Commitment Archives - Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue

Advice Wednesday: Have I Misunderstood My Ex’s Unavailability?

July 13, 2016 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Elizabeth asks: I was in a fantasy and codependent relationship where I kept trying to extract empathy and commitment from a Mr Unavailable. It’s been five months since we split, and three since No Contact. Recently he contacted me but lazily and passive. I responded and he said he wanted to connect but was then avoidant about making plans. We saw each other in public and maybe he felt guilty, because afterwards he he texted me regarding making plans. For the first time ever, I said no. This prompted him to apologise, saying that he wants things to be OK between us, that he knows it will take time, and that maybe it’s too soon. I haven’t responded.

I think he wants me to relieve him of his guilt and be the one to tell him his behaviour isn’t so bad. That said, it is hard for me to let go. When I said no, I did get different behaviour from him. Could he actually be less of a Mr Unavailable, it’s just that we are just misunderstanding each other? I am afraid he is starting to show interest in other women. If so, how can the reasons he gave about why he didn’t want to be in a relationship, be true?

Sometimes we don’t see the wood for the trees. We can find ourselves in the most dysfunctional of relationships and when it finally ends, we latch on to anything but the truth, pondering stuff like, “Is it because I didn’t answer the phone on three rings or reply to their text in a nanosecond?” or “It’s because I wasn’t sexy/attractive/smart/rich enough” or “If only I’d let them have sex with whoever they like or agreed to threesomes, we’d be living happily ever after.”

We also take a trip to Planet Nonsense & Effery where we actually start to believe that we can Jedi mind trick people into becoming the person that we want or into coughing up the relationship we want—“If I act like I have boundaries, maybe they’ll spontaneously combust into Prince/Princess Charming”.

The problem with your ex, Elizabeth, isn’t that he might be showing interest in other women [now that you’ve said no one time] or that there was some sort of ‘misunderstanding’; the problem is that you were involved in a fantasy, codependent relationship with a Mr Unavailable who lacked empathy and dodged commitment. You were in a relationship that could not go anywhere and had to go No Contact. It wasn’t just a dream; it was real. Now, because you said no one time, it’s like you’ve forgotten what the deal was.

If you have to force someone into being empathetic, it doesn’t bode well for your respective futures. If anything, trying to force somebody to be empathetic screams a lack of empathy for you.

The more you try to convince someone of something or into being/doing something, is actually the less convinced about yourself that you become.

Is emotional unavailability all that different from incompatibility?

July 22, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

A lingering question when we’ve been involved in an unavailable relationship and then they appear to commit elsewhere is, Were they actually emotionally unavailable or was it that we were incompatible? We often ponder this question when despite the fact that there are signs indicating the lack of ‘presence’ in the relationship and we have the evidence of our own unhappiness and frustration, it’s almost like we want to take it to a level where we can say, “Ha! That’s what was wrong! I wasn’t ________ enough or didn’t have ________”. Of course we’re forgetting in all of this that if we acknowledged our own true needs, expectations, desires, feelings, and opinions, we would recognise where we were being short-changed.

Unavailable relationships feature two people who are compatible in the emotional sense. Water seeks its own level.

If we continue in an involvement with a person who is coming from a level of awareness where they are avoiding their feelings, thoughts, commitment etc, we cannot claim to be emotionally available to them because they are not looking to have that level of a relationship. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we’re so much more available than they are but let’s think about it: if they’re holding back and subtly and directly creating negative consequences for vulnerability, are we really going to lay ourselves out?

In reality, it’s only when we look back that we recognise the ways in which we have edited and shaved ourselves down in order to stop the proverbial horse from bolting but also to protect us from being hurt.

In a wider sense, once we say that we want something else and diverging values become apparent and basically, we are losing ourselves and not getting our needs, expectations etc met within the relationship, we are then incompatible. So there’s synergy emotional unavailability wise but from a, Hey, let’s have a mutually fulfilling relationship with love, care, trust, respect, shared values plus the landmarks, commitment, intimacy, progression, balance and consistency position, there isn’t.

We get the relationship that fits us at the time.

