Loving Him Without Losing You (6 page)

As we move to the middle of the continuum we find women who have a tendency to become involved with men too quickly and too intensely. If you’re one of these women, you may have other interests, but you may not be able to carry on a conversation for any length of time without focusing on the current man in your life, the man who just left you, or the man you wish you had. You may have a tendency to become obsessed with a particular man, even when he shows little or no interest, and you probably have a difficult time end- ing a relationship, even when you are being ignored or treated badly. You may be unable to fully bond with female friends, and if you do, you become dependent on them for advice.

You have consistently placed the needs and desires of the men in your life ahead of your own, to the point where you have forgotten what your needs and desires are. You don’t speak up for yourself and don’t take care of yourself in your relationships with men. Often, everything else is secondary to your

relationship—your job, your social life, even your friends and family.

You may have had a mother who modeled this behavior or you may have had a neglectful or absent father. You may have a history of child abuse or neglect or come from a home where women were not respected or were abused.

Finally, slightly less than one-fourth of women fall into the extreme cat- egory. If you’re one of these women, you did not have an adequate bonding experience with either parent, or your one significant connection was very unhealthy—either too smothering or too rejecting. You probably suffered from severe forms of deprivation, neglect, and abuse in childhood.

Unlike the average woman who may become emotionally involved too quickly or who may become too emotionally invested in a relationship that isn’t mutual, if you’re this type of Disappearing Woman, you tend to lose yourself whenever you are in any kind of relationship. While this happens most intensely and obviously when you are involved romantically with some- one, it actually occurs whenever you are involved in any kind of close rela- tionship, including with family members and friends. You begin to lose touch with how you feel, what you believe in, and what you like and dislike, and you tend to either take on the beliefs and preferences of those you are close to or become confused or disoriented when someone disagrees with your beliefs or has different preferences. In other words, your sense of self tends to be more amorphous than the average person’s.

If you are at this end of the continuum, you tend to completely turn over your life to the men you are involved with. You put up with mistreatment, infi- delity, or even abuse, and you tend to neglect your children to be with a man. Often accused of being a chameleon or of being “spineless,” you are the woman most likely to pack up and go off with a new lover, leaving everything behind; convert to the religion of your partner; or drop your friends if your

partner doesn’t approve of them.

Some women at this end of the continuum have been known to abandon their children, become estranged from their parents, or turn a blind eye to criminal behavior once they become caught up in another person’s life. They tend to be desperate for attention and recognition from everyone—women as well as men—and are sometimes bisexual.

If you’re at this end of the continuum, you may have decided to avoid inti- mate relationships with men altogether for fear of the tremendous chaos, confusion, and despair you experience each time you have a relationship, or you may go from relationship to relationship, desperately seeking the type of acceptance and love you fantasize about, continually being disappointed, constantly feeling abandoned.

Eleven of the forty-seven women I interviewed were at this end of the continuum.

Why the Continuum Is Important

Determining where you fit on the continuum is important for several reasons. First, it will help you have realistic expectations of yourself, as opposed to expecting yourself to be someone you can’t be at present. Those of you who fall into the extreme category, for example, need to understand you are oper- ating under an emotional handicap and need to go slowly. You should give yourself a tremendous amount of credit for even the smallest change.

Second, it will help you to know where you should focus your energies in order to make the kind of changes you desire. While this entire book will help you no matter where you are on the continuum, certain sections will help more than others, depending on where you fall.

Those women who suffer from a milder version of the problem brought on by the normal socialization process may find that this book is all you need to turn yourself around. Discovering the fact that you are not alone and the reasons for your behavior will help rid you of the shame you have carried about your tendency to lose yourself in relationships. And by applying the strategies outlined in part II, you will likely gain the confidence, skills, and determination needed to maintain your sense of identity in your relationships with men. For example, by changing overt behavior such as not having sex with a man right away and limiting the time you spend with a new partner, you can learn to maintain a separate identity and not be as inclined to merge with a partner.

Those in the middle of the continuum who have shaky boundaries due to such experiences as emotional, physical, and sexual abuse can learn from part II how to create healthier boundaries. But you also need to develop a stronger identity, and this can only be accomplished by focusing on the deeper work recommended in part III.

By reading this book, those of you who suffer from extreme versions of the problem will learn for the first time exactly what is wrong with you and how the problem was created. You likely suffer from the psychological disorder known as Borderline Personality Disorder, discussed in the previous chapter.

Many of you were raised by parents who were completely incapable of providing the necessary emotional and physical bonding, mirroring, and acceptance that a child needs to be emotionally healthy. Or you may have been raised by parents who merged with you in an unhealthy way, such as living vicariously through you or being overly possessive of you.

While some healing will inevitably take place just by understanding and naming the problem and by realizing you aren’t alone and that you are not to blame for your tendency to lose yourself in relationships, you will probably find that you need to focus on the deeper work suggested in part III before you can successfully master the strategies listed in part II.

Third, knowing where you fall on the continuum will help you determine what direction you should take once you’ve completed this book. At the end of the book I offer three appendixes, one for each position on the continuum, in which I provide information and resources specific to the needs of each.

For example, those who fall at the mild end of the continuum will bene- fit from forming a women’s circle. There you will find a way to counter the societal messages that discourage women from being as independent and successful as men. You will also be encouraged to embrace the feminine val- ues I call the three c’s: connection, cooperation, and compassion.

