it’s beneath me to tell a grown man that cheating, hitting, name-calling, disappearing, disrespect, other women etc is unacceptable. he’s not a child and i’m not his freakin mother.
i don’t find those men attractive anymore by the way, i find them kinda pathetic and immature.
i think we may be talking about different men actually; i guess if you haven’t been on the receiving end of their “special” treatment you may not comprehend it.
“Domestic animal males” – *snorting with laughter*
What stood out to me in your comment though was this “Your “beast” on the other hand, undoubtedly possessed a strong self-concept, knew his own mind, was totally congruent and answerable to no-one but himself.”
I have had to explain to many people that while someone may be an assclown, that assclown doesn’t deviate from their assclown values or their boundaries, even though they are values and boundaries that we don’t like or may even cause us harm. The trouble with being involved with these people is because we’re not living congruent with our own values and taking care of our self-esteem, we assume that because we’re willing to deviate that they will be – they won’t.
Exactly!
Women need to think about the kind of behaviour they reward and the kind of behaviour that they sanction.
Wild or domestic, alpha or beta, male dogs are invariably Pavlovian.
Joe
Women don’t have that much control over how a man and vice versa. You can only tinker with the peripheries such as who takes the bins out. When you’re dealing with a man or woman who doesn’t want a proper relationship, all the sanctioning, rewarding, gameplaying, pick up tricks, men are from mars, rules, the secret, 10 ways to save your marriage, how to survive cheating, etc is not going to change that. they don’t want it. They could live with you, marry you, have children with you but still not want it. I refer to men AND women.
It goes against 99% of the relationship advice out there so I can see how people don’t get it. I didn’t for ages. Actually another website with a similar no-nonsense approach is wayneandtamara.com. They also don’t see the point of flogging a dead horse.
Workshy Joe, what I find amusing and a tad bewildering with you is that you will ‘pull me up’ over the use of the term ’emotionally unavailable’ and then litter your own comments with some of the funniest terminology I’ve *ever* heard! “Wild or domestic, alpha or beta, male dogs are invariably Pavlovian.” – hilarious! Seriously, you may want to get back down to a human level. Even with everything I’ve ever explained to women about relationships, I’ve never referred to men as dogs.
Workshy,
“Domestic animal males (aka Nice Guys) are actually far more numerous in the Anglosphere (North America, UK, Australia, etc).
The only snag is that women don’t actually find them attractive.”
That sounds a bit like a false belief you have there. On this site, we try to identify our own false beliefs about love and relationships. Beliefs that are limiting our choices and unconsciously influencing us. The fact is, that plenty of women find plenty of ‘domestic male animals’ attractive – otherwise, people wouldn’t get married. And/or ‘domestic male animals’ would be weeded out of the gene pool and we’d be a race of tall, gorgeous, promiscuous ‘beasts’. C’mon, you know plenty of ‘domestic animals’ who are fairly happily married couples, don’t ya? I do. It happens, and it could happen to you! Don’t be so hard on yourself – and don’t use women, in general, as a scapegoat for why you aren’t successfully paired. Look a little deeper, look at yourself, and take responsibility.
Workshy Joe.. When I first met this guy, I really liked him…genuinely.He’s very smart, very witty and he was very loving. I wasn’t fighting for it.. In fact it fell into place very organically. As time went on (and after I fell in love with him), I started to witness him oscillate from being a sweetheart to becoming very angry and depressed. (He’s suffered from depression since he was a kid). I think I attributed much of his “beastly” behavior on his depression or sort of got lost in wondering if this was the depression talking or if he actually is this much of a jerk. It’s not so much wanting to “tame the beast” as it was wanting to help him or perhaps figure out which one of the people he was presenting to me from day to day, he actually is.
I think men get the feeling often that women want to change them and sometimes that may be true. For me, I just wanted him to be consistent..He’s not a beast in the sense that he is circus worthy but if you are dealing with a two faced individual who can’t make up his mind who he is, it’s enough to drive a gal bonkers…especially because she when she loves him so much. But he left, so it’s been decided, regardless.
Gingerbell: “I just wanted him to be consistent”. Good point. Of course you did. I think workshy joe is over-simplifying and actually is showing quite a ‘gender conditioned’, narrow, stereotypical view of the whole thing – though he has some ‘food for thought’. It is not about “taming the beast” with these “alpha males” – it’s about the terrible confusion, anxiety and head-wrecking they cause with their relentless ambivalence, which Carter and Sokol (uncannily!)describe as:
very seductive / very rejective
very intimate / very withdrawn
very accepting / very critical
very tender / very hostile
very romantic / very distant
very sexualy provocative / very sexually witholding
very giving / very cold
The minute I came across this (and the very same idea as this in Natalie’s blogs) I knew I had ignored my gut feeling for years about this man, and for the first time ever someone else was describing MY “relationship” as if they had been right in it with me the whole time!! I knew that my worst fears were actually correct: that there WAS something very badly wrong with him, and no, it was not my “imagination” – and not my fault!
(BTW My ex did all of the above other than that he was never really critical of me)
So, Gingerbell – we wanted them to just be consistent. Not much to ask??!! But they can’t do consistent – they can do everything else, but they cannot do consistent – they are riddled with ambivalence – the one thing you can be sure of with these people is that if they say one thing “today” – they will be saying the opposite “tomorrow”, and if they do one thing “today”, they will be doing the opposite thing “tomorrow”.
What people in good/healthy relationships experience, is exactly what you say, consistency.
Gingerbell: But see, wanting him to be consistent when he is NOT consistent IS wanting to change him…and you end up getting hooked on an inconsistent man when what you say you want is consistency….we have to learn to walk AWAY from behaviors that don’t work for us, not try to understand or figure them out, just WALK AWAY and invest in something else.
To be honest,I think toward the end here, he was consistently horrible with a few brief moments of fleeting empathy. So, I agree Sunshine,I did want a different result that he was clearly not capable of providing or he would have.
Thanks for your points Fearless. And it is a relief/shocking to see my relationship also, so effectively described in a way that resonates and gives me credit to believe it’s not my fault.
And, I’ve really drained myself trying to figure out why he is so horrible to me when maybe that’s the problem. He isn’t necessarily horrible TO me.. maybe he’s just horrible in general.
I really, really appreciate the feedback gals and this site is a heart saver right now and such a great help for me as I am on the mend. I need a seriously long rehabilitation from these types of men.
Gingerbell, plenty of men have the same complaint.
They don’t know how their wife or girlfriend is going to behave when she wakes up. Its scary.
Its also impossible to tell if the mood swings are genuine or if its just a ruse to control their partner.
From my perspective, though *some* women are in fact attracted to ‘bad boys’, I am not I am attracted to good guys. Problem is a lot of the true good guys are already taken, and a lot of the ‘bad boys’ *pretend* to be good guys. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. The trick is to see through the disguise as quickly as possible, and dump the chump so as to free myself up in case I actually meet an authentically nice guy, not just one who goes around posing as one.
I don’t think your average “Bad Boy” pretends to be anything other than what he is. That’s the appeal.
No, actually a lot of bad boys do pretend to be good guys. And no, bad boy behavior is not appealing.
You know what Workshy,
Maybe there are some women out there you like a man who is upfrount about being a total asshole but somehow I really doubt that there are many, however mascochists do exist if you look for them!
Many women though do not like a “bad boy” because they like a man who respects them as individuals etc, treats them well. Assholes are not that attractive! Sadly some men are so manipulative and unavailable for positive relationships that they HAVE to pretend to be something different, hence the wolf in sheep’s clothing comment!
The real issues for men and women who get involved with disrespecting fools is that they have to ask why did they do it after they saw the red flags and how are they going to turn up their shit detector so fools don’t try to treat them like that in the future.
You said “I don’t think your average “Bad Boy” pretends to be anything other than what he is. That’s the appeal.”
Maybe what you mean by this is that if YOU were being a “bad boy” read woman disrespecting”asshole”, you would
not hide it! I think with this strategy you can safely say that emotionally healthy women will not be attracted to you.
“Sadly some men are so manipulative and unavailable for positive relationships that they HAVE to pretend to be something different, hence the wolf in sheep’s clothing comment!”
So true Josie! I can at least respect a guy who comes out and admits he’s an AC. At least he has integrity. I won’t date him! But I will respect his authenticity.
” “Maybe what you mean by this is that if YOU were being a “bad boy” read woman disrespecting”asshole”, you would
not hide it!”
I must say unfortunately I doubt that. The reason for that is that he seems to be advocating for both good guys and for bad guys. Which makes me suspicious he falls more into the wolf in sheep’s clothing category. Although from what I’ve seen, men who advocate only for “nice guys” and against “bad boys” can still be bad boys pretending to be good guys.
“I think with this strategy you can safely say that emotionally healthy women will not be attracted to you.”
Agreed!!
I met a guy last March, and since the very beginning of our ‘relationship’ he sent me mixed signals to the point where I started to blame myself for his actions. I even remember being fully aware that I had started using very self-depreciating talk to myself, calling myself ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’ when I would get off the phone with him or do anything related to him.
Well, after months of such self hate I ended up seeing a counsellor. He didn’t fade out of my life until I shut him out a month ago – I told him I was cutting ties and promptly deleted him from every phone and social network website! Sad to say, he did much damage. My self esteem has been bruised so badly that I constantly look back on every moment and conversation I had with him, looking for the answer to ‘What did I do wrong?/What was wrong with me?/Why couldn’t I change him?’ Hence, the counselling.
Today, I missed that counsellor appointment. I really needed it. I have been reading your entries since finding your site a few weeks back, but today your post really struck home. This – THIS! – is exactly what I needed to hear months and months ago. You brilliantly counterargued all those points.