If we are unavailable, lacking self- awareness, unable to take responsibility for ourselves, edging towards or prone to codependency, it doesn’t make sense for us to be with an emotionally available, ready for a big ‘ole grown-up relationship, partner. We are not conducting our life in a way that is conducive to that type of relationship experience.

We get the relationship that fits with us emotionally at the time in the sense that it’s going to show us a few things and grow us.

If we heed the lesson and truly absorb the positive insights so that we take better care of ourselves, our next relationship will not be a copy of the last, which is often the case for people who ride the unavailable relationship merry-go-round. If we don’t heed the lesson then it will just present itself in a more painful, in-your-face way until we finally do.

The reason why people who were unavailable and unable to commit in the way that we wanted when we were involved with them, commit (or appear to commit) to somebody else, is either 1) because in the totality of their relationships, they’ve run out of credits and feel that they have to make a big move in order to prove something to themselves and others or because 2) the relationships that they had between a previous loss and this current relationship acted almost as an in-betweener or bridge to recovering from the loss and moving forward. Unfortunately we may not be fully aware that we are doing this or even when we are, we make the mistake of seeing it as a call to prove how worthy we are.

If we get involved with somebody who is 1) emotionally unavailable in general or 2) recently out of another relationship or trauma or 3) reaching the totality of relationships where it’s pretty difficult to ignore some big booming lessons, the odds are that we and possibly another couple of people or so, will be the in-betweener before they seemingly ‘settle’.

This highlights where we can get too focused on what we think is so wrong (or right) with us and where we can fall into the trap of seeing a relationship as existing in a vacuum where time, space, and other relationships and experiences bear no relevance.

Yes, I know we can feel intensely about a person but we stepped into their lives at a certain point in time. They have history. They didn’t just fall out of the sky and come alive when we stepped into the frame. They are an individual entity in their own right and if we make everything about us and our worth, we neglect to recognise not only where they’re fitting into the bigger picture of our life and what we might stand to learn from this relationship, but also how they’ve got their own bigger picture and experiences that they need to learn and grow from too. We don’t always know the ins and outs of a person’s journey (even if we’re convinced that we do) and each person’s almost jigsaw puzzle is different.

If, for instance, we are one in a number of relationships that they’ve had where the same issues keep showing up, odds are that unless they’re living up their own bottom and unwilling to eventually grow their awareness, it’s going to hit them that they can’t keep blaming it on whatever they’ve been blaming it on and that they need to approach things differently. This means that if we go out with somebody who is typically unavailable and who is always not over one of their exes and is avoiding their feelings, we’re contributing to the totality of their experiences and at some point, they’re likely to reach a tipping point. It doesn’t mean that they’ll make a good decision when they do – plenty of people panic and knee-jerk in these situations if they haven’t done the work or they glorify somebody in the hopes that they’ll be their salvation and then discover that they still have to show up.

The way to avoid this is: At the point where it becomes apparent that 1) they’re unavailable, 2) you’re losing yourself or 3) they want different things and are clearly not ready for a relationship involving emotional maturity, get out. If you hang around trying to make a point or trying to make them change etc, you run the risk of decimating your self-esteem while rehabbing them for another relationship and an epiphany.

Call it unavailability, call it incompatibility but the net result is the same – it’s not going to work. It’s important to acknowledge this because if you keep looking back and hankering for a relationship that wasn’t working in the wider sense and keeping telling you that this relationship was “perfect” for you or that this was as good as it gets for you, or that you can only be with this person and that you’re wronged by it not working out, you’re making you unavailable for an available relationship and you’re limiting your options because you’re telling you that you’re in alignment with something that’s either unavailable or incompatible.

Your thoughts?

Stop letting fear of uncertainty hijack your happiness

March 17, 2015 By NATALIE Reading Time: 6 Minutes

One of the things that many of us grownups struggle with is uncertainty. We can find it difficult to not know exactly what’s going to happen next. We want to be able to move through life with the confidence that comes with knowing that something is definite. If we had our way, we’d be happy 100% of the time and not experience loss, disappointment, conflict, criticism, or rejection. We forget that life ebbs and flows and that we learn what ‘up’ is because we also learn what ‘down’ is. We have to learn how to navigate these so that we can enjoy and maximise those ups and gradually recover from those downs.

