If there’s one thing that observing relationships has taught me, it’s that we have a funny way of pitching a bad situation to ourselves and making it palatable. This allows us to remain invested in something that detracts from us because otherwise we’d actually have to make uncomfortable decisions and take action.
I get people saying, “Natalie, nobody’s perfect! We all have baggage!”
When you deny, rationalise, minimise, and make exceptions to stuff that busts your boundaries, or you find yourself being the Buffer to a Transitional in a rebound relationship, or you even find yourself in an abusive relationship, it’s often because you’re rolling with the perfection and baggage argument, which is old, tired, and redundant. And I say this to spare you from bullshitting yourself any further: get on The BS Diet.
Let me tell you with 100% certainty that people who are in mutually fulfilling relationships with love, care, trust, and respect, don’t say stuff like this. Only people who have to justify a poor situation and talk about “good points”, roll out the perfection and baggage arguments.
If you want to be a Buffer forever more, or a Florence Nightingale, or another form of Fallback, keep up with these arguments. However, understand that these are dangerous justifications and excuses because they govern how deep you will get into an unhealthy relationship. The more excuses you make, the deeper you’ll go.
You’re not a baggage handler, nurse, an emotional airbag or even a punchbag. While seeking perfection is a problem, it’s key to have standards and not project.
By reasoning that you’re not perfect and that you have emotional baggage, you think it’s harsh to judge someone for the same thing.
Whether it’s that you believe you’ve been in a similar situation and are sympathetic to their plight, or you take what you feel are your imperfections and put them on the relationship scale and think you’re “equal” and “no one to talk”, you’re yet again selling yourself short. You’re putting too much of yourself into their issues.
Over-empathy is why I hear from so many women who are with men who are at best taking advantage and, at worst, abusing them. They say stuff like, ‘I’m overweight, I don’t like my appearance, I’m not confident in myself, I haven’t been able to hold a relationship together / have had a couple of marriages, and I just don’t believe I’m good enough.’ Then they get involved with a dipstick and look at the relationship scale and say, ‘Well, he’s mean, he blows hot and cold, he messes around on me / hides me away / says I can’t do better / nobody likes him / he’s not actually a very nice person, etc.’ They might even call their guy an assclown. And then they ‘pop’ that on the scale and declare themselves “even”.
Even if you are any of the things in the example, that doesn’t mean a less-than relationship is appropriate, healthy, or deserving of you. Above are some of the most common reasons readers and clients use to justify putting up with unavailable and shady behaviour.
This is where you may miss the point and the bigger picture:
It’s okay to be single, separated, divorced, widowed, newly single, or still healing from a breakup.
We are human. We love, we want to be loved; we make mistakes, and sometimes we lose. It’s okay to struggle with coming to terms with those losses, whether it’s through the relationship not working out or through the death of a loved one. We have a right to that pain. However, and it’s a big however, where they become baggage is when they negatively impact your emotional availability, a new relationship, or somebody else.
No, the issue is their being separated and taking their time about getting divorced, yet feeling entitled to all the fringe benefits of a committed relationship without being fully committed themselves.
It’s that they’re divorced and love, anger, hurt, etc., still emotionally tie them to that relationship. Or their feelings about commitment are negatively impacted, yet they still want to keep you in their back pocket while they make up their mind.
It’s that they’ve overestimated their interest and capacity to start a new relationship. And there are three of you in this relationship, so you’re basically helping this person avoid working their way through the grief stages while sacrificing your own needs.
It’s that they know they’re not over their ex but want to shag you, suck you emotionally dry, have your support through their issues, overestimate their capacity for a relationship and then expect you to roll back and wait when they admit they’re not ready or capable.
There’s no such thing as an honest cheat. That’s an oxymoron right there. Cheating is about being dishonest in order to gain an advantage or to avoid something undesirable. Another relationship isn’t something you can just shove under the carpet!
Don’t bullshit yourself with fruitless justifications that help you avoid being in a proper committed relationship or being a personally secure, authentic person who’s happy in or out of a relationship.
It’s time to set limits and have standards. While none of us are perfect, there’s plenty of happy “imperfect” people who handle their business, work through their issues and ultimately put themselves wholeheartedly into relationships. This isn’t a ‘perfection’ and ‘baggage’ issue; it’s a willingness and mentality issue.
The person who is actively endeavouring to be more, to live congruently with their values achieves greater results on the way than someone who says, ‘Eff it. I’ll just see how much I can get away with coasting with all my code amber and red behaviour‘.
I’m not asking you to go out and seek perfection, as quite frankly some people are already doing it and setting themselves up to fail. And I’m certainly not asking you to find a baggage-free person. I accept that we all have our imperfections (hell, I do). However, it would be better to deal with your feelings about those so-called ‘imperfections’ than to put yourself in the bargain bin, deciding that you’re only deserving of a half-assed relationship.
It’s not about striving for a perfect relationship; it’s about arriving to a relationship as an equal and remaining that way. It’s about being a part of a mutually fulfilling, co-piloted relationship. Crumbs are not an adequate diet for a relationship; they leave you hungry and hurt.
In a loving, intimate relationship, neither of you are perfect, you have some baggage, but both of you realise that your ‘relationship plane’ will struggle or even fail to take off if it’s overloaded with issues that cut out the relationship engine.