Those of you who fall within the moderate range may need to seek fur- ther help to heal the underlying cause of your problem, if you haven’t already done so. You will likely benefit from individual therapy or a support group specifically designed to fit your particular problems. For example, those who were sexually abused can benefit greatly from the information and support gained by being in a group with other survivors. In addition, you may choose to form your own “Women of Substance” support group or to join an exist- ing one where you will find the encouragement you may need to continue practicing the strategies outlined in this book.

Those of you who fall within the extreme range will need to seek pro- fessional help that goes beyond the scope of this book. In appendix III I help you further understand your problem, recommend treatment options, and help you locate a therapist specifically trained to work with this disorder.

Where Do You Fit on the Continuum?

While some of you may be able to determine where you fall on the continuum simply by reading the descriptions I have provided above, others will not be as certain. The following case examples will help, as will the questionnaires later on.

Susan is a very attractive and young-looking woman of forty-five. She is tall with long legs and a shapely body, and her hair, raven black with only hints of gray, cascades over her shoulders in thick curls. Extremely bright and with a charming, outgoing personality, she is the envy of many women half her age.

I met Susan shortly after I’d moved to a small town along the central coast of California. She, too, had recently moved from a big city, and we seemed to have a lot in common. Before long she was inviting me to meet several of her women friends in town, all of whom seemed to adore her. Even though she’d been in town only a short time, she was the focal point of their social activities, frequently hosting afternoon teas and organizing trips into the nearby city for dancing, skating, or the movies.

She called me several times a week asking to go to lunch or dinner, and when I could afford to take time away from my writing I would join her. She was highly intelligent and we often had stimulating conversations about art, literature, even psychology. But as time went by it seemed that more and more of our conversations were about men. It seemed that there was always a man occupying Susan’s thoughts, either someone who was interested in her, some- one from the past who still haunted her, or someone she was flirting with (she frequently looked around at men in the restaurant while we talked).

Several times she arrived more than thirty minutes late to meet me either because she had received a phone call from a man at the last minute or had run into a man on the street on her way to meet me. While she apologized for being late, she seemed to think that I should understand—after all, men were more important than arriving on time to meet a friend.

I’d known several women like this when I was younger. I was even guilty of the same behavior myself when I was young. But I was surprised to see a woman of forty-five still acting this way. Most women our age had come to value their women friends, understanding that in many cases they were more permanent than male-female relationships.

Later, on two separate occasions, Susan canceled our plans at the last minute because a former boyfriend had arrived in town unexpectedly. At this point my patience was wearing thin and I became reluctant to make plans with her in the future. It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that Susan put men before her friendships with women, and I felt the handwriting was on the wall—it was just a matter of time before she became involved with a man and she would dump her girlfriends altogether. I declined further invitations to lunch or dinner and saw her only when a group of women went out together. Within months Susan called to tell me she was madly in love with a man she’d dated a few times. Her voice was higher than usual and she talked a mile a minute, describing how he looked, what he’d said to her, and what they did on their last date. She reminded me of a teenager with a crush. I listened patiently for a few minutes, then said I had to be going. At no time in our con-

versation did she ask how I was doing.

After a few weeks I heard from friends that Susan was involved with a

man from out of town. I knew I wouldn’t hear from her again, that she no longer had any reason to call me. At first her friends were happy and excited for her. But soon I began to hear how much they missed Susan because they hadn’t seen her in a long time. After several months, missing her was replaced with complaints that she never called and never returned their calls. Several friends became very angry with her and shared with me how they felt aban- doned and used by her.

Sure enough, she’d dropped her friends just as I had predicted. I felt sad for her, sad for her close friends, and grateful that I wasn’t one of them.

It turned out that few people saw her anymore, even in passing. It seems she spent most of her time at her boyfriend’s home, an hour and a half drive away from town. I often drove by her house on the way to town and was sad- dened to see her beautiful garden, the one she had worked so hard to create, slowly dying. I wondered what else she was allowing to die in order to main- tain her relationship.

Two years later, when her relationship ended, I once again got a call from Susan. Sounding like the charming person I’d first met, she tried to engage me in a conversation and invited me to dinner at her house. I thanked her and courteously declined her invitation, telling her I simply didn’t have time for socializing at the present time. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one to turn her down. It seems her other friends had become so hurt and angry because of her disappearing act with them that they refused to speak to her again.

Michelle entered therapy because she wanted help deciding whether she should leave her boyfriend.

Carl and I don’t have any friends and he never wants to go anywhere. I get bored staying home every night watching television, and I want to go out and have some fun. Carl says I’m afraid of intimacy, that’s why I always want to be doing something or going somewhere instead of just being together. He says that when we do go out all I do is flirt with other guys—but I don’t think I do. I’m just friendly.

I don’t know. Maybe I do flirt. I get so confused. I like being close to Carl, but I also like to do things. Does that mean I’m afraid of intimacy? If he just wouldn’t criticize me so much. He’s on me constantly for something. He doesn’t like the way I dress, and he thinks I’m too skinny. I’ve tried to gain weight, and even though I’m more comfortable in

pants I wear dresses because he likes me in them, but he’s still not happy. He constantly complains about my son taking up too much of my time and about me not wanting to have sex often enough. I tell him that if I’m so horrible, why does he stay with me, and he always answers that he’s just so in love with me that he can’t help himself. I’m totally confused. I don’t want to hurt him by leaving, but I’m just not happy with him.