What many of us are looking for though, are ironclad guarantees or at the very least, a crystal ball to let us know whether or not we should bother. These would remove the uncertainty that comes with being vulnerable. We wouldn’t have to think or respond.

We can find decision-making scary and some of us are allergic to commitment, simply because it requires us to decide to be or do something without knowing exactly what’s going to happen next.

So we might, for instance, have to commit to following through with our desire to start a business and while we’ll have our idea and plan, we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen from end to end and we don’t have a play by play list of what we’re going to be and do. Instead, we have to make the decision, commit, and then invest our energy towards that commitment instead of looking for reasons to back out or question it.

Same goes for relationships. Before the point where we’re going to commit to something longer term and start talking ‘forever’, we have to give getting to know a person through the discovery phase of dating and then a relationship, a shot. We don’t know how it’s going to pan out hence why it’s a wise idea to do some due diligence, not so that we can avoid anything we find remotely unfavourable but more so that if and when we decide to give a relationship a go and commit, we’re making the commitment with the best of the knowledge that we have at the time rather than doing it without self-knowledge, self-awareness, and a healthy dose of reality about the person in question.

When I hear people talking about ‘casual dating’ – Seriously, what else can we water down? – I realise that what people who are afraid of commitment and vulnerability are looking for, are guarantees.

“I need to know that they’re ‘the one’ before I dare to invest myself emotionally.”

“I need to know that they’re perfect and will basically be exactly as I imagine forever and ever, before I’ll commit.”

Some people habitually jeopardise their relationships in order to feel interest and desire

February 28, 2014 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Some people jeopardise the things that they love or claim to love. Their way of feeling as if they love something, or to at least feel that it’s of value, is to put it at risk. They gamble and in their mind, it’s as if they have to take these risks to renew their interest and commitment. On some level they may reason for instance, that putting their relationship in jeopardy is what’s keeping the passion alive. They may even reason that if it wasn’t for the fact that they get up to their shenanigans, that the relationship would be some ‘boring’ type that they’re afraid of finding themselves committed to, and they may even reason that the rollercoaster of basically gambling with a person’s affections and trust and jeopardising the relationship from time to time, is what’s made it last.

At some point, they’ve learned to associate desiring something and it being of value, with high stakes and uncertainty, so they desire something or someone at their most, when they’re either unsure of whether they can attain it/them, or when they’re in danger of losing. Some people will put themselves and even the object of their ‘affections’ to the test by taking the risk to the brink. They may enjoy the power and the danger, even if the person on the receiving end is actually going through emotional torment and it creates a lingering trust issue.

People who jeopardise the things and people that they love, need to know that there’s a possibility that they can lose them.

Relationships, and in fact life, involves us having to be vulnerable. We have to make choices, decisions, and basically commit, and all the while, there are no guarantees. Often when we struggle to trust ourselves and others, what we’d really like is to know exactly how things are going to go so that we can eliminate or certainly significantly reduce our risk. That’s just not how life works. There is always the possibility that we can lose something or someone – that is how life works – and yet, when we say we’re going to commit to somebody, we are promising ourselves to that person, and for some of us, not only does our fear of commitment make us clammy and conflicted, but it also takes the edge off or even kills our desire.

What being screwed over on a house taught me about living up to your values and commitment

October 30, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Recently we experienced a lesson on the importance of honouring your values. Like many, I’ve been guilty in the past of sidestepping my values because at the time it seemed as if the situation ‘warranted’ it and that the gamble and squashing down inner concerns or even morals would be worth the perceived reward. I invariably ended up busting my boundaries and empty-handed.

Some of you may recall that we’ve decided that it’s time to move. We went under offer within three weeks and found ourselves having to choose between two bidders. Bidder #1 had been super keen but then bid significantly under the asking price and only decided to step up when Bidder #2 came along with an immediate solid offer, and although #1 equaled the eventual agreed price, we went with #2. The following morning while waiting on tenterhooks to hear if our offer had been accepted on a dream house, we were greeted with the news that #1 had made another bid that exceeded our accepted offer by ten thousand. A day earlier, we’d have been doing a jig but we’d agreed the price. It’s not that we can afford to decline that money but we would detest for what we were being asked to do to happen to us. We gave our word and in the UK, doing this after accepting an offer is known as ‘gazumping’.