Your thoughts?
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I love the term demi-relationship. And I think your blog is awesome!
“where they become baggage is when they negatively impact your emotional availability, a new relationship, or on somebody else.” AMEN!
Above all things – do no harm – to yourself or others
Honesty – without the truth there can be no beginning.
” When you argue about nobody being perfect and everyone having baggage, it’s because you over-empathise by reasoning that you’re not perfect and that you have baggage, so you feel that it would be harsh to judge someone for the same thing.
Whether it’s that you feel you’ve been in a similar situation and are sympathetic to their plight or you take what you feel are your imperfections and put them on the relationship scale and think you’re equal and no-one to talk, you’re yet again selling yourself short and putting too much of you into their issues.”
Oh that is it!! I think that way sometimes. Someone does or says something that bothers me and I keep it to myself. One reason is because I don’t want to meet with disapproval and another is I see that I’ve done the very same thing. It’s like who am I to want better when I do the very thing they do? It feels hypocritical at times.
Oh boy do I ‘over-empathise’…! Love that phrase, it’s bang on the nail! There’s that sense of “hey, we’re both walking wounded so let’s comfort eachother”. Except you realise it’s mostly one way. You give your heart with the best of intentions, thinking “how could they resist someone as adorable as me?”. But they just take. And you get afraid of giving again in case you don’t get it back 🙁
LOL! Natalie, you always pick the greatest photos to go with your posts! 😀
This is a top post, Natalie. I agree with so much of what you say. It is all about how the person (and it applies to us too) interprets and deals with their baggage (which we all have by age 5 or something!).
I’ve been with and know guys who have had to overcome all sorts of unfair and upsetting crap, but, unlike AC and EUM-types, they don’t act out their anger or resentment on others, they’re not so reactive, and if it is affecting how they see the person they’re with (incl. me), they say something to clarify things, they don’t sit back and fester and build a case against the person, as if they’re just one other person trying to make their life difficult or unhappy.
I went on a date last night, and I had a really great time. It was a bit sad seeing how I still sometimes waited for a negative (sulky or pissy) response from this new guy to things I said or did (to me), but that fear is getting far less of a problem (and, incidentally, he only responded in a normal, cheerful way – the relief!).
You’re so right about not expecting perfection in others or yourself – that benchmark is too high and, quite frankly, ridiculous (and a way to keep yourself stuck – I’ve been doing that, telling myself I have to have reached a state of perfection before opening up again, instead of what’s more important, a state of trusting myself, knowing that I love me first, being OK with my vulnerability, and matching my own words and actions). It’s about what’s workable and, call me greedy, pleasant and good. ACs and EUs don’t let you have this.
Just want to add that in my comment I mean not expecting perfection in yourself or others as a way of freezing yourself, but this is quite different to using that precept to justify craphouse behaviour…About eight months ago, I was about to be a real twat to someone on a date, just flippant and entitled, and the justification ‘But I was just hurt by someone I loved and I am so wounded’ came into my mind. Luckily, I pulled my own head in! It turned out all fine, no harm done. The point is people employ the idea of baggage to allow themselves to be childish, even horrible, and the victims of this behaviour use the no-such-thing-as-perfection claim to enable it.
“Whether it’s that you feel you’ve been in a similar situation and are sympathetic to their plight or you take what you feel are your imperfections and put them on the relationship scale and think you’re equal and no-one to talk, you’re yet again selling yourself short and putting too much of you into their issues.”
“I’m no one to talk” – yep, been there, done that.
I feel sort of bad about moving all my shit out of this guy’s place for him to return to an empty apartment – because I identify with his haplessness and overintensity. I have been in a similar place and creeped people out, I think – so I have allowed creeps to stay close to me. I’ve been like, doesn’t everyone need space to ‘just be’?
I realized that a 12o lb woman with boundary issues, and goes off the deep end if she is rejected, is a lot less threatening in the middle of the night than a 200 lb dude with the same problem.
But thing is, when someone’s being their bad-ass self doesn’t let you be your full bad-ass self, ie. you have to start guessing, second-guessing, justifying, worrying etc. then the freedom you are granting them is costing you your own.
I still identify with the guy. But I don’t need to stick around because of that. I now focus on how some people in my life set boundaries firmly and kindly and how running into those boundaries often helped set me off on a new spurt of learning. I hope he somehow gets some help and wish him the best.
Magnolia
He’s not hapless, he’s a grown man who’s taken advantage of his position. I don’t feel in the slightest bit sorry for him. And you are correct – it’s apples and oranges. HE’S never had to deal with a person twice his size making unwelcome advances.
Have you seen Dogville? Terrific scene at the end when the heroine’s father says something along the lines of ” you patronise people when you don’t hold them to the same standards that you have for yourself”.
I think, when we are too understanding (back to Nat’s post), we are thinking TOO MUCH of ourselves. It’s like we HAVE to think well of people or they’ll be horribly affected. The world will stop if I, Grace, am not always nice and pleasant and sympathetic. The truth is my I’m not that importand and these people … don’t give a ****!!
I’m glad you’re getting out.
Thanks Grace. I’m out and in a nice B&B and back to focusing on work.