I am printing this out and sticking it on my fridge so I can read it every day whenever those thoughts come up in my head.
Thank you!
Hi TeaTime, what an awful situation to have been in and I’m relieved you’re out of it. If being involved with someone means you cannot love you and act with love, care, trust, and respect towards you, you must always choose you. The fact that you would feel this way in itself is a major red flag about the person and the relationship you were involved in – it was toxic. Take care of you and continue nourishing yourself with the emotional support and compassion you need. xx
I scored 8 out of 10 on this quiz. The one that I really own is number 8. If they really cared about the relationship and loved me “they should want to change” Q no. 10 “wanting to be the exception to the rule” hit home when I read Natalie’s post on the subject. You know me better than I know myself Natalie. Thanks for another insightful and timely post. 🙂 Every time I’m encouraged to keep growing. That it’s never too late to change the things I can.
You’re very welcome Namaste. It is *never* too late indeed – keep the faith.
“Even if it may seem from outward appearances that others think that
the sun shines out of the person who mistreated you’s bum, the reality is that you just don’t know the people that they have mistreated.” Very often these people have a worse reputation than they appear to have. Mention them to one person and you find yourself surrounded by a secret society of people who hate them as much as you do. Chances are if you think someone’s acting like a jerk, others have spotted the same behavior and made the same judgement.
Amen, amen, amen Anne. When we stop viewing them as some sort of Messiah and get out of Lala Land, the reality of these people is all together different.
Thanks for this. Number two I thought I did agree with then reread it – I thought it read something more like if you love yourself then others won’t treat you badly… must be because I watched some Lousie Hay this morning
I think these issues arises with nice people who always try to be perfect for all the people to whom they know. I think that’s there biggest problem that they keep try to change himself/herself for others. Evey one has their unique nature & living style, they should never compromise with it but yes they should keep some adjustment according to the situation.
#1 is very much for me whenever any of my friends, family member or colleague upset me then first thing come in mind that is anything I have done wrong for that he/she behaving like this with me. When I realized that I didn’t do anything wrong then I keep thinking that why it happened with me?
And later on I start thinking as you well suggested “What is it about this person or what’s happening in their lives that they are behaving in this manner?”
This kind of situation often arises with us but we need to deal it with relax & cool mind.
There’s this new book called “Attached” by Amir Levine which talks about attachment styles, coming from our upbringing, and how people who are anxious can get caught in a negative spiral with people who are avoidant. It’s very on the money, descriptions fit in detail, also explains why and also how it works there are so many avoidant people out there in the dating pool, and what you can do about it. Especially that anxious people need to avoid getting involved with avoidant people. Says about half of people are secure, the other half divided in two between anxious and avoidant, and that these styles survive for good evolutionary reasons. Secure people will not trigger the anxiety behaviors in anxious people, who may in fact become secure around them, while being around avoidants will make anxious people much much more anxious and trigger a lot of issues and problems for them. Describes how the blame for everything is laid at the anxious one’s door, typically, and how and why they are prone to accept it. I like that it doesn’t beat up people for having an anxious attachment style but explains what is behind it and how to live with it without getting caught up in a lot of bad scenes with avoidants. Worth checking out for sure.
@ Misquita – thank you so much for that explanation and the book suggestion! Through therapy, I’ve come to learn that my family’s style was avoidant which has made me anxious, and so my whole life has been about seeking out one avoidant after another (in all relationships) and then feeling like I failed in all of them. Your explanation was so succinct and helpful in explaining this cycle. I’ve been trying to grasp it but your words have made it crystal clear!
What’s interesting though Misquita is that if anxious people don’t address where their anxiety comes from and distinguish between internal and external factors that are triggering anxiety, a secure person will not be attractive or they will be, but they’ll sabotage it with their anxiety. The Anxious however can become securer around a secure person if they are already working on themselves and recognise they are in a healthy relationship and increase their level of trust and security. Thanks for the interesting insight.
I agree; I think a secure person can get pretty sick pretty quickly of an anxious person who doesn’t recognise their own problems because the anxious person can be very clingy, heavily dependent, always looking for validation (and can never get enough!) and is drama seeking, always looking for a row – the break-up then make-up scenario – in order for the secure partner to continually re-affirm the worth of the other etc… anxious types are hard work for a secure type…so they often give up and find someone secure – less demanding and unreasonable!
I recognise myself as ‘anxious type’ in my teens and twenties… but I worked out that this was unhealthy and unpleasant and I stopped the drama! I don’t think I have been the anxious type now for many years – maybe my ex EUM crushed that out of me too! I have my issues, yes, but I no longer need to be reminded that I am loved every five minutes! (just as well when you are with an EUM!!) I think my ex EUM (active avoidant type) certainly recognised pretty quickly that he had a prime candidate in me to get what he wanted and also avoid making any commitment, investment or contribution to a real relationship. In other words, he knew he could take the piss out of me! Not that woman any more!!
I am also currently reading this book. It runs pretty parallel with Natalie’s teachings here on this site but uses different terms. And the book also states that people who have anxious attachement style should not be with avoidants. And that avoidants typically seek out anxious. It basically comes down to learning how to be secure and how to be attracted to secure. Avoidants rarely change unless they look at themselves for responsibility and dissatisfaction. I think this goes along well with what all of us have been learning from Natalie here.
My counsellor described my childhood as “extraordinary” and not in a good way. I blamed myself for it. I didn’t THINK it was my fault, not with my head and with logic, but somehow it FELT like it was my fault. Kids think they’re the centre of the world so if something goes wrong at home they blame themselves. I brought that into my relationships – that somehow I could make up for the mistreatment I was receiving. I didn’t actually DO anything, I would just stick around, putting up with it and feeling helpless. It was bizarre. I knew it was all wrong but I just couldn’t do anything about it, ie LEAVE.
Thankfully, with this site and with my counsellor (a man by the way so not all men are EUM!) I have come out the other side.
It wan’t my fault. And it’s not your fault that he’s married/ depressed/ not ready for a relationship/ likes jerking women around / tells fibs/ blows hot and cold/ flirts with other women/ disappears / won’t see you/ won’t call/ won’t return calls/ dumps you then comes back and dumps you again/ hits you/ calls you names etc. You didn’t cause it so you can’t fix it. Save yourselves and instigate NC!
And who cares why he does it? You’ve got better things to do with your life than analyse a twit.
Onwards and upwards!
Totally relate to this Grace. I casually mentioned something from my childhood that I hadn’t remembered for a long time to a friend yesterday and she was wide eyed and open mouthed. As it was the first time I’d thought or spoken about it for a long time, I quickly replayed what I had just said and realised how BONKERS it was!
Great comment Grace!
I know that this quiz is primarily aimed at women, but right off the top of my head I can think of several men (aka “beta males”) who would absorb blame on every single one of those ten counts.
Adopting a default “my fault” position is the hallmark of the Nice Guy (TM). The is the same “nice guy” who will get angry on internet forums and vent that women reject nice guys and chase after alleged bad boy “jerks”.
The Nice Guy doesn’t understand that the one thing women look for in a man is a backbone.
Workshy Joe – I think your comments about having a backbone (eg boundaries) apply to both genders, don’t you think? It’s difficult to respect someone you can run all over be they male or female.
I don’t always agree with your comments, but I really to appreciate and think about your insights and your posts here. Thank you.
Although the backbone thing seems obvious and trivial to most women, a significant proportion of men simply refuse to believe that it plays any role whatsoever in attraction or the success of a relationship.
They focus on variables such as looks and status, when they all they are missing is the right attitude.
Actually it’s not gender specific! Backbone also isn’t gender specific either. People respect those who have boundaries and are personally secure, even if it means that they end up being told to bog off. I also feel that when someone really is that ‘nice’, they don’t go around saying that they are and slagging of those that turn them down on forums – it’s Those Who Doth Protest Too Much in action. Years ago, I read a forum like the one you describe, where a ‘nice guy’ was saying how he hates this woman and that woman because they only like jerks and another was saying it was why he either sleeps with hookers or treats women like hookers.
Workshy – you are right about that, I think. I like a man to have a backbone. I know and have known a lot of “nice guys” who do have a backbone, and I think we go for the EU/”bad guy” because they appear to have backbone – but when you get to know them better you begin to suspect that you have mistaken selfish, arrogant and up-himself for strength, or backbone. In fact EU/AC men have absolutely no backbone – they are spineless tossers, whose controlling, passive aggressiveness disguises the fact that they are actually gutless in the extreme.
I have often said that it seems in my life I have stepped over all the decent guys to get to the f**ker in the corner… but no more! I never much thought about whether or not I wanted a relationship per se… I see my mistake now, in that I have never gone looking for “a relationship” – more simply that if I met a guy I ‘fancied’ then I wanted a relationship – with HIM – not anyone else, just him. For me “relationships” were things you had if you met a guy you liked and wanted to have one with – and that was all down to luck! And quite often the “him” I wanted was emotionally unavailable, plain not available, just looking for sex, as you say, or whatever you want to call it, but all amounting to the same thing: NOT available
I see now that most of the women I know who are in decent relationships were actually pro-active in looking for it and didn’t chase or waste their time on men who could not or would not provide it. Not me! And I totally now see Natalie’s point that the womn who goes for the “bad guy” (the EU, the AC the ‘only wants sex’) would not be pursuing the “bad guy” if she was truly available herself…hence the women (me!) who step over all the decent guys to get to the f**ker in the corner are not really open to commitment themselves…
So, having backbone is one of the hallmarks of a ‘decent guy’ (we often fail to appreciate what true backbone looks like) and the absence of backbone is one of the great character flaws of the “bad guy” (EU/AC/only looking for sex), who, in reality, is a spineless user… if only we could see that sooner and not confuse ‘hard-hearted’, or mean spiritedness’ or ‘hard to get’ with ‘backbone’!
