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It makes perfect sense…and yes, I agree that choosing is a more accurate than attracting.
And it’s very likely that I’m more comfortable with someone who is unavailable…during late childhood and my teens by father wasn’t available emotionally (he was hospitalized twice with depression, made a serious suicide attempt, and was treated for bipolar disorder).
But I’ve had a taste of what it is like to feel special to someone and want that kind of attention and care from someone who is available emotionally for a relationship.
Do you need my email or can you obtain it from the site?
You mentioned that you had a coach in the tread entitled “Torn.” I might be interested in setting up a few sessions with your coach. I can identify with many of the things that she said e.g., I hold a leadership role, I’m used to solving problems in the organization, in the classroom and in research, etc.
It’s not easy for me to ask for help (especially if I’m capable of taking care of something myself), accept generosity (my parents were quite parsimonious and insistent that they treat my sibs and I alike no matter what our individual needs were), and have had to learn that I deserve to be treated as if I’m special by my partner. In thinking over the relationships I’ve had, many of the men were emotionally unavailable in some way.
I’ve learned to disregard many of the messages I grew up with, but it’s very likely that I’m still attracting someone who is emotionally unavailable (although the guy I was dating seemed to be more emotionally available than anyone prior).
It makes a lot of sense. And gives me an additional lens to look at people’s behavior.
Some of the material that I was exposed to during a formal leadership training program at my university also discussed the idea that a person’s strengths could also become a weakness under stress. And the assessments that we completed were quite accurate in terms of my strengths, weakneses and coping mechanisms. I know that the person I was dating completed similar assessments as part of his executive training program, but we unfortunately we didn’t share the broad outlines of those results with each other.
And actually when I think about it, he did reveal that he might have a tendency to disconnect earlier this winter. He was telling me about his relationship with his wife and said that when he got upset with her (before she developed Alzheimer’s), he would tend to go outside and work for a while, think about things, and then realize in a day or two that she was right about something. It’s an approach that can be healthy, but if it’s the only approach he has to coping with disagreement or stress, it could be destructive over time.
We didn’t have any arguments, but that didn’t surprise me given that the relationship was still in the honeymoon stage. It’s also not unusual to start meeting friends and family members after several months of an exclusive relationship (not necessarily vacationing with them, but having dinner or coffee with others).
I didn’t notice any red flags before he pulled away and given my experience with verbally/emotionally abusive men, I usually spot them quickly (I also moderated a forum/board similar to this one for people who had been involved in emotionally abusive relationship in the early to mid-2000s-and the red flags and behavior patterns were the same no matter the country.
Negative qualities-sometimes he could get a little wrapped up in telling me all of the details of cases he’d worked on prior to retirement and sometimes he needed to pay a little more attention to what he was wearing e.g., he lost weight and some of his shirts were too big, or he would wear a shirt and didn’t seem to notice that it had a small tear in it.
I’ll be careful…and this was the first time his words and actions didn’t match. Which made it so surprising.
I’m happy to go slower if we get back together. I’m not going to contact him for another month or so (when he’s offered to help me with my landscaping project). And I plan to keep it fairly low key and avoid having any long conversations with him that extend into the late evening (so as to avoid him staying overnight).
What is intriguing about the situation, is that he was the one suggesting meeting his family, vacationing with them, traveling out os state to meet my son later this summer. He told me that after he got back from our trip to Charleston over spring break, that he realized that we had the potential for a long term relationship and that he was ready to take it to the next level.
I didn’t feel the need to involve family members yet and since I had a work obligation that involved a social activity (lunch) on a Saturday, invited him along (we typically spent the weekend together). But left it up to him whether he came along.
According to him he broke things off-he was worried that if our relationship progressed, and we began meeting each other’s family, friends, and colleagues, that since the “chemistry” was missing, the relationship would eventually fall apart and it would be more painful emotionally and embarrassing to me if I suddenly started showing up at events without him.
Having been single a long time and around a lot of single women, we’re used to relationships ending on occasion.
I think he was less concerned about my embarrassment and potential hurt if the relationship fell apart, than his own fear of being hurt again.
Your comments make a lot of sense.
Based on your advice, if we get back together, I won’t suggest that we alter our pattern of splitting expenses. I’ll encourage him to “help” me in other ways, e.g., my landscaping project, getting fit for my hiking vacation, etc.
He definitely has a history of caring for his family members. Although his late wife worked, he was the main breadwinner in the family by a large margin and she followed him as he moved across the country for his job.
A couple of years after he retired, his late wife developed Alzheimer’s and he cared for her at home until her death almost two years ago. Before her death, he and his wife moved to Atlanta, and bought a house with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids, so they could help him care for his wife (his wife was Japanese and the son-in-law is Chinese). Shortly after his wife’s death, he also lost his mother. He has told me that after those deaths he was quite depressed for 6-12 months, but decided last summer to start taking care of his health and start dating again.