Magnolia,
I’m glad you are out and I’m with Grace. Both Househost and Poethost have some baggage that doesn’t concern you. Stay focused on your work and who the hell cares what women Poethost oggles? That’s his GF’s problem, not yours. Listen to the pot…sorry to sound like a reformed smoker! From the end of this continent, HH and PH seem to be operating in warped speed, let alone Fastforward. Thank you though for sharing. Be careful with PH and don’t look back at HH.
“Let me tell you with 100% certainty that people who are in mutually fulfilling relationships with love, care, trust, and respect in them, don’t say stuff like this. Only people who have to justify a poor situation and talk about ‘good points’, roll out the perfection and baggage arguments.”
Exactly. That’s when you know you’re in the right situation- you no longer need to make excuses for it to anyone, including yourself. Looking back on my marriage, I realize that I made far too many excuses, and let him keep me on my toes about my flaws, making me feel like we were “even.” Some of us have to learn the hard way, apparently!
I heart your blog. Full of sound reasoning, common sense, and truth. This recently entry resonated with me because I am unlearning that weak argument of nobody’s perfect we all have baggage. Years ago, I use to say time to start dealing with my own baggage first before dating. Now that I am recently divorced, your advice is helpful in moving forward and not using that argument to justify fruitless relationships, and to make solid choices about relationships.
Love this post. We all have issues. A hurt or wound or past relationship becomes baggage when you don’t do the work to let it go. That is the difference between someone who might be temporarily hurting but still would not want to hurt someone else, and a full-on assclown.
An assclown says – “I’m a great guy, trust me”, even when every single thing he does says you shouldn’t. A truly great guy says – “I’m working through some things right now and don’t want to hurt you. ” and his actions show you that he means it. An assclown believes he is something, simply because he says he is and he expects you to believe it too, even when his actions scream that he is not. A good person might be struggling with something but at their core, they remain a good person. An assclown is permanently dragging baggage they don’t even see, because they have never taken the time to look at themselves. A good person will work through their hurts, doing what they can to avoid destroying others when they know they are not in a good place.
It took me 45 years and some terrible relationships to learn that but I am very glad I did.
new me
“I’m working through some things right now and don’t want to hurt you. ” Ooh, be careful. Don’t let anyone work out their issues on your time. And if a person genuinely doesn’t want to hurt you they will leave you alone until they are healed. They certainly should not be touching you up for sex and/or attention. Okay, they won’t ever be perfect (me neither) but they should at least get to the happy state where there’s no need to issue a warning.
The two men who said those exact words to me “I don’t want to hurt you” were the two (out of three) that hurt me the very most. So I may just be biased.
Grace, I agree! I thought wow, he’s so in touch with himself, because he said, “I don’t want to hurt you” and he ended up basically cutting my heart out (and I-know-I-know I was the fool that let him do it) so yah… agreement that that statement was/is the warning to stay clear.
I had the ‘my previous girlfriend died suddenly and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her, but now that I’ve met you I feel I will overcome this and she would ‘ve liked you I think’.
Which was/is nice.
I felt such a part of his grieve, I felt ‘he let me in on it’ bit by bit, those first couple of weeks anyway. I felt by doing that he was a good guy. Until one night after this short period we were a couple, we had just been on a 10 day super romantic holiday where each one of us had told our lifestories, we went out. I gave his friends -who I just got to know- ‘too much attention instead of him’ and he shut down, caused me to go home alone. I didn’t understand what had happened. Only gave his friends attention to show him I cared about his family/friends and life. I came home to find the meanest insults on my mobile phone, how I was going to end up like my dad (alcoholic) -I had a few drinks but this was way out of line- and that he never wanted to see me again.
We did however stayed together for two more years, making this the worst experience and break up ever, because since that night, he knew he could say ànything to me and I still would swallowed it. And so he did.
The death of his girlfriend was like nothing compared to ànybody elses problems or history, and cértainly not mine.
I will never accept that again. Grief is human and understandable. Putting the pain on somebody else, anybody else, and not only that, making that other person almost responsible for every little thing that reminded him, that is just not love.
I always wanted to talk about it when he asked or said he felt bad, but everytime I wanted something or felt bad about something he said, he said I had ‘issues’. Now I found myself in a big and urgent need to get some professional help, all the self esteem I had build up after a previous bad break up have been heavily demolished with this relationship.
And I feel absolutely worthless, a bad person, a selfisch ‘character’ as he states. I gave up friendships because ‘they were no good’, and whenever I had a really good day some stupid argument would be made and I was back to square one.
Never let anybody with any experience be the reason to completely forget about yourself.
Sofie, I must say I was open mouthed at your comment. What an ordeal! Some people don’t know how to love and with even the slightest whiff of any conflict/intimacy, they fend it off by being mean. Your ex has a lot going on and while I appreciate that he’s grieving, I think he’s overstepped the mark and crossing into abusive territory. The grief explains why he can’t love you and is unavailable and not appropriate for a relationship but the grief doesn’t explain why he has systematically picked on and demoralised you. I have another reader – her ex would behave very similarly and as it was his mother who was an alcoholic, if she had a drink or he wanted to shut down an argument, he’d say she was just like his mother. What this man has done is incredibly cruel and he has used something personal to attack you and he should be ashamed of himself. As it is, I doubt that he is as he’s lost in his world of grief. I know you are hurting, but rest assured that this isn’t about you. There is absolutely nothing you could do other than move out of the way and leave him to his grief. You’re not selfish at all – in fact, I think you have sacrificed two much of yourself by playing the third wheel. This man is very manipulative – don’t get things twisted here and believe you’re dealing with a nice guy impacted by grief. You’re dealing with an asshole impacted by grief. Isolating you from your friends, calling you selfish, belittling you, using your father against you – I want to go and have a word with him myself! (((hugs))))
Sofie
The death of his girlfriend and him abusing you are unrelated. A friend of mine is married to a man whose first girlfriend died. My friend was his girlfriend no. 2. they have been happily married for over ten years. Her husband is terrific.
