Break Emotional Unavailability, Embrace Loving Relationships, Grow Self-Esteem

Ep. 92: You’re Not My Usual Type But You Could Be With Some Changes

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This week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions is inspired by a recent story that was shared with me that really illustrates how inappropriate behaviour can creep up on us and turn into big problems if we override ourselves.

In this episode:

  • I explain what code amber and code red issues are
  • I share the story of how a woman who’s only been dating a man for several weeks, is now going to the gym and attending Slimming World at his [sneaky] behest to look better (read: like the women he normally dates)
  • I explain why we must be discerning and have a level of stranger awareness, especially in the early stages of dating
  • I talk about why we override common sense, tension, discomfort about knowing that we need to take action and more, because we don’t want to put the person in question out, or we’re afraid of looking rude etc., or we don’t want to endanger the fantasy
  • I Talk about why we need to be aware of inappropriate and abusive behaviour and why the situation in the story has the hallmarks of something that’s going to be an abusive relationship
  • Explain why we have to be careful of people who are Choppers and why them cutting us down is about weak not strong behaviour
  • Explain why, whether they’re someone you’ve known for a wet week or for some time, it’s not cool for them to try to control what you do, how you look etc–it needs to be your choice and there shouldn’t be the manipulative BS where they suggest it while telling you not to do it for them while also pushing you to do it

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It’s Unrealistic To Expect Fast Confirmation of ‘No Red Flags’

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

People and relationships unfoldOne of the reasons why so many people find dating daunting is because dates are treated like a gamble where we’ve extended a level of trust and are waiting to see how much return we get back. The more dates we feel that we’ve ‘lost’ too much to, is the twitchier we get about dating, prompting anxiety due to falling for the sunk cost fallacy–believing that we’re supposed to at least ‘get back’ what we put in and as a result, trying to recoup costs that are in actuality, the cost of getting involved and are already ‘done’.

What’s driving much of the anxiety along with a sense of being almost being ‘duped’ if a date or few doesn’t progress, is this underlying belief that if someone isn’t relationship material, that this is something that we believe that we should know almost immediately but also that a date should show their hand immediately.

There can be signs that a person isn’t relationship material or that they don’t share core values (demonstrated through action), or that we quite simply aren’t into them, from pretty soon into the proceedings, but it takes time and experience regardless of any impressions, stated intentions, or feelings felt, to know whether someone truly is loving relationship material or the person for us.

We might get a sense of it, but people and relationships unfold and so rather than making a snap judgement and rigidly sticking to it regardless of what happens next, we have to be open to getting to know and understand people, with the caveat being that some won’t even make it past a date or few, regardless of how good a time we think we’ve had with them.

It won’t be one thing that makes someone ‘it’; it will be a series of things. Even if we see what we think is an indicator of potential early on, as the relationship unfolds, we won’t have to carry on as if it was a UFO sighting that we’re now trying to get them to verify by attempting to make them demonstrate the behaviour or intentions that we haven’t seen again.

If our impression was on point, it will be converted into a fact due to it being consistently demonstrated over time.

Believing that we ‘should’ know immediately is a trap because ultimately, we’re living by a [faux] rule that has no basis.

It’s unrealistic to expect us to have world class detective skills, able to tell at a glance or certainly within the time it takes to have a drink and maybe a meal, whether somebody is Mr or Miss Right. It’s not a skill that we need to develop because there is no getting around the fact that we need to be vulnerable and show up if we want to get to know others and to be known.

We’re only putting the pressure on us to play Columbo because we’re on some level scared of getting things wrong and intimacy.

Revisited: Understanding what your trust points were in your shady relationship

By Reading Time: 8 Minutes

what your trust points?

Don’t forget that I’m on a ‘break’ until September so I will mostly be featuring some of yours and my favourite posts from the archives.

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I’ve previously written about when we wonder what happened to that guy (or woman) that we were involved with at the beginning and why can’t they go back to that. This person that pursued you, made you feel like the focal point of their lives, showered you with attention, said you were special, refused to back off if you were initially disinterested, talked about the future and littered conversations with ‘we’ and ‘us’, gave you great sex, called, emailed, text messaged and instant messengered, wondered why you weren’t with them when you were with your friends, got jealous, posessive, talked about having babies and getting married about a hot minute after you’d met…has disappeared, whether that’s literally or figuratively.

If it’s literally, one minute they were in your life, next thing you know they’ve upped and gone.