Likewise, I can see now that my inability to take the obvious action in the face of a chronic EU relationship was/is a sign of: 1. low self esteem, 2. emotional unavailability and 3. spinelessness!
So, I can see now that to move on from my ex “relationship” and ensure I don’t ever repeat it, I must appreciate my value, grow a sense of self-worth, be sure about what it is Iwant from a relationship and grow a backbone!
Not much to do then! 🙂
Fearless
This is spot on. When I look back over my EUM/AC history I am at a total and complete loss as to why I gave them the time of day! I’ve grown up a lot in the previous five years and completely re-evaluated what it is that makes a man. I’ve seen the way good men treat their wives/girlfriends – with compassion, steadfastness, love, patience. I’ve seen their commitment to their children. I’ve seen them read their daughter a bedtime story, get up in the night to comfort a screaming 4yo who has nightmares. Stand resolutely by a wife with depression, loving her, comforting her, taking her to the doctors until she got better. They’ve been baffled by PMT and pregnancy hormones but endure it out with humour and strength. That to me is real “backbone”. These are the men who are truly loved by their wives and later their children. When I saw my 15yo niece spontaneously hug her father and proclaim “I love my daddy” I thought, this is it, that’s what it’s all about.
What’s a womanising “bad” guy compared to that, or a “cool” guy? Pfft.
Your post tells me you’re making terrific progress – keep it up!
Wow Fearless. You hit so many nails on so many heads (-: I admire your honesty.
Thanks Grace and PJ. And Grace, ditto to all that you have observed about what it is that really matters. I think, for a long time, I have been pretty well aware of what a good man and a good relationship looks like… and that’s what I so badly wanted to achieve with my ex EUM (I could see the potential!! 🙂 So I bet everything I had on it, as you do!). I would get so angry that he was wasting so much time when I felt we should be having great life together…I couldn’t understand what the effing problem was1 I was all growed up… I wanted “real”.. I was ready and wanting to commit… available to him…and so it all became ever more frustrating for me, and relentlessly disappointing… I was crushed and demoralised more times than I care to remember… ‘disappointed’ doesn’t even cover it! And the more I stay away from him the bigger an idiot I know I have been! I have let myself down so badly and I know it.
I hear you Fearless. My feelings exactly. I was finally ready after being on my own – with my child – for several years. And then boom – I get a major AC to jerk me (and my kid) around. Good riddance and here’s to my not tolerating these clowns any more.
It sounds like the “jerks” you went for really DID possess the positive qualities that you wanted, but they also had significant dealbreakers as well.
This is what surprises men. Both what women will forgive and what they won’t.
Workshy Joe,
“Adopting a default “my fault” position is the hallmark of the Nice Guy (TM). ”
I don’t think accepting a default position of being to blame has anything to do with someone being a “Nice Guy” or “Bad Guy”. Surely such polarised thinking will enable you to fall into a thinking trap of seeing people as one or other of two very slender choices?
People (men and women) who think they are too blame for the bullshit that others hand out to them do not need a “backbone”, but self esteem, moral values, good grounding in personal self worth and a stronger grip on reality and their true contributions to relationship dynamics.
Let’s redefine the term “Good Guys” for a moment.. Good guys are men who treat women with respect, treat them as individuals, are honest, loving and decent..what is there not to like here?
Bad Guys are the opposite of this, they disrespect women by lying to them, cheating, stealing, manipulating being dishonest, being unloving and generally behaving like tossers. What is there to like here? Sadly some women are addicted to stupid assholes and don’t know what is good for them. It has nothing to do whatseoever with alpha males and beta males.
Alpha males could be defined as as ambitious, striving men of course ambitious people can be loving, kind and have all the good guy characteristics but of course you can get involved with someone like this and they be an asss clowen albeit an ambitious assclown! Likewise beta males, less ambitious men can also be treating women with respect or be emotionally disconnected.
Let’s not mix up our apples with our pears here. An ass clown is an ass clown judged by his behaviour and his actions! End of! A person who accepts blame when they shouldn’t has low self esteem and poor boundaries. Alpha and beta males where on earth is the relevance to threse behavioural traits and whether or not you treat women with respect.
Brilliant Josie! It’s also important to note that we choose people that reflect what we believe about ourselves, love, and relationships. If those beliefs are negative, someone being decent, loving, and honest is not going to wash with them.
Another wonderful post, Natalie. You have me rethinking my hidden beliefs and my bad patterns. I have spent my life believing there was something wrong with me because I had such a hard time finding love. I believed that if someone loved me, they would change and stop doing anything that hurt me. I believed that if someone seemed interested and then lost interest, it was because of something I did. I have spent my life chasing EUM, assclowns, one narcissist and a host of other commitment phobes and then beat myself black and blue because none of them loved me. Every single time, I have dreamt of being the exception to their very clear history of rules. Every single time I have overlooked their dodgy pasts, open hostility to relationships or women, commitment issues, immaturity or overwhelming need for control. Every single time it has not worked out, I have blamed myself for the failure of the relationship. Every single time I have watched more of myself disappear as I tried desperately to morph into whatever it was I thought they wanted me to be. So much so, I no longer really know who I am, what I believe or what I feel or need.
No more. I have finally learned that the world really doesn’t revolve around me, that there really are a large number of reasons they might be doing what they are doing other than my shortcomings and that my failure to extract love from those clinically incapable of giving it might not actually say anything about me other than that I persist in not protecting myself or my heart the way I should by setting healthy boundaries and that I need to be willing to walk away from those who do not have my best interests at heart.
Being honest and realistic about relationships for me means its time to stop wishing and hoping and trying to force what I want to happen. It means accepting people for what they are and not endlessly trying to change them so that I can be happy. It means recognizing and reacting appropriately to the major red flags that appear and not investing in every single pseudo relationship in the hopes of turning it into “the one”. It means its time to stop hating myself because they didn’t love me and accepting that some people really can’t give love, regardless of who they are with. Its time to stop chasing those people. Mostly, its time to really love myself, respect myself, attract healthier people into my life and then be able to give and receive love that is real, worthy of trust and reciprocal. It is time to stop trying to work on relationships by myself and accept that the person I am with does not want the same things I do (and ask “why am I with them if that is the case?”).
It really is relationship insanity. I have done it over and over and every time, I have honestly believed that this time, it would turn out different. I have needed to be the exception to the rule. I have literally dreamt of the magical Hollywood ending and, when I haven’t gotten it, I have used that as proof that I am unlovable.
Enough.
Ah Debra, I always look forward to your comments and yet again, it’s a fantastic, deeply introspective and inspiring window into your journey. I’ve felt many of the things that you have. I loved ‘investing’ – I was gagging for each relationship to be the one regardless of quality. Making the realisations you have is deeply freeing. It’s a burden to carry around all this stuff and attempt to try to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear. Keep doing the work and having that ongoing honest conversation with yourself – you’re inspiring.
Debra- thanks so much for your beautifully written post. I really needed to read that today.
Over the years I have twisted myself into pretzels and felt like a contortionist from all of the “fitting in” I did to be who and what they wanted. Whenever I tried to assert myself, my needs and be ME, I was always made to feel like the “real me” was somehow not good enough or wrong or that deep-down, I’m really a weirdo. I am NOT fatally flawed. Done.
Debra, this is triumphantly beautiful. Many of us relate.
@debra I love your post, just like I loved this post. I have born so much in my relationships. I tried to fix him and the relationship, love enough for both of us, heal his and my problem and so much more. I like what you say about internalising bad messages. I do that too. Years ago I lived with a guy who just couldn’t commit to the relationship and I let it destroy me. I tried everything to make it work and my self respect was gone by the end of it. Ever since that time, I have been silently withdrawing from life and love, and relationships and the world around me. I am so scared of being hurt again, I make no room in my life for anybody. I thought I was looking for love, but I was just sitting on my sofa, watching tv and waiting for love to fall from the sky. Since the EUM years ago, I have had nothing but very short, not really there relationships. I haven’t kissed a guy in over 13 years, much less had sex. I thought the problem was always them but it is me. I am scared and hate myself and I always manage to find guys that are scared and hate themselves too. Or they end up hating me. Most of the time its just me thinking some sort of relationship is happening when nothing really is. Maybe they are interested or maybe they aren’t. Either way, nothing ever happens. As you say – ENOUGH!!!! I hate my life and I hate what I have become. I am so unhappy and its not them – IT”S ME!!!!! Every guy has been a “fixer upper” renovation project. I am always trying to change them into what I think I want them to be. I don’t accept myself the way I am and I don’t accept others as they are. Instead of fixing me, I put all my effort into fixing them. My thinking is all messed up.
I really needed this today. I’m actually involved with a really decent guy that i’ve know for a few months as a friend and have been dating for a couple of months. I feel very vulnerable about the whole thing and, while it’s wonderful, i keep getting this ‘too good to be true’ feeling and waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to change his mind and back out. I keep needing to remind myself that this seems unlikely, judging by his words and actions (which match – hallelujah!) and that, even if he does decide that this relationship is not right for him, it’s to do with him, not me. All i can do is be myself, have boundaries, respect his boundaries and see how it goes.
I can’t control the uncontrollable. I am not to blame for for how my ex EUM treated me, i am to blame for putting up with it.