Lots of people lose loved ones without turning into an emotional abuser. The criticism and the cutting you off from your friends is typical of those who later turn to physical abuse as well. How do physical abusers get away with it? By the time they hit you the damage is already done. He’s already eroded your self-esteem and cut off your support system. You don’t need explanations or to understand. If you haven’t got out already you need to start formulating your escape plan.
Sofie, what an awful story! I’m quite sure he needs therapy much more than you do, but I also guess he would never seek it (and it’s none of your business anymore anyway, luckily!).
However, counseling might help you too. If you had a parent who was alcoholic, you might be used to “sacrifice yourself” to meet somebody elses selfish “needs”. This might have negatively affected earlier relationships of yours too.
I had very abusive parents (alcoholism was involved too). Therefore, I’m very much used to feeling “absolutely worthless, a bad person, a selfisch ‘character’”. But this is projeting. Bad people (and frankly, your ex seems to be such a person) have a tendency to project their bad qualities onto us. This has nothing to do with you.
Do everything you need to heal. You deserve so much better!
Thank you for all your replies to my comment.
I decided to leave for good when he had sent me a letter while I was at work, I only worked there 2 weeks and he had said goodmorning only an hour before I got the email with his letter. I didn’t have a clue.
And this was a 6 page word document about how HE wanted to have more sex and he had felt excitement about another woman and how I had to fix the problems we had. I don’t know how anyone wants to fix a problem with his girlfriend by starting that you had brief feelings for another woman. Knowing I am insecure about that because my previous partner had cheated on me with I later found out, about 20 woman.
I packed my bags 3 days later.
And he would bring up the ‘loss’ factor again !
‘I lost my previous girlfriend because she died and now you’re leaving me all of a sudden just like that, you are just evil to do this to me!’
Maybe he’s right and I did exaggerate but I just had enough.
Anyhow, I guess my point is, that I thought he was a nice guy just faced with the biggest hurt in life, death.
But even death is not an excuse to let another bend over backwards for you.
I could ‘ve just aswell have died on the spot, because that’s what I was inside after the time with him. Just a shade of my former self, tortured with daily bad feelings about my ‘incapability’ to ‘feel for him and understand him’, after a while not only about grief, but daily stupid routine stuff and most of all when I wanted something, or longed for something. Whenever it was something I asked or wanted or when I responded to bad behaviour, it got turned around how I didn’t understand him, how maybe he had been badmouthing me but that HE could see where HE was coming from, ‘I can understand how I reacted knowing you said this or did that to instigate this reaction’ I should change and ‘get help’ to make things work.
I will get help. Not because he said so. But to avoid ever being told again by someone like him.
Sofie, good for you for leaving! EllyB is right, this bs has nothing to do with you. He sounds just like a boyfriend I had a few years ago (minus deceased ex) and he turned out to be an emotional and physical abuser, so I’m very, very glad that you left this jerk. Hope you are feeling better! *Hugs*
thank you Natasha & others,
there is not a day that goes by ever since I have regained ‘my sense’ that I don’t feel angry with him, but most of all myself. I lituraly hurt myself in the arms with anger because that’s what I am. Angry. I wonder where it’s coming from. Maybe I’d even wish NML would make a post about that. The anger. The amount of dirt that comes out once you realise stuff. It makes me want to throw up on myself. How did I not see ? How did nobody warn me ? Why did it all seem so acceptable, and now that I have decided on things, people come out of their caves, expressing their sympathy. Well, empathy 😉 He is even trying to be ‘friends’ to the ones he said were no good. All of this, and the fact that he is trying to control me even now, and the fact that I still lose sleep over it simply makes me mad. Which is, I do realise, still a way to hang on to things. It’s not easy, i know, but the anger is a major thing to me. I don’t know how to deal with this sudden realisation of reality.
Sofie
You will get past this. Yes, get help. Not the sort of help that your ex thinks you need (ie where someone tells you that he’s right and you’re wrong) but where you get the support to shake out your wings and fly. I self-harmed too when I was in an abusive relationship. I hated myself for being too weak to leave. I didn’t even like him by then! I actually despised him but couldn’t get my act together to leave.
Nothing that you are feeling is weird or unusual and gazillions of women (and men for that matter) have got past it. For me, now, it’s almost as if it never happened, except that I do understand how you feel.
You’ve every right to be angry but you do need help to deal with it. A woman’s shelter can point you in the right direction, or your doctor if you’re unsure what to do next. Also suggest you google dr. joe carver’s article on Losers. He’s a pychologist and gives good insight into what you’re going through.