Where you used to be able to get through to this person or you could expect to be called at a certain time each day, whhhhoooooossssshhhhh, they’re gone. You’ll be suspended in disbelief initially but with every day that passes, it becomes more and more evident that you’re not hearing from them again. You’ll probably replay every damn conversation you had and wonder what you did to scare them off and start giving yourself a really hard time. But really, is there ever a legitimate excuse for someone to disappear without saying a goddamn word? Incidentally, it’s them dying or being in a coma… The booby trap of course with someone who pulls a disappearing act is that if they reappear in your life and they manage to slip back in without too much hassle, the tone gets set for the relationship.

If it’s figuratively, the charming person has left the building and what you’ve been left with is someone who behaves and treats you in a less than attractive way. You’ll wonder if you can take them back to the store and get an exchange! One week they were calling you morning, noon, and night, and now, you’re lucky if you hear from them once a week. You used to talk on the phone about what seemed like anything and everything, now they’re hurrying you off the phone, grunting answers, and being snappy and impatient with you. Those plans they made? Turns out they’re a Future Faker, faking a future with you so you’ll step up in the present. Now, you’re lucky if they’ll talk about the next hour never mind the next month!

Do you know what most people on the receiving end of this downright dubious behaviour struggle with? They started to trust this person.

All that stuff that the person did at the start of the relationship for however long it lasted, was them reeling you in, lowering your defences and getting you to trust them.

For you, as things progressed, there were certain ‘trust points’ in the relationships; things that you used as a basis to trust in them and the relationship.

They’re the things you start trusting in and you’ll likely be able to recall when you look back on the relationship, these things that all added up to the sense that you could trust them – if you had a guard, you let it down. The trust points will also be the things that blinded you to other things that you should have been concerning yourself with.

Are you overfeeding your worry and fear ‘goldfish’?

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

feeding the worry and the fear goldish

We have a pet goldfish, Sophie, who Em would overfeed given half the chance because it’s as if every time she rustles around in the bowl when she sees him, he interprets it as a sign to feed her. Goldfish don’t know when they’re full so they will eat and eat and eat and Sophie along with Yella and Goldie (rest in peace fishies – the girls sang Someone Like You for their funerals) seemed to know how to hustle for food.

Worry and fear are like goldfish – they’ll eat most or all of whatever you feed them and will keep coming back for more.

They don’t say ‘Thanks but I’m full mate’ and turn away, so you have to be the disciplined one and learn to recognise the emotional, mental and physical signs of signs along with what they’re impacting on in your life.

When you’re not used to backing you, fear and worry tend to have a bigger voice than you. You have to be the one to know your limit or you’ll overfeed ‘worry fish’ and ‘fear fish’ and possibly even ‘harsh critic fish’, ‘rejection fish’ and anything else you want to throw in that can detract from your self-esteem. There isn’t much room for love and happiness when you’re overfeeding negativity.

When you’re a worry and fear feeder, you chase the thoughts and feelings.

It’s the whole ‘I had this thought so I’ll attribute X meaning and chase after it with other thoughts’ and next thing minutes, hours, days or even weeks and months have gone by. Not all thoughts are facts so you have to be the one to do the working out and choose what to feed.

Revisited: The Justifying Zone

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

If you're going to stay in a relationship or continue dating someone, do so because the experiences in themselves positively justify continuing, NOT because you feel like you need to find a good reason for being interested in or sleeping with them in the first place.

A few years back, before I delved deeper into the subjects of being afraid of making ‘mistakes’ and perceiving recognition of a date/relationship not working out as a ‘failure’, I explained the danger of putting yourself in the Justifying Zone.

This is that slippery slope that many people find themselves on after becoming emotionally attached or being sexually intimate. I’ve heard from readers who went out with someone for anything from months to years who they recognised with as little as a day that there was code amber / red issues or that they weren’t interested or that there was a clear conflict of values. They all continued because they felt like they had to ‘prove’ that there was a good reason for being interested, involved, seeing potential or just plain ‘ole having sex with them.

It’s like, “I wouldn’t normally be so crazy about someone / sleep with them on the first night / let them Fast Forward me and so when I realised that something wasn’t right, I had to look for reasons to justify why I’d done these things in the first place.”

Anyone would think we all have Relationship Criminal Records and so we’re trying to avoid having another one-night stand, or someone we met online not respond after exchanging a few emails or texts, or trying to avoid having another date / fling / ‘failed’ relationship / unrequited crush / Future Faker being listed on it.