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. That and enjoy the relationship you’re in and stop living in the past with your ex. This doesn’t mean forgetting what you’ve learned, but it’s using the cues from the current relationship you’re in to gauge where you’re at instead of using negative cues from a past relationship because you’ll spend more time looking out for dodgy stuff that’s not happening than recognising the good stuff that is. You need to put both of your feet in.
Workshy Joe,
further to my previous comment, when you divide people into two categories either Good Guy and Bad Guys or Alpha male and Beta male, you really trap yourself into thinking that people are either one or the other. This kind of thinking absolves people from accepting that alpha males can be assholes and good guys can behave badly. Beta males can be good and Bad guys are in fact loved by their mothers! Its exactly the type of thinking that traps people into thinking that because some asshole doesn’t love you, you must be unloveable.
Black and white thinking is the hallmark of inflexibility and doesn’t help you in being truely real and alive to the full range of human piotential and behaviour that is out there.
I’m most guilty of #7. Being an impressionistic person though, I tended to feel that if I invaded his space or asked for his time I was somehow “poisoning the air”. In other words, I felt my presence to be toxic! This is deep-seated with me, so no surprise there. The rest I was not prone to saying to myself — I give off an “I couldn’t care less” vibe when really I’m a tad anxious.
Ah but Charla, some people who give off that vibe are the very people that do actually care. Ultimately though, I’d address your beliefs around this toxicity. You’ll always invalidate your feelings and concerns if you’re afraid of making the space toxic.
Thanks NML. I agree. I actually made a pledge to myself to address the two things bugging me the most, which I won’t elaborate on. Taking care of these things should help me to clear away that toxic feeling.
I blamed myself 100% for the downhill slide of my last relationship and its disastrous end. The ending was cold, cruel and nasty and something I did not expect from a former partner who intimated that he valued honesty and calm adult discussions. Surely if someone is cruel to you, you deserve it…right?
Ladies/gents as the victim of someone who disappeared from my home and life and did so by just upping and leaving while I was at work and then sending a break-up email late at night, consider your actions before you hit send and then go NC.
This approach is jarring, the effect is damaging, and the end result is difficulty in the other party getting closure on the relationship because they never fully understand what happened.
Yes, you might feel misunderstood, or disrespected, but please have authentic conversations about how you feel or what your genuine concerns with your partner before you decide in your head to end it. Don’t keep boundaries/values to yourself, share them with your partner, give them consequences and a choice to opt out.
There are genuine people who want to learn and change as a result of what went wrong. If I ever made contact it was to get learnings. Is this approach wrong?
Is it really about putting your foot down and saying “I believe you are disrespecting me” and now it’s NC, or is it also demonstrating that you can be a bigger person and show some compassion if, or when, someone genuinely asks for feedback. It’s not about who can point a bigger finger back at the other person for what they allegedly did or didn’t do. It takes two people to make a relationship work or crumble. Is there something wrong with me for wanting to understand?
No, I don’t want to accept him back in my life as a friend or lover. You walk out once, you can do it again. I have my pride.
On some level I can’t 100% move on because I didn’t closure.
PS No, I didn’t do anything heinous. I asked too many questions about his relationship with his friend. If NONE of my friends can understand his relationship with her, and if one male friend commented that the whole story was worthy of a space in Readers Digest, then it’s not just me.
@buffythebs_slayer The thing is, if you’re with a relatively decent person who acts with love, care, trust, and respect and you break up for whatever reason and you have a chat with them about what happened, you might get closure. If you try to get closure from someone shady, it’s like saying that their opinion is valuable and that your future depends on them. The fact is, if they were never able to *make* you understand or what they said to you was a load of BS, what are you supposed to do? Wait around for them to get a lobotomy? Closure is about you, not them.
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/post-breakup-to-debrief-or-not-to-debrief-that-is-the-relationship-question/
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/obsessing-overthinking-processing-the-evidence-of-your-relationship-so-you-can-move-on/
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/coping-with-and-moving-on-after-a-break-up-commandment-10-thou-must-close-the-door-and-move-forward/
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/seeking-validation-understanding-in-your-poor-relationships-part-one/
This could not have come at a better time. I am guilty of everything, except #8. My marriage had always been about it being “my fault”- whether my estranged husband blamed me directly or I blamed myself for OUR marital problems. I always felt like if I kept a cleaner house, he’d appreciate me or if I had the hair color of his preference, he would be attracted to me. He had never shown any affection, attention and was always one toe away from cheating, which of course, he blamed on ME.
Last night OUT OF THE BLUE, my estranged ex sent me a text (gee, he used to CALL), apologizing for his behavior and wanting to talk about it. He did call me and explained that over the past year, he has been experiencing bouts of depression and has even been suicidal at times. He told me he had just seen a therapist that day and is now on meds, but wanted to know if anything should happen to him, that I would take back two of our cats (which he refused to give me months ago).
I broke NC last night because I wanted to make damn sure OUR cats were safe- if he has been clinically depressed, who knows if he was even taking care of them? So I went to his apartment. We did manage to FINALLY communicate (must have been his new meds) for the first time in 10 years. I also found out more than I wanted to know: he finally admitted to cheating, but not with the women whom I suspected. I always thought he cheated at the end of our marriage, yet I found out it had been about 4 yrs ago. I asked him how he could even look me in the eye for the past 4 yrs and he just looked at the floor.
Apparently, a FWB situation just ended for him. Now he is asking if there is any chance for us to reconcile. During our entire conversation, I felt like I had NML on my shoulder saying, “what does he REALLY want from you? a shag? ego stroke? arm-chair psychologist? have you gone from Neglected Wife to Estranged-Wife-Fallback-Girl?”
Of course I got all the “I have always loved you, even though I never showed it” crap. He even tried to put the moves on me and see if we could have sex. I chalk it all up to the fact that he is scared to be alone, the FWB chick just dumped him, his mental health state scared the shit out of him and I just happened to be around.
I am so confused. Any advice/comments/ slap upside my dense head would be greatly appreciated. And to think, I was doing so well…
I think if you read this back to yourself MagicPotion, you’ll recognise and acknowledge all the markers of danger. Just out of a breakup – tick. Just gone on meds for mental issues – tick. Just admitted to cheating – tick. Looking to fall back on you – tick. Needing an emotional airbag – tick. In an estranged marriage with you – tick. Spent zero time actually working on his issues – tick. Talking shit – tick. Hit you up for sex – tick.
You’re not confused – you’re blindsided and distracted. Step away from the bright light and recognise that this is an incredibly healthy situation. This is hardly the actions of a man who wants to get back together.
If someone has red flag problems that your husband has, he needs to have spent a good stretch of time working at his issues. It’s not a case of ‘go to doctor in morning, go on meds, get back together with wife’. If he’s serious, let him go off and sort himself out without the need of a shag and an ego stroke from you or anyone else and being totally focused on addressing his problems. He doesn’t need you for that.
Thanx! I had another talk with him, with my ears & eyes open tonight, just to see what his expectations were. It was a mild version of “suck it and see”.
EVERYTHING about reconciliation was on HIS terms (gee, are we surprised???). The most hilarious and asinine thing he said was:
“we should go through with the divorce WHILE trying to patch up our relationship, so that if we decide to be together, we can start fresh and get remarried.” WHAAAAAAAAAAAT? I think he needs more meds. And a slap upside his head.
Magic
That’s hilarious and, ladies, take note. This guy wants to divorce Magic AND reconcile at the same time. That’s incomprehensible. Our AC/EUM is also a big walking contradiction which is why we’re so confused. Don’t waste any more time trying to understand him or “help” him (he doesn’t want help). Leave, abandon ship, abort mission!
Oh don’t worry- I AM NOT THAT WOMAN ANYMORE!!!
It got better: he told me that even though he knew his pot smoking was one of the reasons I left, he now smokes EVERY day and I would need to accept that. He also said (after admitting to cheating in our marriage) that he would still talk to his FWB/ Ex-Girlfriends and that I had to get used to it and learn to trust him. Again, everything on his terms.
He told me he cheated because he “wanted to know what it would be like with someone else because we’d been together for 10 years”!!!!! I told him that he had women before me and he wasn’t a virgin when we met. Of all the BS!
And my advice to the “other women” out there, speaking as a cheated-on wife: you do not know what their marriage is really like. He will tell you anything to make you feel sorry for him. And when he throws in the “my wife doesn’t want to have sex with me” crap, it probably means that she knows he’s a cheater and doesn’t want him to touch her!!! And IF he ever does leave her for you, chances are he will move right in with you- they won’t leave their wife and get their own place, buy their own toilet paper, do their own laundry, etc.
THEY DON’T CHANGE! He cheated on his exes BEFORE we dated, he cheated on me DURING our marriage and he has cheated on those who came AFTER me!
Buffy the abs slayer (great nem by the way!)
“Is it really about putting your foot down and saying “I believe you are disrespecting me” and now it’s NC, or is it also demonstrating that you can be a bigger person and show some compassion ”
Buffy I think the majority of people who read and post on here come to the decisions to have no further contact with someone because actually they have time AND time AND time again told their partner that they are being disrespected and further they have been unable for whatever reason to make positive choices to end the unhealthy dynamic in the past.
I gave my EUM many, many chances and you know what I could give him till the end of time explaining and rationalising his behavior and my needs. Seriously Buffy, how much compassion do you show someone who cheated on you, lied to you, dumped you when you were pregnant, claimed he was sterile, claimed he was in Iraq, threatened to disclose facts about you to your work and have you fired, kept family heirlooms, thretaened to kill himself and implicate you……you see NC is not about normality its about total dysfunction and individuals injecting a huge dose of healthy distance away from a toxic waster!