Sofie: Stop worrying about your anger! Accept it as a normal and natural reaction, but please stop directing it at yourself. You have every reason to be angry at your ex (and probably at your father too, for that matter). Also expect this anger to last for a while. At some point, you should get over it, but I’ve you’ve been abused for months, it’s probably natural to stay angry for several weeks or months (maybe even years). You are a human being. Human beings feel anger. That’s life.
I had to learn this too. I’ve been severely abused since early childhood, and I was incredibly angry, as I realised with the help of my therapist. I’m still angry.
As a child, I’ve always been told that my anger, together with my “wimpiness”, were the source of all my problems. This was very wrong. The source of my problems was not me, but abusive parents, bullies and later abusive boyfriends and pals. I’ve fought my anger for many years, or worse, I directed it at myself.
Stop blaming yourself. A good therapist can be a great help. You might want to look for somebody who has experience in treating abuse victims and traumatized people (yes, emotional abuse can be traumatic too). Tell her/him that your father was alcoholic and that your ex was an emotional abuser.
Some book recommendations: “The Betrayal Bond” by Patrick J. Carnes, “Toxic Parents” by Susan Forward (with an entire section about alcoholic parents) and “The Gaslight Effect” by Dr. Robin Stern.
@Sofie
Been reading your thread with interest and understanding. The awakening is quite a frightening process. The anger, the needing to vomit emotionally, self disgust….all I would say is FEEL ALL YOUR FEELINGS. You can kind of celebrate that all these hidden emotions are coming up to be counted. You know its like when the rubbish bin is full and we have been stuffing more and more of these feelings/signs/red flags/boundary crossing moments that we should have been paying attention to and burying them or numbing out, then poof out they fly, the bag splits and all our garbage is laid out clear as day. Yes its overwhelming, at first, just look at each piece, one will bigger and grabbing your attention so deal with that, then the next. Slowly but surely, you will get to new boundaries, values and before you know it self-esteem will be intact. Be fearless.
One of my favourite daily affirmations to counteract my past bad habit of not listening to self is ‘my feelings are trustworthy’.
We are rooting for ya sister
again thanks for your supporting replies. I often need to get some air and see it for what it was. I’m still not convinced I have dealt with a violently abusing man, or a plain mean man and no good intentions were there. They were. He just doesn’t realise his own selfcentered hurting ways, and when told he does turn in The Mean Man.
Maybe I’m wrong to still give him some credit since his actions don’t meet his words, like various articles Nathalie described the behaviour of EUM or an assclown. He brought me to the ground and that’s not love I know.
I actualy still saw him after I had left, I had to move my stuff and all, and he would come by my new place and actualy would hold me when I was feeling as small as a little child all teared up by this new and sudden change in my (our I guess) life. I would tell him how I felt after this whole mess and he would hold me and say it would be all right. I thought maybe as friends we would do better. Until he wrote me yet another of his famous letters to tell him ‘this’ wasn’t working for him and that I didn’t give him enough like he had given me, mentioning the shoulder to lean on ‘and listening to all my ‘complaints’ about everybody and myself’. Again he would take something weak of me to proove his point or justify his actions. And when I called upon it again I got the ‘slut’ this and ‘selfish bitch’ there.
Left me thinking he was wright and I had left and had no right to take his offered shoulder and then do ‘nothing’ for him in return.
He wanted me to stop at work and visit because he was sick (and actualy he went to a concert that night) and because I did not quit work I got the ‘selfish’ remark and the ‘I need a friend who is always there not only when it suits her’
He can be very convincing.
And he’s got ADHD, another terrific pile of baggage (red flag remark of him I suppose) so everything he does or says is ‘because the way he is’ ‘and this isn’t easy for me too, being like this’. Stopped his medication any time it suited him, he has been off it actualy since a year or so, never saw a difference but that can be decieving perhaps.
Oh what am I going on about.
I’m still weighing things off, it’s just hard to stop doing that.
I am in week 3 of NC and feel it gets better, in very little steps.
And I’m very much planning to keep it this way.
Last night at 2…
Sophie, pet, I am schoolteacher and he reminds me of teenage kids with ADHD who use their condition as an excuse to behave any way they like – very badly! – with impunity (with no personal responsibility or expectation of consequences).
This man you describe is not a teenager; he is an adult…a selfish, childish and very mean adult with all the emotional maturity of a toddler. He has some strange notion that your sole purpose on earth is to make him feel good about himself at your own dire expense.
You are not his nurse, his psychologist or his emotional airbag (as Nat would say). You have a responsibility to take care of YOU. All that guy needs is a nappy and a dummy tit (US translation= diaper and soother) and he will complete the picture. Tell him to grow up and get real with himself. You need to start thinking more of yourself and more about yourself. The world does not revolve around this guy, and neither should you (though he thinks you should!). Run for the hills – he is bad, bad, bad news.
Every bit of supposed kindness this guy pretends to show you he expects back with a tenfold return – you are not his emotional credit card with no lending limit. Most of all, never, ever, ever give anyone on the face of this earth a second opportunity to call you a bitch or a slut. I don’t care what his problems are and neither should you – that is just NOT ON.
I would urge you, please Sophie, to take heed of the commentators above who I believe have offered you good advice.
it’s weird, when people I know say this to me, it kind of doesn’t really affect me. When somebody here says this to me, it hits me because it’s a more honest and very objective opinion. And no, he sent me a text late at night 2 days ago and I answered it with short, cold words to leave me alone no matter what he has to say. It’s still only about him and that will never change.