The Justifying Zone is like retracing your steps or trying to retrospectively do the discovery phase of dating. You’re out together and they say something that under any other circumstances wouldn’t be a big deal but now you’re mentally punching the air thinking, YES! I KNEW I wasn’t crazy to sleep with them. Later you see a code amber or red behaviour and think @!$% and your insides are gripped with panic. You’re probably mentally beating yourself up for ‘getting it wrong’ too.

Why There’s No Point In Being With Somebody Who Blows Hot & Cold

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

i don't do hot and cold. You're either in or you're out

Up until I had my epiphany seven years ago, about unavailable relationships and in particular my own unavailability, I was convinced that I had a special skill that made available men unavailable. In my mind, I would get involved with someone, incidentally who I probably didn’t even like that much, and they would be blowing seriously hot and then ‘something about me’ would make them become unavailable and start blowing lukewarm or cold. I believed that they were great guys offering great relationships and that if it weren’t for my flaws, they’d still be the same guys I’d assumed they were and offering the same relationships that I’d assumed or been led to believe that they were offering.

If you’ve ever been in an unavailable relationship, you’re likely as familiar with blowing hot and cold as you are with your own reflection. It’s gone from intense and gradually or very sharply cooled down.

  • They’re not as eager and in pursuit as they were before.
  • In fact, you’re the one doing the chasing now.
  • Suddenly you’re hearing excuses including about how busy they are.
  • Whereas you used to hear from the all the time, now there are increasing gaps.
  • They seem less attentive.
  • You feel like a pest when you get in touch.
  • They’ve disappeared with some lame-o excuse and come back in a rather feeble capacity that you’re now trying to breathe life into.
  • They get snippy with you when you remind them of things that they’ve said and even promised you.
  • It feels like you’re on your own with your feelings.
  • You can feel them pulling away, possibly because the feeling is familiar.
  • You’ve actually got used to breezing in for an intense ‘set’ and then them breezing out again for a while, often without hearing from them and suspecting or even knowing that there involved with others, but being OK with being their ‘appointment’.
  • This might be a well honed routine. When they pull away and you stop chasing them, they chase you back and then when you respond, they pull away. And lathe, rinse, repeat.

Blowing hot and cold is never a good sign and it is in fact a code red alert because you can never trust in this person enough to know what to expect from them. Your relationship will not be able to have balance, it can’t progress because they keep undermining it, they’re inconsistent (and if you stay around too long they become consistent at being inconsistent and train you to expect less from them), and as a result of all of these things, you cannot expect intimacy or commitment.

With all of this jiggering around with the hot and cold, you may think you still have something going on (the hallmarks) but your relationship will not have the landmarks.

Is It ‘Fear’? Or Is It ‘Knowledge’ That You Haven’t Responded To?

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Is it fear? Or, is it knowledge?

“I’m afraid that X is going to happen.”

“I’m afraid that they Y…” ‘y’ being “can’t be trusted”, “are going to leave”, “cheating on me”, “surfing dating sites behind my back”, “are too good to be true”, “not over their ex” and other such concerns that can keep you awake at night and hog up a lot of your brain power.

“I’m afraid that I’m not good enough/going to do something to mess it up.”

These concerns may be very familiar to you, especially if you end up ruminating and flip flapping about what course of action, if any to take next, and invariably end up painting yourself into a corner.

If we’re willing to be in and pay attention to reality, plus are willing to listen to ourselves, we can figure out whether we are worrying about something that isn’t happening or hasn’t happened yet, or whether we are actually aware of pertinent facts.

The trouble is that many people operate on fear, veering between being very reactive to it, or paralysed in anxiety, rumination, and indecision. When you experience the former, you may have a knee-jerk reaction and make a decision that may not be rooted in the actual situation and the facts presented to you – this may be because you experience uncomfortable emotions, feel afraid, run with it, take the message as a sign to act fast, and bail. You’ll be familiar with this if you’ve ever had someone get close to you and then exit like a bat out of hell or sabotage by creating problems.

When you experience the latter, you spend more time being afraid, thinking about being afraid, thinking about what course of action you should take/imagining that you don’t have any options, and being afraid of making a decision and getting it wrong, than you do responding to the fear and taking action.

What isn’t asked often enough is: Is it fear? Or, am I dealing with knowledge?

Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat.

Knowledge is being cognizant and aware of the facts. You’re aware of the truth of something or even the indications.