NML you said
“It’s also important to note that we choose people that reflect what we believe about ourselves, love, and relationships. If those beliefs are negative, someone being decent, loving, and honest is not going to wash with them.”
I did believe in decent, loving and honest relationships. I was just enormously naive having been in a loving, honest grounded and secure relationship for 27 years! I believed that if you love some one and treat them well they will do the same to you! NOT! If you are honest people with be honest with you NOT! If you are compassionate, people will treat you with compassion. If you turn the other cheek, you will find good in others! YESs with a bloody high powered super telescope! You see 7 years of positive treatment led me to really think that people are fundamentally goof WRONG. By the power of my unique delusions are allowed a total confidence trickster to worm his way into my life. Some people are very good at their unique form of bull shittery! My ex EUM even took hgis own soap and aftershave with him to dates in hotels so that he could return home and smell like he had freshly showered at home!
I think I had uiquely POSITIVE beliefs about people that allowed me to be utterly taken for a ride. However that said my beliefs took the ultimate bullshit test lol and whilst I still think MOST people are pretty good some actually are downright evil lol and have the 666 to prrove it lol!
Workshy Joe
You said “Domestic animal males (aka Nice Guys) are actually far more numerous in the Anglosphere (North America, UK, Australia, etc).”
sorry being legally trained I can not but help ask, where actually is your evidence for this sweeping generalisation. Must say I am smelling something here and its not facts!
‘They opt out when it becomes clear that they want casual and the other wants something else.’
This is actually what the guy I was with wanted. He didn’t make it clear to me until 3 months in, when I finally had to ask him face-to-face what was going on between us. I was confused with the mixed messages, the hot and cold of it all. He said we weren’t dating, but we weren’t friends either. Said he was hurt by his former relationship and so he was commitment phobic – he actually said he didn’t want the responsibilities and expectations that come with a relationship. I felt hurt and he saw right then that I had expected more, even though he wasn’t showing any commitment signs from the beginning.
It was after that meeting that things changed. He backed away. I still wanted to be friends (who am I kidding, right?). I tried to see him. I’d call him almost every week for the next three months. He’d be too busy, promise something for next week, then tell me the same thing when ‘next week’ came around.
Perhaps when these people decide to opt out because they realize the other wants something else they should make it very, very clear they are opting out. What did the most damage was the empty promises that came after our conversation. Maybe it was his way of nicely letting me off the hook, but when I had those rose-coloured glasses superglued to my face I couldn’t see it.
If people want a casual relationship and have decided to move on and let the other go, they should make it clear so the other person isn’t left hanging and left blaming themselves for what went wrong.
I’m on the heal, I seem to be reading less and less here. But I came here today, “just to see” and WOW, this is right on. I have known for years I’m a “blame absorber.” I think it goes back to family dynamics.
1. When someone annoys or upsets me, I often think that it must be because of something I’ve done or a ‘flaw’ that’s triggering it.
Not really……. I figure they are a bad person for upsetting me. Or, they don’t know that their actions have an effect.
2. People who are loveable and worthy don’t have others treating them badly and taking advantage of their boundaries.
Ok, yes…….
3. If they don’t reciprocate my interest, I wonder what is wrong with me or what I could potentially do to ‘win’ them over.
Depends. If it’s a guy who has “managed me down,” yes! Or, when one of the “cool kids” criticizes me, then, YES. Otherwise, no.
4. In a current or past relationship, even though the other person was doing and being things that were counterproductive to the success of the relationship, I’ve believed the responsibility of the problems in the relationship were mine to bear.
Yes, because “if only I wasn’t so……. whatever…..”
5. If a partner cheats on me, I believe it’s because I have failed to meet their needs.
Knock on wood, haven’t had to deal with this, but I think I would have to say Yes.
6. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and but I have often wondered what it is that I did wrong.
YES!
7. I’ve been involved with someone who didn’t treat me very well and who I know had not treated others well either but I still wonder what I did wrong and why they can’t be different with me.
I don’t really know how the guys that treated me bad treated others. I just have to assume they treated others bad, but the real truth is I believe they treated others good (despite the fact that the past girls aren’t with them any more) and treated me bad for some reason.
8. I believe that when you love someone, if that person has ‘problems’ and basically things that need to change for the relationship to work/me to be happy, that they should want to change.
Yes.
9. I believe that if I love enough that the problems will no longer exist.
Yes.
10. I am involved with someone or have been involved with others, where I have wanted them to make me the exception to their rule of behaviour.
Yes!
Ok, I need to figure out how to get past this before I even CONSIDER any other more relationships.
Thank you for your blog. For sharing with others everything you’ve learned. I’ve been reading it off and on for a while now and each time I do, it sinks in a little more.
I have a question for you and I think this has been where I’ve had the problem and maybe some of your other readers can identify. Where is the line? Obviously, most of us wouldn’t go on a first date and continue seeing an “assclown.” And most guys are smart enough to know they can’t behave this way and keep a woman around. I can see the difference between a good guy and an assclown. That’s obvious. But the problem is when an assclown disguises himself as a good guy. If this behavior happened overnight, it would also be obvious enough for most of us to say, “Wait a second, Assclown. That’s not gonna fly with me.” But the longer the relationship goes on, the more emotionally invested we become. The more emotionally invested we are, the more likely we are to be forgiving. As you said, we all eff up. So where’s the line between a regular person effing up and an assclown ramping up? How many chances should one get?
And I apologize in advance if you’ve already covered this and I just haven’t stumbled across it yet.
@Lilly
You are right, you won’t be able to ascertain an A/C on the first date. And, you do get more forgiving on subsequent dates. Once you recognize the A/C, you have to have courage to “opt out.” That’s the “line.”
Especially after he’s met your family and friends and vice versa. It can be embarrassing to end it after doing all of that. 🙁
I guess what I’m asking is how do you know whether it’s A/C behavior or a nice guy just effing up?
Lilly
It’s not about having a list in your head of do’s and dont’s that you mentally tick off during every interaction (though Natalie has helpfully posted a list of red flags as many of us don’t have a clue), it’s more organic than that. If you love yourself, trust your judgement, know that you can cope with rejection because you’re strong, the EUM just won’t feel right to you. (and you won’t feel right to him) You won’t feel the need to pursue him to make yourself feel good. You’ll know he’s not adding anything positive to your life and will duck out rather than stick around for more and more confirmation, while becoming more and more invested and more and more indecisive.
I’m sure that well over 90% of the women here ignored the signs very early on and could have saved themselves a lot of heartache. And I feel that many many EUMs DO reveal themselves on a first date!
However, no relationship starts with a 100% guarantee of success. If you really can’t cope with that and are fearful, then maybe it’s too early to start dating again.
Still, if you do want a simple blanket rule that will help you in all future scenarios – don’t have sex too soon.
Lilly,
I’ve wondered that same thing myself, and I definitely agree with Grace about not having sex too soon. It clouds judgment. At least, I know it did mine.
Perhaps communication is the way to tell the difference. If a man does something that is upsetting to you, bring it up and talk to him about it. His response will tell you whether or not he is an AC or just a nice guy effing up. Pay attention to how he listens, if he is empathetic to your concerns, if he is accountable to his actions. And then pay attention to see if he is genuine, by seeing if it becomes a pattern or not.
Even then, nice guys can have issues too. We all do. If he has a pattern of behavior that is unhealthy for a relationship, see if he acknowledges it as an area of struggle for him, and if he is actively working on it.
My ex-AC would do one of the following if I brought up a concern. 1) He would get really defensive, 2) he would laugh about it, and say he thought it was hilarious, 3) he would say he was too tired to talk about it, but never get back to me, 4) would try to charm me, and gloss over it, 5) would admit he was an asshole, and act like it was just who he was, 6) become distant for a few days afterward.
I’m sure there are other ways they avoid as well.
Here is one thought on them working on issues. My ex-husband (not the recent ex-AC) had an addiction. We both went to therapy and groups (my group was for co-dependents). On the surface, it looked like he was working on it, but because I was also going to groups, I learned to look more deeply. There were areas of his life he was leaving open to temptation, and didn’t want to address those areas, because it would involve admitting his addiction to other people, and he had his pride. After a year, the truth came out, and he was still acting out, when he had told me and our counselor and his sponsor that he was not. I would never have caught on to that subtlety if I had not been getting help myself, and working on me.
Maybe that also speaks to what Grace is talking about being strong. I think that is why it’s important for us to really know who we are, and do the work on us first.
Lily,
They do show us, unfortunately we choose to ignore.
It may be a story as how he treated an ex or friend, or it may be repeated behavior that was not acceptable. These people do give us the signs, but we must be open to listen.
I think if you look back, you will remember things in the beginning-values, behavior etc…- that didn’t seem right.
Allison,
You are right about the stories. I remember my ex-AC telling me a story about one of his ex gf’s. She had an issue with something in their relationship. He told her he took care of it, but instead hid the evidence from her. He said she never knew the difference. As he told the story, he didn’t even seem bothered that it was a dishonest and unhealthy way to conduct a relationship. Big red flag, and I ignored it!
Wow. Thanks to all of you, Grace, Nicole and Allison. I think Grace hit the nail on the head and it’s about trusting myself. I am definitely NOT ready to date, I won’t do it until I’ve worked on me a lot more or I know the odds of me getting into another unhealthy relationship are a lot higher. Plus I need time to grieve, heal and accept. That’s just it. I DON’T trust myself because every relationship I’ve ever been in has been unhealthy at minimum, abusive at worst. I worry I won’t recognize the signs, I now I’m attracted to and attract only these “types” of men. It tends to only intensify the self-doubt and now it’s made me sort of paranoid and hyper-sensitive to looking for signs. So the last relationship I had, though I’ve analyzed it to death, I still don’t know if he was a good guy and I just ruined it or if he was “one of them.”
