Posted by Tabitha on June 2, 2003, at 1:23:28
Ugh. My new love life thing is hurting. We had 2 months of bliss, then started having conflict. I wasn't sure we'd make it. My therapist said, we're having a conflict phase, we'll either get through it and end up closer, or we'll go our separate ways. I was waiting to see.
Yesterday we saw each other and it was halfway comfortable, I started to feel a glimmer of hope. Today, a phone call that actually got almost ugly. My tolerance for 'ugly' is near zero. Now it feels hopeless. He's not hearing me, everything I say makes it worse, I'm withdrawing since I don't feel safe anymore, meanwhile my withdrawal triggers his insecurity, and he's pushing me to reassure him that we have a 'commitment'. It doesn't even make sense to me to talk about commitment at this point. In fact it seems downright-- crazy. Reality check-- it's only been 2 months. Actually a couple days short of 2 months. I haven't seen whether we can weather conflict.. and from the looks of things.. maybe we can't.
He's been behaving so badly lately, pure insecurity driving him, it's turning me off, and he wants total acceptance. I can't give it.
It's shedding all new light on past experiences. A few years back, a guy I loved kept me at arms length, didn't want to be sexual with me, didn't want to really be a public 'couple' with me. My therapist always told me he was too afraid of me. I was in worse shape then (pre- meds) and more unstable, behaved worse, but I really didn't get it. NOW I GET IT! I was too volatile, too needy, he couldn't let his guard down enough to be that close to me. Now I get how that feels, from the other side.
I didn't do anything wrong. I just voiced some doubts and took a little step back. He's distorting what I said, and he's distorting what I'm feeling. He keeps saying I pushed him away and I don't want to be with him. It isn't true. I just took a little step back. That's part of the normal ebb and flow.
He asked for reassurance.. I couldn't give any. Maybe I missed something. Maybe I could have done something. I don't know. I'm not perfect.
poster:Tabitha
thread:230714
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030517/msgs/230714.html