What I realise when people tell me about their experiences, is that knowledge is often mislabeled as fear due to denying, rationalising, minimising, and trumping up excuses.

The Dreamer & the Shopper: Have you inadvertently found yourself in a fantasy relationship?

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

esc key from the keyboardIf you’ve ever found yourself struggling to get over a relationship that didn’t get off the ground, was unreciprocated, or was largely virtual, you may not realise that you’ve been involved in a fantasy relationship although you may have uttered the words, “I can’t figure out what was real and what wasn’t!”

While some people do the atypical fantasy and conjure up a relationship and a connection that doesn’t and never did exist, what I come across are people who are stuck in a sustained period of continuing a ‘connection’ mentally that’s ceased in real life with the help of the internet, and then those who use the flimsiest of connections as a springboard to create a connection and relationship in their imagination that far surpasses reality.

These situations are often borne out of loneliness, a fear of rejection and intimacy, and great feelings of inadequacy. The more knocks you experience in the real world that you’re trying to avoid, the bigger a cocoon that you’ll build around yourself.

Expectations and illusions have a huge impact on emotional availability and the dynamics in a relationship. When you consider the unhealthy beliefs that you can carry when you have a habit of being in unavailable relationships, it’s also easy to see how you can have an unrealistic picture of what a relationship looks like and how you can choose unavailable people to try to fill voids within you.

Of course the trouble is that while they can often have some ‘good’ qualities, the ones that add up to a mutual, healthy relationship are thin on the ground and they’re under-qualified to fulfil capabilities and expectations that you place on them. One of the things they do do though that’s very useful for those of you prone to overuse of your imagination, is remain distant, so while that does have its frustrations when you want them to make certain things a reality, truth be told, the distance works for you and leaves you free to imagine whatever you like.

Any relationship or even the prospect of one, where there was some level of emotional investment takes some time to get over, but it’s safe to say that it can be awfully difficult to let go of a relationship that didn’t actually exist or what did, was as flimsy as a sandcastle built in the sky. What many people don’t recognise about grieving the loss of relationships is that it’s not just about when you break a relationship; it can also be about grieving the loss of hope and what you thought might be and some of you aren’t doing this and are in fact, holding tight not only to the dream but a massive avoidance of rejection. Unfortunately, it’s a vicious circle because the more you avoid your feelings, is the more you remain in denial, is the more unavailable you become, is the greater likelihood of either opening yourself up to pain with this Mr/Miss Unavailable, or finding fresh pain with a new one.

If you have a tendency to have crushes, get lost in your feelings, continue feeling even when it becomes clear it’s not reciprocated, or can weave a fantasy relationship out of words and your imagination, you’re a Dreamer. Carrying a huge fear of intimacy, you find it safer to live in your mental world rather than risk a ‘real’ rejection. While all Fallback Girls (and guys) have avoidance issues and are chasing a feeling, you don’t truly want to get close to anyone – you want that “feeling” from a distance.

Fantasy vs Reality: When you struggle to differentiate between what was real and what wasn’t

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

rose tinted glassesIf you’ve ever said “I don’t know what was real and what was fake”, “But it’s hard to let go of the fantasy” , “It feels like I was in love with an illusion” or “I’m finding it really hard to move on and accept what has happened”, you’ve got reconciliation issues. When you’re faced with making fantasy and reality consistent with one another so that you can accept the truth of what has happened, what you feel, do, or are being, you opt for the illusions which basically suspends you in No Man’s Land while opening you up to problems in the real world.

An illusion is a false idea or belief, or a deceptive appearance or impression.

A fantasy is an idea with no basis in reality and is basically your imagination unrestricted by reality.

Reality is the state of things as they exist. It’s what you see, hear, and experience.

So let’s imagine a few scenarios.

Scenario #1: You break up with someone because for whatever reason the relationship wasn’t working. Maybe it wasn’t progressing (see my post on landmarks of healthy relationships), or there was code amber and red behaviour but whatever it was, you’re not together. However, you keep remembering the ‘good times’ and the fact that you both like running in the mountains, eating jellied eels, sleeping in the bed at a 17 degree angle, and you have amazing sex. Time goes by and even though you were bloody miserable in the relationship due to the aspects that weren’t working, you keep focusing on those ‘good times’ and particularly on the beginning and wonder why they can’t go back to being that person. They get in touch, you think you’re getting back together, you have a whirlwind night/week/even a month and then you’re back to square one. You’re hurting and struggle to get over them. They get in touch again or you reach out. You think you’re getting back together, they haven’t changed and lather, rinse, repeat.