We felt for Bidder #1 because we recognise that buying a property is difficult and that there can be an element of playing the game and trying to drive a hard bargain but unfortunately it meant that we didn’t have a great deal of confidence and it’s highly likely when a bidder does this that somewhere along the line, they’ll attempt to claw something back.

It’s not too dissimilar in dating and relationships where you get somebody who wasn’t taking you seriously before and wouldn’t commit or was treating you in a less than manner, suddenly making grand gestures and big promises as soon as you end things and move on. Watch out for the backtracking over the coming weeks and months. In some cases, it happens within hours or days!

In the meantime our offer was accepted and the seller’s agent claimed to share our sentiments on what we’d experienced with Bidder #1. Twenty-four hours later, our seller gazumped us. We were gutted over the disappointment but it didn’t negate our original decision – that would have been to decide that our decision was wrong because we’d been done over, when in reality, the two things had nothing to do with one another. We had to make the decision based on our values not on a gamble on either party’s behaviour. That money will show up at some other point or in another form in our lives and ultimately, we can’t miss what we never had.

You can’t date or forge a relationship without chipping in – it’s the cost of participation

July 8, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

When I overheard a friend advising a business associate to stop solely focusing on the initial money spent on a business venture and to address the real issues and decisions at hand first, I thought of the many stories readers share with me. One of the reasons that can keep you holding on tight to someone, a relationship, an idea, or situation that you really need to either let go of or to reconsider your course of action based on how things are, is this idea that you have to recoup your investment or even make it pay. Like the initial investment in a business ( ‘sunk cost’) is the cost of participation, so is your perceived ‘investment’. The cost has been and done.

I can assure you that if you keep chasing down people for what you think you’re ‘owed’ like a bailiff trying to collect goods to the amount of the debt, it will cost you far more than anything you’ve put in so far, including your dignity. The Justifying Zone isn’t a good place to be.

Expending some time, energy and yes, a little emotion (or possibly a lot), is the cost of getting involved. It comes with the territory. We have to be vulnerable and we can’t wave an invoice at people when we’re disappointed. I hear from so many people who are very stressed by online dating. It’s the chatting with someone on the phone or via text/email and feeling as if there was the beginnings of something even though they hadn’t met this person yet. They feel robbed because their hopes and expectations had begun to build and then, shazam!, the person is never to be heard of again or claiming that they’ve suddenly realised that they’re not over their ex on the eve of meeting up. Some people are so devastated, it’s as if they played the lottery, they thought that their numbers were definitely going to come up and had begun mentally spending the winnings without checking the numbers.

Phased In Commitment – Reality based instead of hope based commitment

March 27, 2013 By NATALIE Reading Time: 4 Minutes

In the past I used to commit to air aka ‘hope’ with heavy notes of bullshit. This set me up to be repeatedly disappointed by effectively Future Faking myself (projecting a future so I could get away with or get stuff in the present) and often allowing others to Future Fake and Fast Forward me, the latter being when someone uses speed and intensity in the beginning or when wooing you back or distracting you from what may be their assclownary or just the lack of matching words and action.

When reality didn’t match my hopes and expectations, I’d either be left wounded, disappointed and grudgingly single again or, I’d dig deeper into the How Low Can You Go Bunker and roll out the people pleasing big guns because it was ‘easier’ than admitting that I’d made a mistake.

There came a point in my life when I literally could not stomach anymore bullshit and it was when the prognosis for my then illness was pretty dire and I also had to face the fact that I’d spent 4.5 out of 5 months wondering if I was in a relationship with someone and being mucked around. These two things along with no longer being willing to play a role within my family that left me feeling powerless and it was time for me to breathe in the air of reality.

Overactive imaginations, insecurity and a penchant for responsibility dodging don’t go well with romantic relationships so I determined to be reality based and to phase in commitment – in effect, The Debit and Credit Trust System. This means entering into relationships and situations with a basic level of trust due to being safe in the knowledge that you have your own back due to being a resident in reality.

Getting Committed About Commitment: There’s No Such Thing As a Decision-Free Lifestyle

December 17, 2012 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

You deserve better than being with somebody who keeps putting a question mark over your head.