And Nicole is absolutely right about having sex too soon. I’ve learned this, many times over. I will not be repeating this mistake again.
Another excellent piece of advice, Nicole. Communication about any behaviors that do bother me. I guess I didn’t do this with the last relationship because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by me seeming to think the worst and also partly to do with ego. I know I have issues and I really liked this guy. I didn’t want him to see the extent of my problems because I was afraid he’d decide it was more than he wanted to deal with.
Allison, you are right as well. I see the red flags in all past relationships…except this last one. And I also see how I talked myself out of them, or ignored them.
I had been emailing a guy I was THINKING about dating for a week. Really cool, smart. Then he called to chat. Well for some reason I was so uncomfortable and nervous talking to him and I usually am not. My “gut” kicked in and just picked up on signs that I was not comfortable with this person. He called from his car on his Blue Tooth and he seemed to be grilling me for a job interview. He was perfectly nice, but I just felt so uncomfortable and glad to get off the phone with no desire for Mr. Bluetooth to call me back.
NEVERTHELESS my mind keeps going back over and over it. “I must have been boring.” “What did I do wrong?” “I’m not exciting enough.” “I make so much less money.” I totally assume the blame for things all the time even when the evidence is in my face that it’s just not true. This is the hardest habit of all to break!!!
RozB
I’ve been there – I suspect we all have. We’ve expended time and energy wondering if someone likes us when, here’s the kicker, we don’t even like them! Some of us *cough* have even pursued them to prove something to ourselves.
Let’s not do that anymore.
I’m trying to sort out the difference between absorbing the blame and being accountable for my role in the last two years of being involved with a MM. I think I’m getting stuck in the muck. I’ve read everything on this blog, all your posts…thank you. But, I’m just stuck. I check my home email waiting to hear from him. My cell is still by my side, as though I may hear from him. Shoot. I know I’m to blame for getting involved with a married man. How do I get out of this muck? I did make it through last night, after 32 days of NC, and a needle biopsy on my right breast yesterday. I so wanted him here. But, I knew that even if we were still together, he couldn’t be here. I want out of this muck. It was three years ago, I decided to get involved with a married man. I was so unavailable then. I want to be available now.
runnergirl,
32 days! good for you!
and
32 days … you can cut yourself a LOT of slack as far as letting the dust settle so that you can begin to figure out where you might have done things differently, or will do things differently the next time. 2 years is a lengthy enough relationship – and a friend and I were just talking about this: coming back to centre after 2 years of intensity, drama, questions, hopes and instability is not the same as doing so after 2 years of, say, a more stable and drama-free situation. Accountability and blame are very different, and a bit more time will give you the clarity to gently and kindly assess your accountability.
Good for you especially for knowing that the support you feel missing now as you have the medical procedure would not have been there anyway, and that you are busy getting prepared for that support to be there in your life. Again, congrats on passing the 1 month mark.
Thank you Lynn, just those words ” you can cut yourself a LOT of slack as far as letting the dust settle…” helped so much. You are right about getting back to center after two years of uncertainity and instability. It feels like I just got off a long roller coaster ride and my feet aren’t touching the ground. I use the phrase “center and focus” when I’m doing something stressful at work. Connecting with Done as Dinner suggested, of course, I don’t know where center is right now with regards to my personal life and a relationship. You (Natalie and the others) sound as though you are finding your center and that gives me hope it is possible. I also like your suggestion that time will help me gently and kindly assess my accountability. It is like the fog and the pain come and go. The fog passes for a moment, the pain subsides, and I get some clarity. Like knowing that even if we were still together, he would not have been there for the biopsy. (And, while the fog is still clear, I know he won’t be there on Monday when I get the results.) Then, it seems as though the fog and pain return and I spiral into the “if onlys…”. If only I would have had the decency and common sense to stay away from a MM. But, you are right. I passed the 1 month mark. Thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t notice. To celebrate, I think I’ll try to implement the recommendations in one of Natalie’s posts and get out of my routine and do something different today. Oh and as far as what I’d do differently next time, I will run screaming into the night if a MM approaches me! Thank you.
Runnergirlno1 – just keep doing what you have been doing for the last 32 days. Each day make a decision not to contact him, make a decision to concentrate on your own health (both emotional and physical). The more distance you put between that relationship and you the closer you will be, to being ready/able to start something healthier. I feel for you, the fear and need to have someone to support and love you when you are going through a health scare (been there, done that), but this isn’t the guy. He’s married. And even if he were to leave, he’d still be a cheater. Don’t you deserve more than that?
More thoughts to add to my last post – Runnergirlno1. I’m not sure about you, but if you take a look at Nat’s quiz you can run it through so many different areas of your life to see how you react to different situations. Work, romance, friendship, family. It resonates for me in all areas.
Because I’ve been thinking about my patterns over all and where they started/come from, I’ve begun to see that my behaviour doesn’t just apply in one area of my life but all. EG at work I take on way too much because I feel like I am not contributing enough, and it has just left me feeling burnt out and exhausted all the time.
Then this year I had a health scare that really woke me up. It kind of sent me on a downward spiral because it was A. something that I had no control over, and B. came at the end of an number of years that were heavily emotional and just difficult. The doctors told me that the years of stress had likely led to my immune system shutting down, leaving me open for this disease.
So this year was a bit like hitting rock bottom. That said, all of these things almost seemed to conspire to happen at once and it really forced me to re-examine my life. I realized I had to start from scratch in all areas. I needed to reconsider my approach to work, relationships, health, family. Right now it feels like I am in a huge void, but I know you have to clear out some space in order to begin to fill your life with good things. So, in a way the health thing was a wake up call that forced me to look at everything in my life.
So, if you take a step back from focusing on your MM relationship, and look at other areas of your life, do you see larger patterns at play? Do you think you might be on the cusp of a new life?
Hey there Done,
You nailed it. I am certainly on the cusp of a new life. After five years of work insanity, taking on way too much, it just ended abruptly in mid-October when I did not get the “promotion” I had worked so hard for. Suddenly, I had 60 days off to prepare to get back into the classroom full-time. I’m sure those 60 days away from the work insanity allowed my head to clear a bit and realize that I was a mistress…YUCK! I always knew and hated it but somehow without the work distractions, I had to own my role in being a mistress instead of blaming him. So yes, when the relationship insanity stopped, there was a huge void. That’s when the health issue popped up. Health issues sure help one focus don’t they? There are larger patterns, good point. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m going to do something different today, get out of my routine, and think about filling the void with good things. Thank you for that perspective. I know you are right, it is an exciting opportunity to fill the void with good and healthy things. It is the cusp of a new life. Even my role as “mother” has changed as my daughter is going to school on the east coast, doing wonderfully, and doesn’t need me in the same way as she did when she was younger. Thank you for the perspective. Good luck to you too.
Hi NML
great blog as always
I am guilty of most pointed out as I am a blame absorber absolutley.
It’s probably to do with believing in love,trust respect and the whole nine yards and that of you be and do all you get the same back but after two divorces one with an EUM forever and one with a narciccist cum asshole I’ve realised it doesn’t happen cause all I was doing is feeding their ego, free for a shag ,shoulder to cry on till they found the better option why because I was “good”.
I have now after NC for sixteen days feel like in rehab phewww have realised it’s him not me!
I was also blamed for my marriage failing that I was discussing too much trying to come to terms with the marital issues trying to work it out which was turning sour grapes for him obviously as he didn’t want to discuss them as he wasn’t really intrested in investing the time or energy in sorting his fcuked up issues!
I worked cooked cleaned looked good looked after my child was in between him and my son tried to keep all happy while I was loosing myself in the whole process cause i blamed myself for not trying harder or marrying him or breaking the promise as he called it hate those words!
well I say this to myself everyday when I see him at work once an asshole always an asshole!
Makes my day easier to get by.
I agree that I cant have casual flings affairs relationships as there is nothing as casual and I agree with NML one person always ends up wanting more!
I also agree that we are all emotionally unavailable at a certain point in our lives as i am now after separating having a crap conversation 16 days ago where he still didn’t say anything except blame me and my son for ruining the marriage and his so called future for us!
After all he’s put me through nothing nothing !
He has a passport money job that gives him the power and ego stroke he wants everyday me out of his life and the freedom to shag! And I blamed myself for such an asshole!
I am working on my anxious issues and that Misquita response was great and so true if you are with a more secure person than you you will definatley be less anxious as you will realise that they do have a backbone and have love respect and trust for you
with assclowns there is no security so the more anxious you are and I know this!
I have chilhood issues that have made me anxious and I’m working on that so I can never make the same mistakes in choosing These men again ever!
Hugs fats. Your situation sounds so much like mine. 50 days NC! We weren’t married but my son got blamed for things he shouldn’t.
Moving forward. Phewf.
Done as Dinner sorry to hear that but it’s never too late to put yourself first and I know this cause I’ve been in hospital and had a scare last year and nothings worth more than your health and happiness nothing!
I can relate to so many of the items in that list. It’s toxic, what we can do to ourselves in relationships. The stress of it begins to manifest itself physically. Mine is in the form of cancer.
I found out while I was trying to be “friends” with my ex-AC. He was in the process of giving me the silent treatment/ranting at me for things I had not done. We were arguing back and forth, and I thought to myself, this is not someone who would support me right now. But I wanted to test it out to see. So, I told him about the diagnosis, hoping he would stop the mind games and step up and be a real friend. But fearing that it would be the end of our friendship.
