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My Relationship Thoughts

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  • This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 4 years ago by Anonymous.
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  • #341094
    limbikanimaria
    Participant

    There is this guy that I met at a meditation retreat last spring. We ended up hanging out after the retreat and becoming closer. We decided to date for a while, but my old patterns took over and it became the classic push-pull dynamic that those with avoidant and anxious attachment styles get into. We have been “hanging out” on and off since the summer. I would call it casual dating with no plans of it becoming serious on my end. He is a pretty heavy weed smoker, so I feel I can allow that behavior in my life casually but nothing more. Ultimately I would like a partner who embraces a more sober life with me. So I don’t see a future with him and I have started to think it would be better if I kept even more distance from him than I do now (which currently is see him maybe once a month). I believe I have to be willing to let go of this energy to allow a new energy in my life, even though it hurts to lose this connection with him.

    I noticed some reoccurring patterns in my relationship with him. I must be looking for lying, because that is what I see in him. There were some instances where he would be talking on the phone with his mom when I was hanging out with him, and she asked if he went out to dinner with anyone but he would say “just myself”, which was a lie because he went out to dinner with me. Things like this would happen on numerous occasions. When I asked him about it, he said it was just easier to not explain to her our situation (we had labeled it dating and not dating, on and off), which I can understand because our situation was complicated in conventional terms. I still found myself judging the lying as “bad”, and thoughts like “if he lies to his parents, he will probably lie to me.”

    Another reoccurring thing that I noticed is that even though I am off all forms of social media, I created a fake account to stalk his profiles, which is something I have a pattern of doing with men in my past. This stems from a lack of trust that probably goes back to broken trust with my primary caregivers. Anyways, I discovered that on his Instagram he follows tons of accounts of models wearing lingerie and just overly sexualized females in general. So, on top of him smoking weed regularly, lying to his parents, and perv-ing out with these random Instagram accounts of females he follows, I have deemed him as unfit as a partner for me. There were a lot of things that I appreciated about him, but these things I just can’t accept. I am getting frustrated that I keep attracting the same type of guy. I have labeled him as a perve, which is probably not nice but it is what it is. I know I have to stop judging the behavior in order to stop attracting it, which has been difficult. Sometimes I wonder if I could just find a man who doesn’t put his energy into social media, like me, I wouldn’t have this issue. But then I would probably look for signs of him being a perve in other ways. Social media has been a HUGE trigger for me in relationships, and I’m so frustrated by this. I just wish I could meet a guy who isn’t interested in perv-ing out on females via social media, but it seems like it would be so rare to find. Plus, the more I judge that behavior as “perv-ing out”, the more I will probably attract that in my life. I also put that behavior, along with the behavior of smoking weed and drinking, of others, as an obstacle to my happiness. I think once I fully embrace that other people’s behaviors don’t have to be an obstacle to my happiness, I can just be happy. Some thoughts that have been running through my head lately…Do I have a biological need to have close, physical connections in my life, or are they too much trouble, can I just give them up and become a celibate, asexual, a loner? Should I keep letting go of these men who’s behaviors I don’t approve of, to allow space for a man who doesn’t partake in these behaviors? If I keep running away from these behaviors though, I will probably keep looking for/attracting them. Maybe I am better off not pursuing romantic relationships because they seem to be too overwhelming and too much trouble for me, and I keep attracting similar energy.

    #341140
    Peter
    Participant

    Hi Limbikanimaria

    Your post reminded me of Schopenhour’s porcupines

    A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told—in the English phrase—to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself. – Schopenhauer

    We seek the warmth of intimacy yet at the same time are repelled by it.  I suspect being aware our our tendencies would help us move closer but that their will always be a distance. But maybe that’s ok.

    You might find Deborah Luepnitz  book ‘Schopenhauer’s Porcupines: Intimacy And Its Dilemmas’ Interesting

    #341142
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear limbinkanimaria:

    Today, March 3, 2020, you wrote: “I must be looking for lying, because that is what I see in him.. a lie.. I still found myself the lying as ‘bad’.. if he lies to his parents, he will probably lie to me… lying to his parents”.

    Four years ago, January 2016, you wrote: “I am obsessive about needing people to  be honest with me… I’m a Nazi about people being honest with me.. if he did in fact lie about this, that he might lie about more important things in the future”.

    In a previous thread I suggested that your mother lied to you, but you then turned a blind eye to her lies and instead you see her lies in other people.

    Sometimes other people lie, but often people are simply not accurate. Unlike mechanical, computerized robots, humans are not accurate. Examples of inaccuracy, we forget things;  remember evens in the wrong context of place and time, remembering something that happened last year as something that happened two years ago,  or we remember two things happening in one night when in reality they happened in two different nights months or years apart. We remember something as red when it was blue, and we remember people saying words they didn’t actually say. These are not lies because there is no intention to state and untruth. We honestly remember things inaccurately.

    Some white (harmless or even helpful) lies are lies, but they are appropriate. For an example, let’s look at the man you shared about in your post today: “There were some instances where he would be talking on the phone with his mom when I was hanging out with him, and she asked if he went out to dinner with anyone but he would say ‘just myself’, which was a lie because he went out to dinner with me”-

    – if his mother is in the habit of interrogating him when she knows he went on a date with a woman, asking him many questions, or even worse, if she blames him for going for dinner with a woman instead of having dinner with her, suggesting he is betraying her by dating, then his lie that he is by himself is appropriate.

    It will be similar to you at 17 (or older) binging, and your mother having made shameful comments to you about binging, it would have been appropriate for you to lie if she asked you: did you binge today?

    * You wrote about this man and previous men in your life: “I have deemed him as unfit as a partner for me… I keep attracting similar energy”- and you probably will continue to do so until and if you deem your mother as an unfit mother to you and reject her lying-energy.

    anita

     

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