This has helped me a lot.
oh and also to EllyB, I have neglected your good advice a bit so it seems, my father does have a lot to do with it. I wasn’t the most easy child when I was little, rather highly sensitive and very independant, wanting to do things ‘my way’, but his problems, and ultimately my mothers too, gave my upgrowing character a strange twist. Indeed the stuborness I already had, with the upgrowing idea my decisions my believes weren’t right. I have a history of being heavily bullied, not physicaly only emotionaly, wich went on for about 10 years. Once my father told me when I was about 20 that that had been all my own fault. Because ‘i’m so difficult’
I don’t think I ever stopped believing him, and I don’t know how to either.
At that time, when i was a child, I didn’t realise what alcohol did to a person, and I took it as The Truth.
So much work to do and not knowing where to start is now the hardest part really.
I know I have to talk and read and digest many things. And I will do my best. I feel I’m only talking about myself here so I’m going to step back a little. Thank you all so much.
Hi Sophie:
Everything the ladies have been telling you is great. Your history sounds a bit like mine: lots of bullying, then parental feedback that it’s your fault, parental feedback that you’re sensitive and that your sensitivity is the root of the problem. Been there.
Don’t believe the hype!
It’s amazing how that kind of history makes one afraid of making a man angry by being too sensitive. The sad irony is that until we trust our feelings, and realize that, given what we encountered, our feelings were sending an important signal, we attract men who are drawn to women are “too sensitive” and who know they can control us with their anger.
When you’re in that much pain, the comfort of a hug from a large male chest turns into a drug you’ll take from pretty much anyone. Sad irony: when you’re in that much pain, and haven’t dealt with it/found closure ON YOUR OWN, you’ll repel healthy folks who don’t want their intimacy to have an addiction-like pull and attract those who want to be your love drug. Not good.
You could always start by telling yourself: “I love you, Sofie.” Every ten minutes or every time you brush your teeth or whatever. From now on. It’s like a vitamin – you might not see results after 3 days but after 3 months you will!
Glad you’re here on the site.
Sofie,
I think you misunderstood the concept of NC. Why is this prick still able to reach you, get to you? NC means ZILCH communication. The fact that he’s still screwing your mind, via text, means that you are NOT NC at the moment. Not at all. You (physically) left the torture dungeon, but the mind f**king is still going on, thanks to technology.
Please please please read Nat’s invaluable NC post again, and comments, to clear any doubt about NC (or even treat yourself to her book). There is no NC in place at the moment , because a) you’re still reading his poisonous dribble and b) you’re replying, making yourself available to him still, no matter how cold your words were. Let those words to him be your LAST. .ever. That is NC.
Priority #1: NC
Priority #2: YOU , YOU, YOU , YOU , YOU , YOU, YOU, and only YOU. Nurse thy emotionally battered self, now. FEEL the pain, feel the ANGER. Write it down. Let this dreadful experience be your epiphany. And ask yourself, why am I doing this to myself? Letting someone harm you is a form of self-harm, in my view. Whether one’s preferred method is a small cutting knife, drugs, alcohol, or an entire human weapon who (very overtly and from day ONE) got under your skin, destroying you from within; the result is the same.
Enough about him. This is about YOU. And unless your priority is YOU, unless you get to a point where you finally ‘get’ that no one EVER treats you like shit unless you give them permission to, then I’d suggest that you hold off, dating anyone, until you REALLY get it. Otherwise, you will forever meet (and be attracted to) EU/AC/Narc a***holes, who will sniff your poor self-esteem/lack of boundaries, a mile off, and give them entry/permission for more (emotional) battering. You might not get that lucky next time, emotional abuse most likely turns into physical abuse. How low do you want to go?
To quote from the film Greenberg, ‘hurt people hurt people’. Yes, they/we do. And the only way to stop the madness is for them to take responsibility for THEIR hurt (baggage), and YOU to take responsibility for your OWN shit (baggage). SEPARATELY please, cause you sure ain’t no good for each other.
Unhook yourself from the comfortable pain (baggage). It’s just becoming ridiculously heavy now, right? Besides BR, there’s a mountain of…
Besides BR, there’s a mountain of help out there! You’re not alone.
Best of luck! ((hugs))
Hi Lucyd_,
I really appreciate your concern, I know it comes from a good place and heart. I know I maybe shouldn’t have replied to him and therefor break the NC that had been going on for 3 weeks but still is to this day.
But I also know him, every person even though clearly an maybe even typical EUM, still is different. I can almost smell his complete surprise to what I had to say, since I hardly ever talked to him this way, and I know that not answering his text was going to leave him ever wondering and thus trying again. Now this is not the case. I told him plain and clear to stay away and not contact me ever again and knowing him I know he’s got his pride aswell.
It wasn’t an easy thing to do for me, I think I (would’ve) found it more difficult than not to answer. I truely am going through the whole epiphany thing right now and I truely realise that this is something I will have to do alone, I mean, without him in my life. I am that far. But still a very long road. Thank you though, being firm with me is a good thing, and you still are right in what you’re saying. It’s essential 🙂
He probably berated his girlfriend to death…
I am still dealing, four years after divorce, with the mind games my ex played on me. Hell, still plays on me, since now he’s jerking me around to stop paying child support and out and out refusal to pay for one kid’s college tuition.