He didn’t step up to support me. Oh, he would ask mutual friends about me, and I would hear about it from them. It actually made me more angry. He didn’t even call me anymore after that. I was OK to call for a favor, or to hear his frustrations about work, or a booty call. I think he was a spineless coward, and he was putting on a show of concern to his friends so they wouldn’t know what a total jackass he was.
As weird as it sounds, I’m grateful for the health scare. It really woke me up and made me realize how far from my values I had strayed. And, things like that are also good for showing you who your friends truly are.
My cancer saved me from the clutches of the assclown!
Nicole,
I hope you are O.K.?
I think you can add to your list: Big-time USER!!!!!
I so know how you guys feel (and I know NML deals with a condition as well.) The x was supportive of me at first but then it’s like the condition didn’t even exist. He would never ask me how I felt and stopped coming with me to appointments. I am taking this year to get a handle on this (rare disease) and get myself in the best condition I can, in all respects. Good luck to all here dealing with ailments and a big thumb to the nose to all the AC’s who weren’t or aren’t there for us.
Thanks, Charla and Allison. I am OK, physically, doing what I can to keep myself healthy. It’s the emotional part of it that’s a challenge. Especially, to have the diagnosis come at the same time the ex-AC decides to freeze me out of his life. A part of me was stil shocked by his indifference towards me. I mean, I got more concern from strangers!
I saw your comment below, Charla, about how your AC just didn’t ask about your health anymore. Seriously, who are these people, and where do they learn such indifference? I am like you, I recognize my own EU issues, but also would not turn my back on someone like that. All you can do is take care of you. I hope you are doing OK.
Yes thanks. I do much better in winter than summer. I am closing in on a DX and it’s serious (potentially fatal). I won’t be telling many people until I get the final verdict though. Hope you are ok too.
Hi Charla, I’m sorry to hear of what has been happening with your health. Take it from someone who knows, park the ex and focus on you. My ex was vaguely supportive but it was like he didn’t want to be as supportive as he could of been or meaningfully ask about it or even help to take the stress off by not being a jackass himself. He just made things worse. One of the most shocking realisations I had was after doing steroids for a year and being told to go on medication for life or risk heart failure, and then throwing myself into focusing on my life and researching other options was this: I had been so preoccupied with my ex and even the one before him that I neglected my health. I was so busy fighting to be ‘chosen’, I didn’t fight for me or my condition. It’s like I thought I could live with it or that I’d feel better if I could have him. He was the least of my concerns.
You need you right now. All your energy is needed to nourish you with love and care. You don’t need him. You need you. (((hugs)))
ps If I can be of any help in any way, mail me on natalie AT baggagereclaim.co.uk
Thanks Nat. I risk heart failure as well, but the DX is not final. Still getting tests. I’m 50+ days NC and doing well, thanks in large part to your site. The ex is done and gone, no chance of return. It’s all just a matter of time until he’s out of my system 🙂
I often put a lot of blame on myself when something goes wrong in the relationship, such as when my partner is moody and doesn’t treat me the way I want to. It has to do with my need to have approval, and do things that elicit a certain reaction from the person. I have a lot to learn about love, I guess.
Charla hugs back to you take care and this site has shown mr that imnot alone and what I feel or we feel is normal with the situations and AC EUM and that thru can take a flying F**k!
Indeed. Not that I’m a saint – I’m EU in my own way, which I am only seeing now. However, if I met a guy who happened to be ill or disabled and I felt he was worth it just for who he was, I would be there for him. To act like it doesn’t even exist is callous. Here’s flipping the AC’s off – again.
My marriage ended over 4 years ago and I am still struggling to deal with it. Still to this day I think “what if I had done things differently”, “what if I paid more attention”, “what if…”. Parts of this article were very helpful for me (as are many of the other aritcles). However sometimes I interpret them as saying the other person is totally at fault for things not working. It takes two to make a relationship work, although some people have more difficulty than others. I know I did things “wrong” in my marraige, but I do blame my ex for not telling me that it bothered him. Although I blame him for not communicating with me, I blame myself for the actual actions.
NH,
I think this is a great comment for acceptance of how yourr life arrived at a certain point, but at some point you have to accept that we are all survivors of less than ideal childhoods, we have all made bad relationship decisions and we have suffered from sadness when our goals for life have not moved in the direction we would have longed for. However, we have to decide to MAKE PEACE WITH IT and move on. You can not change the past and neither can you let the past reach forward and affect your future.
The big question then is how to forgive yourself and others so that you can move forward and make goals to make your relationships in 2011 the best you have ever had.
Hope you don’t mind but I have used your comment on my blog at
if you want to take a look.
TH as the blog is about accountability and taking control of the part of the problem that you can control – you -i t’s quite a leap to then say that it’s about it being the fault of the other person. Just talking about boundaries alone totally contradicts that idea.
Read: https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/getting-past-the-fault-lines-relationships-are-100100-partnerships-not-5050/
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/knowing-when-to-work-at-your-relationship-part-one/
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/why-relationships-dont-work-out/
You’re stuck in blame mode which is that you’re blaming yourself, you’re blaming him, you’re obsessing about it and ultimately doing nothing with the information which sort of defeats the purpose. This is immobilising. I’ve been with some shady guys and it was easy to focus on their problems but that didn’t change the fact that I was there too. I could have blamed myself and I did for a while but I learned from my own mistakes and moved on. It’s not like you’re going to learn from his mistakes. Yes I appreciate you didn’t know that something you were doing was wrong but being angry with him for not telling you is a mute point. The relationship is in the past, you can’t change what’s happened, and fact is, you have no idea whether him telling you would have made a difference. I come across thousands of people who get told they’re doing something and see that others are doing something and they ignore it or say it’s wrong or refuse to change. Make yourself a better person for the next relationship if you’re that concerned with what you did wrong. Making it about his failure to tell you removes your accountability and you’re never going to move forward if you don’t own the things you can improve on – your contribution.
NH,
accountability is really important in relationships and owning your part in it, but eventually you have to say “Enough and choose to move on. Its a distraction to try to rework the past as it can’t be done. I know I have tried but once you own your part you can take the learning into future relationships. To distract yourself from real life by focusing on the wrong things that either you can’t change or you have no control over is just so time and energy wasting. I know because I have done it myself.
Choose to move on and rebuild your own life without the past.
Thanks for all your feedback and suggestions.
I feel a little misunderstood. I don’t understand why my marriage ended, I have been trying to make sense of it all. I guess laying blame is one of the ways I am trying to deal with it, understand why it happened (what each of us did in leading it there). I think I am taking accountability for my part in it, for what I have been able to figure out anyway; I have done what I can to learn from it, unfortunately it was too late with him. I guess I am hoping that throwing some blame back at him will help me stop blaming myself completely, especially because he does not seem to be taking any accountability.
Going off topic…you all mentioned “moving on”, I just am not sure how to do that, there is still so much pain (we have children together, so I will never get him out of my life completely).
I found a another wonderful post by NML on October 30, 2010 regarding holding on to a security blanket of anger and blame which keeps the connection going with him, albeit only in my head. The piles of laundry resonated. I love doing laundry, although not his. I have dawned all of our dirty laundry until I couldn’t move, let alone let go. I was under the pile in the pic. I’ve started to shed the dirty laundry today, one piece at a time.
Additionally for some reason today, I turned to my favorite book by Melody Beattie, “Journey of the Heart”. She also spoke of a security blanket. It is entitled “Open to the Power of Comfort”. “Packed in the back of my Jeep I stored my favorite red woolen blanket. I didn’t need it for warmth because I didn’t sleep in the cold. I needed it to remind me of the importance of comfort. Open yourself to recieve comfort, the comfort that touches the heart and nurtures the soul. Many of us grew up and lived our lives without experiencing true comfort, true nurturing. Many of us didn’t know it existed. But at some level, that’s what we’ve been looking for. Comfort is the loving arms of a mother who sees only the beauty of her child. A mother who attends to the needs, who nurtures the heart and soul of her her child. This kind of comfort is acceptance and love at its finest. Open your heart to recieve comfort. Learn to give it too. Comfort touches and heals our souls. Take it with you like a favorite blanket wherever you go.” Thank you Natalie, Lynn, Fearless, Melodie, and Done as Dinner. I’m letting go of my ugly, black, uncomfortable blanket of anger and blame for my pretty, warm, purple woolen blanket of comfort. My sister reminded us today that my mother died 9 years ago of cancer. Sometimes…you gotta wonder what the universe has in store! Is there a rhyme or reason?
Oh my, you’ve been in my head too!
Found your writings today, and it’s been just the confirmation I needed. I’m sooooo the blame absorber, and the non-relationship I’ve been having is described perfectly by you, in so many of your posts. I thought I was going crazy, questioning every feeling I had, miserable.
Reading this has given me the courage to follow through on what I know is true. Thank you. From the other side of the world.
Oh, here’s a live update – he’s texting me. “you are upset with me. What haven’t I done”. O my, I will stay strong though. He doesn’t really want to know, he’s had so many other opportunities to act on what he has been told before. Just trying to pull me back in. Tis hard though.
I’ll be back.
YIKES! Yes, spot on Natalie, this is exactly what I have been doing. I’ve said sorry a thousand times for things HE’S done to damage the relationship.
For example I’ve apologised profusely for being jealous when he flaunted his other women in my face and made me accept his shagging them. Goodness gracious I have been SUCH A MUG throughout.
He repeatedly hurt me, insulted me, rejected me, and ultimately broke my heart, yet not a single word of remorse or contrition has ever passed his filthy cheating lying two-timing lips.
Thanks a million to Natalie, because of this blog I am going to do things completely differently in my new relationship!
Marks Poppet,
I can only assume your ex was called Mark and you’re probably a grown up woman not a poppet, child, puppet etc.
