Posted by JennyR on June 8, 2001, at 18:36:39
In reply to Re: To Glenn re: love, posted by Glenn Fagelson on June 7, 2001, at 23:38:06
You're not too personal, this whole place is about people sharing their experiences to help each other.
In our case, we seemed a good fit at first. But who we were in our 20's is different than who we are in our 40s.
I was a very strong, independent, competent individual. My husband was a very dependent type. He wanted/needed a lot of taking care of. I thought I didn't need any, and had enough for both of us.
I have read many, many books on couples and relationships, I could give you names of those if you want (but they're for dealing with problems in an existing relationship). But one theme in all of them, is that usually one partner is the pursuer, one is the distancer. One pursues, the other runs away. One pushes for more closeness, more time spent, the other pushes for more time alone.
My husband would have been content to spend every waking moment together. He was very needy. I thought I was this pillar of strength with no needs of my own. He was child-like, didn't want to grow up, I was too adult-like, thought I needed no taking care of.
That arrangement can only last for so long. Also, I let him have everything on his terms, made no demands - saw the movies he wanted, ate at the restaurants he wanted. I handled all the grown-up things, like applying for a mortgage, getting taxes done, etc.
Another big problem was an extraordinarily sparse sex life, which always bothered me, which began on the honeymoon (and you were worried about getting too personal).
Eventually I got fed up, and as a last ditch effort we spent 2 years in couples therapy. We learned that he needed to grow up, take on more, and do some nurturing back. I learned to stop denying I had any needs, stop being a martyr, and stop being mad at him not doing things that I don't ask him to do or don't trust him to do.
He also learned to be a little more independent, and I learned not to guard my boundaries so tightly. A lot of my big independence thing was to not allow anyone to get too close and I never wanted to perceive my own needs, because I didn't want to be vulnerable because in my family if you allowed yourself to be vulnerable someone would go for your jugular.
In the beginning, I overlooked his immaturity, thinking he'd grow up. But he didn't til the therapy. And I was always angry, because I wasn't getting my needs met, only I couldn't see I had any.
In the beginning, I loved that he thought I was so wonderful and told me all the time that he loved me. No one in my family ever had. I loved that he was very affectionate, even if it was in a clingy way, because there had been no affection in my family.
He liked that he had found a new Mommy to take care of him, his had been a very pre-occupied single mother. His father, Mr. Hotshot Playboy showed up every now and then with another bimbo on his arm. So my husband had no role model of a good husband/father and hangups about being sexy/sexual. I took his lack of interest in sex at first as flattery - he must really love me for me if he hardly cares about sex. That's what every other guy seemed so overly interested in. But over time it makes you feel really crappy for your partner to have so little interest in you in that way - amazing we even had kids.
My whole message to you here is, if you're really emotionally healthy you might really pick the right person for the right reasons. But if you don't know yourself really well, and not know your hidden (from yourself) motivations, it could be a disaster down the road.
There's no easy answers to any of this. In some countries they have arranged marriages and it works. We look for love then 50% of us get divorced.
I do think you have to be really compatible from the start and for the right reasons, not because this person allows you to overlook what you need to work on or feeds into your problems.Anyway, that intense being in love feeling in the beginning can often be because of the wrong reasons, unconscious, unhealthy reasons.
poster:JennyR
thread:6273
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010526/msgs/6355.html