When you keep going back to a relationship that broke for a reason and where the person didn’t live up to the reality of all the wonderful things you thought they were, you let your focus on the ‘good points’, your feelings etc run unencumbered by reality. If you restricted yourself to reality or at least balanced the fantasy with very real prior experiences and knowledge of boundaries and why some relationships don’t work, there’s no way in hell you’d keep putting your hand back in the fire.

Stop Explaining. Stop Justifying. Stop Talking. Boundaries Are Upheld With Action

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

BOUNDARIES ACTION

Over the past few years, I’ve gone to great lengths to explain the importance of boundaries, something that all people who have low self-esteem and who put up with inappropriate or downright shady behaviour have little or none of. Boundaries are basically your limits and also act as your personal electric fence alerting you to the fact that you’re uncomfortable or even in danger. They also communicate to others not only how they can treat you and what to expect from you, but also what they’re likely to get away with.

It’s as I talked about a few weeks back in my Broken Windows post – let certain things slide by and it becomes a green light for them to bust up your boundaries even further. They realise that something isn’t right and that you may not like and love yourself enough otherwise you wouldn’t be giving them the time of day let alone the steam off your tea.

Here’s the thing: Boundaries aren’t complicated – it’s the fear of having and enforcing them that people use to complicate them. They’re natural to many people and a necessary part of life and yet when people become au fait with the existence and necessities of boundaries, it then becomes “So how can I communicate my boundaries? What can I say? How do I make them respect my boundaries?”

This is where I have to lay it down in simple terms – Stop the frickin’ talking!

Questions like these are asked because:

1) They want to communicate the boundaries to someone that doesn’t respect boundaries. Pointless.

2) They don’t want to do anything they just want say something. Also pointless.

3) They want to ‘make’ people respect boundaries and they’re likely to be the types of people that they’d want to make love them and make them see their point of view. Pointless – it’s like throwing your energy into the abyss or peeing into the wind.

Particularly for women, who often suffer with Women Who Talk and Think Too Much syndrome, you’ve got to stop the explaining, justifying and talking the nth degree out of your boundaries because if they’re really your boundaries, you wouldn’t be there or you’d be doing something.

You know what talking, explaining and justifying the existence of things that people with even a moderate level of self-esteem says?

“My boundaries are up for negotiation. In fact, they’re not really my boundaries and I’m not entirely sure I believe in them. I just want you to see my point of view, to change, to make me the exception. Don’t leave me.”

The BS Diet – Why you need to stop denying, minimising, and rationalising

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

crater

Every time a friend has spoken to me about her frustrations with her boyfriend over the past year, she keeps mentioning him smoking “a bit of weed” and his drinking habits and then quickly playing them down. Someone else I know is shrinking and rationalising the fact that her boyfriend keeps rubbernecking other women when they’re out and denying it when she says calls him on it. When I was in New York a few months ago, one reader described her ex as being “a bit of an alcoholic” and other readers have said stuff like “he’s a bit unavailable”, “she has a little bit of a problem being honest”, “he dabbles in drugs”, “he gets a bit angry” and stalwart favourites “He/she has his good points” and “We have had some good times”.

There are three things that can get you in hot water in relationships and will create honesty issues with yourself: denying, minimising, and rationalising.

They are in fact different aspects of denial except for:

Denying is refusing to admit the existence of something.

Minimising is playing down the truth of something or its significance.

Rationalising is trying to explain, justify and even excuse something with what you feel are plausible explanations which of course can end up crossing into denial.

There is a very simple reason why these actions are dangerous in your relationships and affect your authenticity and how honest you are about who and what you’re involved in:

If you deny the existence of something it means that you deny your feelings and perceptions, as well as the true impact of it and what it means to you and your relationship.

If you minimise something, by playing down the significance of it which could be about the danger it could pose, what it means to the possibility of a mutually fulfilling healthy relationship, or even what it means about your own actions, you’re basically playing down your true feelings and perception of it, as well as the impact.

If you rationalise something and you’re doing it without healthy beliefs and relationship habits as a basis of your rationale, you’ll end up rationalising your true feelings and perception plus if you’re excusing, and justifying, you’re denying. Instead of taking the simple but what may be the more painful meaning of that something, you rationalise it to make it more palatable.

We only have to deny, minimise and rationalise when we don’t like what the true meaning is – this is an issue with acceptance. That and you need to go on The Bullshit Diet.