You mentioned that you have apologised to your ex but he hasn’t so let that go. It’s not important that he doesn’t apologise, it’s important that you choose to move positively onwards and in future relationships not define yourself as someone else’s thing.
If you seek validation by being “someone else’s poppet”, it will only undermine who you really are. How about being your own self, accepting you’ve apologised, seeing him as a different from you and getting a life as YOURSELF.
You said you would do things completely different in the next relationship , how about you see yourself as a 3D person not defined by someone else.
Thanks Josie. I feel so utterly stupid, conned, used, humiliated… I can’t imagine ever forgiving myself for being such a sap…
He calls me poppet but actually i am his puppet.
I’m so ashamed of how i have let him use and abuse me for so long.
Nats latest blog describes it perfectly… I will post on there.
I’m almost 40 now and I also have a theory. I think a lot of men who haven’t settled down with a family yet by the time they get to be 30-ish, look around and feel they need to commit themselves to something…anything. So they commit to a single mother friend of theirs, or to their cousin and his wife and kids, or to their neighbor lady, or to their friends, pets, hobbies, co-workers, job, etc. They actually hold these other people up as barriers which prevent them from getting close to and having a real relationship with a woman. Then they continue to fail at relationships because they’re never able to squeeze the woman they’re with into the first ranking in their life. As an example, one guy I dated in the past was obsessed with his cousin’s family. He actually behaved with them as if they were his family, as if he were “married” to the whole family. You’d have to see it to understand. Buying them presents, spending all holidays with them. Talking on the phone with them daily and nightly, always finished with ‘I love you’s’, he even had about 30 pics of his cousin’s baby on his phone, and talked and bragged about the girl almost as if it was his own child, his responsibility. He didn’t have a single picture of me on his phone. He was also similarly obsessed with his two dogs. Almost as if he was ‘married’ to the dogs (yes without the consummation of marriage part of course). Talked and thought about them constantly, put them in front of me, I could tell specific examples of all this but it would take up too much space. It was all too weird. Dumped him. True though in that case I should have dumped him sooner I stuck it out maybe 8 or 9 months, that was largely due to he kept begging me not to dump him, but eventually I did (thank goodness!). After I dumped him he tried for over 2 years to contact me. One time it would be sending unwanted gifts, next time it would be a bitter letter tearing me down. So glad to be rid of him! Anyway believe it or not I’ve met MANY men (and turned down many men) who like him, put other people in a place of honor or over-exaggerate their importance in his life, and I think they do it as a way to prevent themselves from having a real relationship. I actually looked into it as I was interested in this strange over-enmeshment issue so many men (actually I’m sure there are a lot of women who do similar behavior but I don’t date women) seem to display. A Dr. Dombeck had an article up and part of it addressed this exact behavior, this observation of his, “Overly enmeshed people will talk about duty and honor as though they are defined completely by these things (which they may well be). They will be unwilling to compromise their duty to others even when it can be demonstrated logically and rationally to them that their loyalty is misplaced or exaggerated.” That’s exactly how that ex of mine behaved towards his dogs, and his cousin’s family. Really that’s exactly what I’ve seen in a lot of men. As time goes on the more I learn about ‘red flag behaviors’ the more quickly I’m able to jump out of the situation or better yet avoid it all together. Anyway this has just been a phenomena that I’ve observed and experienced I don’t know if others have too. It took a lot of living before I could really even put my finger on it, or sum it up into words.
I’m hearing you all about the casual relationship concept. My non-relationship was defined by him as “casual”, and it wasn’t what I wanted, but I hoped somehow my behaviour would change his mind. Ha!
We had been involved for 3 years, and I ended it, but then recently got pulled back in after a 6 month break. He started out love-bombing me with texts, telling me how great I was and could we try again. When I finally caved, he ‘changed his mind’ about what he wanted, and set new parameters on what ‘us’ would be about. I accepted those, and then he continued to downgrade, almost daily, until it was acceptable for him to text me every few days when he was bored or wanted booty or simply wanted to talk about himself.
So, I put a stop to it last night. I’m struggling today. I want to contact him and ask/wail “don’t you care at alllllllllllll??”. I know he doesn’t. I wish I could stop wondering “what’s he thinking?”. Sigh. Worst is I’m at home with a sick child, so I can’t get out and keep busy.
Amma NZ
I know exactly how you are feeling, though I am kind of past where you are now (for the most part – but not all) We always focus on them… it’s hard not to, but I would say that you should, if you can, be more concerned about what YOU are thinking of him and his behaviour towards you and you should be wondering why YOU still care at all about him!! He is not in charge of you, you are. Start caring about yourself; he’s not going to (sorry – I know how miserable it is). Wishing you well. F
Thanks Fearless
Hey Natalie,
I think Lilly’s question about telling the difference between an AC and a nice guy effing up is a good one. If you feel so inspired, I would love to see a post on that one.
Here you both go: https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/how-to-spot-an-assclown/
I’ll put it this way – there is a very distinct difference between an AC and someone making some mistakes. Nobody with any level of decency would engage in what is often the psychological warefare, flip flapping, narcissistic tendency behaviour of an AC
There is also https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/why-hes-not-an-assclown-because-he-broke-up-with-youdoesnt-want-a-relationship/
https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/getting-real-about-recognising-inappropriate-relationship-behaviour-he-doesnt-need-to-cheat-or-beat-to-be-an-assclown/
amongst others
Thank you, Natalie. It helps a lot to re-read these posts!
Thanks for all the feedback on casual relationships NML and everyone else. I’ve been thinking about that this weekend and i think you’re all right. I think all relationships start off casually to some degree – they all start with ‘dating’ where both parties should be testing the water, seeing if they’re compatible, having fun but with their heads in reality (as in some of NML’s articles on dating), not expecting marriage and babies just because they both like watching horror films or something equally meaningless. I think this is the way emotionally available people approach things and the dating period is usually fun and relatively carefree, with a view to moving on to something deeper and more meaningful. I think people who aren’t prepared to move on to something more meaningful, with the compromises and responsibilities that come with it, have something fundamentally lacking somewhere inside. They just jump from one ‘getting to know you’ stage to another, too afraid or selfish to give more of themselves. I guess that’s really what being EU is all about – i feel sorry for these people.
Sorry if this is stating the bleedin’ obvious, but i think i’ve had an ephiphany of sorts about EU people this weekend. I couldn’t understand them before, but now i do. And i feel nothing but pity.
Natalie,
Just a few thoughts on what ive read here.. … and what i was thinking about lately.
i’ve been involved with an eu before (thanks to you, i understand now why he was the way he was) and recently with the last guy who was eu also but is also ac cos of drip-feeding and outrageous principle and pressing re-set button (i’m still learning about all this xoxo).
Anyway, with the eu guy I was involved with (crikey for 3 years), 8 years ago, he never led me to believe we were boyf/girlf and told me he wasn’t intereseted in having a relationship, etc. (“too many arguments” – I can see why his exes would have argued with him!!). He did care about me and I him and once i accepted what he said, i was able to make an informed decision on whether i spent time with him or not.
So, what i have learnt is that one of the major differences between an assclown and an emotionally unavailable man is that the emotionally unavailable will tell you in his own way he’s not a good candaidate whereas an assclown wont tell you at all and will fake that he is “with you” but really he’s not – talk about having barely a toe in the water. …
And looking back now, I see my eu had some integrity – he told me the truth – whereas these acs have very little integrity.
And at the end of the day, its not good to be with either type.
I relate very much to this article…in my case i would convince myself that the reason he was emotionally unavailable was because of his rather shy personality, and perhaps this unavailability was his own way of establishing/maintaining boundaries. Over some time I would learn not to ask for much or do anything to rock the boat and cause him to withdraw. I sensed something wasn’t right but at the time I didn’t really know what to do. Could it perhaps mean he had too many boundaries?
Another obstacle in general was that I did not see him very often overall because he lived in another country so you couldn’t pick up any visual cues over text/phone that would indicate if he felt uncomfortable or bothered by something. In hindsight, this so-called ‘relationship’ (or whatever it was) was clearly on his terms. My naive efforts to cater to him backfired and he withdrew anyway. For the past year and a half since then i have continuously tried to draw insight and look into myself to see what went wrong. Ever since discovering your website a little over a week over, I am finally feeling this sense of letting go…moving on. Thank you for creating this site, NML!
OMG!! This article hit home with me so much. I have done this with most of my relationships. I was dating someone recently and I thought I was doing the right thing by waiting and trying to get to know him. I saw red flags but I ignored them because I was seeing the potential instead of what he really was. He filled my head with garbage telling me we were on the same page because I told him I was only looking for a relationship. We spent the weekend together after 3 months and he never called me after that. It was devastating!! I have had bad relationships before but I never had anyone do that to me before. And I obsessed about what I did wrong. I questioned myself and picked at my self-esteem. I cried and was angry with him but more angry with myself because I let my guard down. I have always had problems with my self-esteem and I wondered when am I ever going to get it right? When is that light going to click on in my head that makes me love me?
I had to work through my issues and see that it wasn’t my fault – he was an AC that does what he normally does. He didn’t just start with me. I do fault not listening to my gut but that doesn’t make something wrong with me. It just makes me human. I haven’t called him in a couple of weeks and I finally feel like myself again. I have to get out of my head what I would tell him if he ever calls but I am realizing that even if he does call I don’t want that type of man in my life that would disregard my feelings like that.
I am learning that I need to find someone who’s actions match their words. His actions didn’t and I just saw potential. I will take that blame and nothing else. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. He won’t get another chance!! That’s Natalie – I needed this message!!