Decision-making and decision sticking issues means commitment problems. What we don’t realise when we keep our options open, when we engage in comparison, when we question the hell out of the decision that we’ve made, or somebody says something and we immediately wonder if we should switch to what would please them, is that we’re uncommitted.

Commitment is something that we do in all areas of our life, not just in our relationships, and what we do have to realise is that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t be uncommitted and doing the equivalent of writhing around in our own lives while clinging to the fence and then expect everything and everyone to fit in around us while not experiencing any negative consequences.

It’s this fear of missing out and fear of getting it wrong, but the truth is, we can’t have it all. I’ve had enough men sit on the fence in my life while also sitting on that fence with them but trying to get them to get off it first to know that we have to make choices and there’s no such thing as a Decision-Free Lifestyle. Choosing not to make decisions is a decision in itself.

If you get a new job, accept it, but then continue shopping around for other roles, meeting with recruiters and wondering if you’ve been too hasty when you haven’t been there five minutes, are you going to put in your best performance? Will you work as hard as someone who actually wants the role?

When I brought my wedding dress, I stopped looking, focused on my dress and didn’t have to experience any anxiety from sizing up other dresses (although I had a headache getting it…). If I committed to the dress but then found that it wasn’t for me, that would be one thing, but exploring other options to see if I still liked the dress a lot or whether I could do better would have meant that not only was I still shopping around, but I was really undermining my decision. The thing is, what I could have done with my dress is exactly what I see people doing every day with their relationships.

They continue dating other people to see if it makes one particular person “really special” while also making sure that they’re not ‘missing out’. Why do they need another person to validate their feelings? Why does the person effectively have to compete, often unbeknownst to them?

There are some people who are married or in relationships who basically haven’t stopped dating because they still have a profile on a dating site, or they’re flirting it up, eyeing up other options, sleeping around, or still getting their ego stroked by an ex who they’re keeping as a backup plan. If you’re with someone who is behaving like this, they are not emotionally bound to you. They’re not willing to step up with both feet in.

Mindfulness In Relationships: Reduce The Worrying & Fantasising By Getting Back Into The Present

June 18, 2012 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

As someone who seems to have a natural aptitude for a busy mind, I’ve worked hard over the past few years to reduce the amount of time and energy I spend worrying and ruminating, especially as at times it’s affected my health. A few months back while listening to a talk on meditation, the speaker said something that immediately clicked with me and reflected my own experiences:

Mindfulness is about being in the present – not worrying about what isn’t happening and not trying to anticipate what’s next.

I recognise this as being one of the fundamental qualities of my relationship – unlike days of old, I have spent the majority of my relationship being too physically, mentally and emotionally connected to the present to be affected by anxiety, rumination, dissatisfaction, fantasising etc.

It’s important to remember something here: All of this time spent anywhere but the present questioning things, trying to work out what’s happening is pretty futile when you consider that the bulk of the answers actually reside in the present.

I went through a phase about 2-3 months into my relationship where my insecurities kicked in: When is the other shoe going to drop? What’s the catch?

Realistically, the act of riddling yourself with anxiety is like trying to look ahead using a vision and mentality that’s essentially made up of your beliefs, unhealthy, unrealistic and otherwise, and asking “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, how am I going to eff this up and fall?”

“I need to know if this is going to work out” a friend insisted recently. I told her it’s a bit like seeking assurances that the person isn’t going to get ill, run down, or have a bad day some time, or that even if they don’t know you, that they must know right now whether they see a future with you.

You need to be putting in the energy, effort, and emotion and enjoying and engaging in your relationship now.

If you’re not putting in these ingredients, which cover off your love, care, trust, respect, and discovering whether you have shared values, and you’re not enjoying it and you’re not engaging because you’re off in LaLa Land, what’s the point? Also what’s with the desperation to ditch your ‘old life’? Relationships, when they’re great are a wonderful addition to your life, but when you’re desperate for each relationship to be ‘it’, it’s like a blood soaked invitation to the shady sharks in the dating pool.