So yes, it’s quite likely that he reached his “upper limit” after our getaway over spring break, And got freaked out when we started making plans to meet some of my friends and colleagues, and for me to meet his family and later join them on a vacation this summer. And instead of fighting with me or changing his behavior, he sabotaged the relationship by claiming it’s missing “chemistry.”
My hope is that in a month or two when we get together to work on my landscaping project or go for a hike at Stone Mountain, that he realizes that I add a lot to his life and that his helpful activities around the house and his generosity when we go out, make life pleasanter and easier for me.
Did you ask him what “chemistry” he was referring to? I’m not sure I really understand that. It sounds like the bedroom is great, the friendship is great, and you are well-matched. When you are NOT in the bedroom, are you guys flirty with each other? Do you talk every day? Do you hold hands? Do you FEEL the chemistry between you guys OUTSIDE of the bedroom?
I tried to probe about what he meant by chemistry, but he said he wasn’t sure, probably it was biological maybe related to pheromones. However, given what I know as a scientist, that’s probably not the answer.
We didn’t talk every day, but might text every couple of days when we saw something that might interest the other person, and sometimes those texts led to a prolonged interaction. When we were together we lots of many interesting conversations. We held hands and touched each other outside the bedroom.
However, it’s also important for a man to feel “needed.” By that, I mean he needs to feel like he has a role in your life…it’s part of their nature and instinct, so it’s about finding ways to make him feel “needed” but NOT from a place of you actually “needing” him. Let me explain a bit…if a guy asks me if I want help to carry in the groceries, or carry my bag, or help me with something, even though I don’t actually NEED their help, I absolutely take it. I too am very independent and can do 100% of my life on my own, however…part of the beauty of the feminine energy, is INSPIRING the masculine to engage with us by “helping” us…not because we can’t help ourselves, but because they can. Feminine energy is the “receiver.” Allowing a man to offer his help in various ways, whether it’s a shoulder to cry on, an expensive dinner, a foot rub, carrying something for us….ALWAYS take it because you are honoring the masculine and feminine and how they can work together and support each other. So it’s NOT about you having your own home and job etc….it’s about inviting the masculine’s support into your life because it’s just a beautiful thing to engage with. AND…always make sure to acknowledge it, appreciate it, and verbalize how it helps you…because it does! So I always say things like “Wow…I soooo appreciate your help with that. It made my life so much easier and gave me more time. Thank you thank you thank you!” Does this make sense about the what is happening on a deeper level?
I think this might be the key-he might not feel that he has a place in my life. When he’s treated me to a nice dinner, took my dog out early in the morning so I didn’t have to get up, etc., I’ve always thanked him and appreciated his efforts. In fact,I’ve never been treated so nicely (maybe I need to tell him that when he comes over in May to help me with the project in my yard).
And when I think about the two things he’s mentioned doing in the future-helping me with a project in my yard, hiking Stone Mountain before my hiking trip to Iceland in July, both involve helping me in some way.
I may also be more revealing about my past. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home-my father was mentally ill and hospitalized several times. Our physical and intellectual needs were met during childhood, but our emotional needs were neglected. And as a result, I learned to take care of myself and not depend on anyone else to meet my needs, something that was reinforced by my poor choices of husbands (emotionally withdrawn or abusive).
After going to therapy, I’ve made much better choices and had a much healthier relationship with my late partner. But he also expressed one time after we started living together that it was weird to be living with someone who didn’t need him for his salary, help with childcare (I was in my late 60s), etc. But there were times when I “needed” his presence and he wasn’t there e.g., a couple of days after gall bladder surgery I found out that they had found pre-cancerous cells and I would need to be monitored for five years. Because I was recovering so well after outpatient surgery, he had gone to visit his sister in another state the day before. Needless to say, I was shaken up and could have used his support at that point. I talked to him over the phone about the findings, but he didn’t seem that worried about the situation even though gall bladder cancer has a survival rate of less than 10% for 5 years. I didn’t push him for more support at that time, because he was still coping with his son’s sudden death a couple of months before my surgery. And I knew it had been hard for him emotionally to take me to the hospital and wait around until I was out of the recovery room.
Amyway, back to the present. I’m beginning to see a pattern and need to learn how to convey to him how much I appreciate the things he does and how special it makes me feel. I’m not used to someone regularly doing me favors.
And may ask him if we get back together later this spring or summer if it would make him more comfortable if he paid for most of our outings. I know he can afford it or he wouldn’t suggest going to certain restaurants, staying at a beautiful resort for a few days during my spring break etc.