After me, he went on to a new “victim”. Several months ago he cruelly dumped her and moved, literally, from her house in to another woman’s house. The after me ex got in touch with me a few months ago, and we ‘matched’ our stories, the stuff the ex told both of us that lured us into his web of bullshit.
He got both of us to “feel sorry” for him…after all, his mom was mean to him, his first grade teacher spanked him, his first wife left him after three months of marriage, no one at any job he ever had ever appreciated him so he HAD to quit those jobs…
THEREFORE (this is him talking), I will be emotionally abusive to you, and IF you question me, I will tell you you don’t understand, how could you be so mean to me? Don’t you understand this is YOUR fault that I feel so bad that I have to call into work, and since I only get paid if I work, if we have no money it’s YOUR fault…
I bought it, she bought it, neither of us can believe we did it. What did we get in return? Mountains of debt. Loss of self esteem. Fear of new relationships.
I am at work now but I just wanted to thank you for your uplifting reply. I would make the thank you longer and bigger if I had time.
(oh I would like that, your words in his face 🙂
Hey Sofie,
I’m hearing a different story, now! Your resolve (and awakening) sure is sipping through.. And no, it’s not easy, but hopefully BR (among other sources) will help you as much as it’s helping me recover from my epiphany relationship. It helped me recognise my destructive patterns, and fully admit the extent of my low self-esteem. Opening my eyes and dealing with my own sack of denial was half the battle won. I’m now painstakingly working on building a new foundation, based on self-acceptance. No more castles in the sky or sand-sifting my worth to the beat of other people’s validation of me (or lack thereof). I, now get to decide my own worth, and that’s non-negotiable.
Please continue reading Nat & commentors’ outsdanding insight. You’re no longer alone, with that load.
Take care,
x
Lucy-d
“Opening my eyes and dealing with my own sack of denial was half the battle won.”
Absolutely! I find it’s like peeling an onion – there’s always another layer underneath. But I know I am getting somewhere cos I actually feel lighter – like I have been carrying an invisible sackload of coal on my back for years and I am now chucking it away – lump by lump (pardon my mixed metaphors!)
Yes, Sofie… we are all supporting and rooting for you! (xx)
awh thank you so much, you all have helped me so much to ease off the first horrid attacks of self torpeeding in max speed.
I have (re) read the NC mails and mini guide, and I am reading the Mr Unavailable and doing a lot of writing. I have had a couple of very bad days, well weeks, and this day is a really good one. You should’ve seen my house, but it’s getting tidy again. Slowly but surely. Keeping busy and getting a grip on my life because I am living an extremely unhealthy lifestyle at the moment. I’m starting to realise what I am doing to myself, still believing and hearing his words, they have been my own for way too long. I was not only tired of him, but this is the first time I’m really really tired of myself too. I am such a talentful person (sorry for the bragging) I’ve wasted many years.
No more. For the first time I’m allowing myself the help I need. It feels better than I could have imagined.
I was having ‘baggage’ myself, allowing others to dump theirs with mine is just too much for one person. I am not a mule. 🙂
“Opening my eyes and dealing with my own sack of denial was half the battle won.”
Word !
Everybody who reads this, if you find it hard to believe you will ever shake his layer of destructing glue he dripped upon you through time, it really does fade, but only when you turn to basics. Yourself.
My sincere ((huggs)) to you all and wishing you all the strenght and enlightment there can possibly be. See you 🙂
Fearless, that last metaphor shook me a bit.. My (EU) father was a coal miner, who had a major operation and became too ill to work, when my mother was expecting me. So I’ve always known him at home, ill. Consistently available (physically), but we hardly spoke. He didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t know who he was (I’m now asking my mother tons questions about him). I grew up like a good, very shy, obedient, passive little girl, desperately trying to grab his attention (large family), and later on, nursed him until he passed away. Even when I nursed him, we didn’t speak.
A load I seem to have been carrying into all my relationships with men. If I’m nice & passive, then I’ll get to be rewarded by their…validating physical presence, and not much else. Is it any wonder that I have a trail of failed relationships with drug addicts, unemployed, depressed, deeply hurt bozos who hated their mums, a guy suffering from OCD, a chap with tunnel vision (going blind)….behind me?! The last one (and cherry on the cake) was a narc, my epiphany. I just didn’t believe (unconsciously) that I was worth anyone ‘healthy’ (I didn’t know what it looked/sounded like), and just bet on my super co-dependent powers to conjure up a happy ever after ending. Yeah.
I’ve even managed to rationalise (still struggling with this one) that ‘healthy, successful and emotionally available’ men were powerhouse pricks. Deep down, they scared me, because I didn’t think that a) I could ever be on a par with them (not with that load of mine) and b) they just felt too alien and ‘unfamiliar’ (very unlike poor, old & ill EU daddy).
Fearless, thank you. Writing this charcoal comment was (ironically) cathartic .. I’ve been trying to bring my dad back from the dead all those years, one screwed-up encounter at a time, playing the same dynamic, like a broken record.
I’m joining you on that offloading mission of yours, one lump of charcoal at a time; in memory of my late father. May he rest in peace, and may I find peace.