How Buying My Wedding Dress Ended Up Giving Me A Refresher Course On Commitment & ‘Chemistry’

March 2, 2012 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Last week, I finally committed to a wedding dress…for the second time. With just over three months to go, everyone from the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker (not really) had something to say about my lack of dress. It was only as I was about to ‘make the leap’ that I recognised the stark similarities between my finding the ‘right’ dress and the search for the ‘right’ relationship.

So many people told me that when you find ‘the dress’, you just ‘know’. I’m sure this happens for some people, but in truth I built up this idea that I’d be swept off my feet so I ended up being in search of a ‘feeling’. As any of you know that have pursued this ‘feeling’ in relationships, this can send you down some blind alley’s or leave you wondering if you should feel ‘more’.

I could give a long list of what I didn’t want, but wasn’t quite so hot on articulating what I did want. With normal clothing, I have distinctive style values – this wasn’t the case with ‘the dress’. I assumed they’d become clearer during the search and ending up being confused, overwhelmed, and sidetracked. It’s not about having a master list of relationship criteria that’s longer than a grocery receipt for a family of six; it’s about having a clear view of the bigger picture and your core values.

I had some very strong preconceived ideas about what would suit me. In the end, I’ve ended up with something totally different to what I would have expected me to go for but it’s totally me. I was also way off track on some of my ideas, which brings me neatly to..

As I’m an Anthropologie addict, I started this whole process convinced that I was going to go for a Bhldn dress, and so when I started looking for dresses here, these dresses that I hadn’t even seen in the flesh were always in the back of mind. This ended up being like an ex hovering or that person you fancy that’s been lingering in the back of your mind even though nothing’s happened between you.

Some of the stores/designers kept telling me to go with the flow, to keep an open mind or convince me into dresses that I liked, but I didn’t love. It’s true that I did need to be a little more open-minded but that’s very different to taking on their mind or values. There was too much ‘noise’ and some of them meant “Go with the flow to the cash register…” This of course can happen in relationships and the truth is, no good will come of going along with someone else’s terms when you don’t really know them very well and it ticks their boxes, while leaving you ‘hungry’.

I admit that I brought the dress thinking “I’m not keen on the straps but I could get them taken off”. On a few of my mental visions, I had a niggling thought that it might be princessy (not my thing at all) but I shrugged it off. This reminds me of ‘fixing’ in dating and overriding concerns. Turns out it was princessy.

Behind Every Excuse is the Real Reason

September 23, 2011 By NATALIE Reading Time: 5 Minutes

One of the things that I’ve recognised as a differentiator between healthy and unhealthy relationships is the presence of excuses, whether it’s yours and/or theirs. In the worst of situations where you may be denying, rationalising, and minimising, you may even be making excuses for their excuses which only goes to show how poor the original excuse was.

Just like how on the other side of a jumped boundary lies disrespect, on the other side of an excuse often not only lies at least some element of disrespect but also the real reason.

An excuse is a reason that is given to justify an offence or fault but its primary purpose is to lessen responsibility by getting you to overlook, excuse, or even forgive off the back of it. This of course is rather tricky because when there’s excuses it means that any commitment is being lessened, which means everything else tied to it becomes pretty flimsy. You may also be overlooking things that are busting up your boundaries.

People often get ‘reasons’ and ‘excuses’ mixed up because there appears to be some crossover. Excuses allow people to remain in their uncomfortable comfort zone, dodge conflict by avoiding honesty both with others and themselves, dodge accountability, and cast themselves in a better light.

Saying “The dog ate my homework” gives the impression that you’ve been a victim of misfortune and avoids conflict whereas saying “I couldn’t be arsed to do my homework” or “I forgot” makes you look lazy and lacking in conscientiousness.

Likewise saying “I’ve been really busy” gives the impression that you’re so busy (ya know busier than a world leader) that you haven’t had the time to contact or see them whereas saying “I’m not interested / am half-hearted / have been trying to get back with my ex” will not only have you in the position of saying something that most people squirm at and possibly inviting ‘conflict’, but if you’re the type of person that likes to hedge your bets, you may want to keep them as a rainy day option. If anything you’re hoping they’ll take the hint and do your job for you and at the worst of things, you may be hoping the excuse allows you to avail of their ‘usefulness’.