Don’t get me started on the onions..
x
Lucy-d,
I know you will find peace. I wish you all the best and your story nearly made me cry, as I thought of my own dad. He was an insecure depressive binge drinkin alcholic – Jekyll sober, Hyde drunk.. getting some loving attention from him made me feel wonderful! (rarely happened); he burned himself out eventually and I only learned to love him then, much later in life. The last thing I did for him was wash his hair over a basin while he lay in bed dying fast of cancer – 3 years ago. I am only realising now that my relationship with my father (and mother too) has affected my sense of self and my relationships; I used to dismiss all that as psycho-babble. I don’t now! Sorry, I don’t think Nat’s article is about my old grumpy da’ !!… But I think it does go to show that we carry baggage we don’t have the least awareness of and we are flinging all that baggage into the relationship melting pot and then (possibly) grumbling about, making excuse for or trying to fix all ‘his issues’, which of course, are the ones causing all our problems!… we need to not worry about his and deal with our own – Sofie is spot on: “I am not a mule”!! (love that Sofie!)
I totally agree. If it’s right, you won’t need to constantly justify it, everything will just fall happily into place. It sounds corny but it’s true. You know you’ve found the right person when you each want to be with the other one just as much, and no obstacles seem too big. As soon as you start trying to rationalize things, you know you’ve strayed into the wrong territory.
And I’ve seen much of that happening on my new blog http://www.myhonestanswer.com !!
“Demi-relationship”. Exactly what I’ve been in. Thanks for clarifying!
Natalie, this is one of your best! I have been so, so guilty of this. My ex-AC blamed his nasty, selfish behavior on work problems, needing to “find himself” and having “too many ghosts to bury.” I thought, “Sweet Jesus, I have ‘problems’ too, but you don’t see me going around using people and dropping them like a hot potato when it suits me.” Total epiphany moment right there!
I think of it like this: My dog was a rescue from an abandoned litter and I got to bring him home when he was only a few weeks old. The shelter that I adopted him from told me all the work that would be involved and I had to give serious thought to whether I could commit to that (even though I was already madly in love with him!). Now, would it be right for me to take him home because I thought he was cute, not give any real thought to whether or not I could take care of him, and then when it got too much bring him back to the shelter saying, “I can’t do all of this – I have a lot of going on with work, I’m not ready for this, etc.” Hell no! Baggage, problems, issues…they aren’t excuses for being thoughtless or selfish.
Natasha
It’s even worse than that! It would be you taking the dog back, then missing the dog. You go back to the shelter and beg and plead for the dog. And the dog is so pleased to see you! Against their better judgement they let you take the dog. Two weeks later, the dog is too much work for you. So you take the dog back. A month later, you miss the dog. You go back. The shelter tell you to push off. You tell all your friends and family that the bastards wouldn’t let you keep the dog that you loved! You really miss that dog. You go to another shelter and cry about how you had a dog that you “lost”, conveniently missing out the crucial details. Oh, they think, she loves dogs. They let you have a dog. The dog is too much work. You take it back to the shelter … You have a niggling feeling that dogs are just too much work but they’re so damn cute, and the way they love you unconditionally is too much to give up. So, you go back to the shelter … etc etc ETC!
Of course, the perfect end to this story is for the DOG to look at you and say “Er, no thanks, I’ll pass.”
*choking with laughter* You and Natasha have hit the nail on the head. Hilarious!
Yes, excellent.
Grace and Natasha, you have me choking with laughter too. “It would be you taking the dog back, then missing the dog. You go back to the shelter and beg and plead for the dog.” This works on so many different levels and rates up there with Magnolia’s pie analogy and the shoes that don’t fit analogy. I’ve got to work through which is the dog, me or him! You are all so inspirational, smart, and totally funny.
On a serious note, great post Natalie. “And while we’re on the subject, the issue isn’t that they’re married/attached – it’s that they are married/attached and they’re still slinking around you trying to make out like they’re an honest person in a bad situation while they use you up for what they need and have the best of both worlds. There’s no such thing as an honest cheat – that’s an oxymoron right there. Cheating is about being dishonest in order to gain an advantage or to avoid something undesirable. Another relationship isn’t something you can just shove under the carpet!” So true, so true, so true. It is going to take me some more time to work through my anger, sadness, and grief from past adult relationships and unload my childhood baggage in order to be a happy ‘imperfect’ person that can be available for a relationship. I want to be a happy imperfect person who has worked through my issues and unloaded my baggage. This post and the comments really bring home what happens when somebody tries to work out their unfinished business on someone else and blames the other person.
Sofie, my best to you. Stay strong and get out. Your situation is exactly what Natalie is talking about in this article. He sounds dangerous. Natalie, I’d like to join you in having words with him.
“Of course, the perfect end to this story is for the DOG to look at you and say “Er, no thanks, I’ll pass.”
Grace, I am dying laughing!! If that isn’t one of the best and funniest metaphors for a boomerang disaster, I don’t know what is!
@ Grace – loved this!!! Add that they are shopping around at other animal shelters inbetween having taken the 1st dog back (hot & cold), but I like the german shepard (too protective) better, but maybe it’s the shitzu (too small), no the german shepard (but it’s really dedicated), no the boxer (it is fun, but it drools), well you get my drift.
Or even worse, telling all the other shelters that the first dog was a “bad dog”, despite all his patient efforts to be a good owner 😉
Woof!!
Also reminds me of When Harry Met Sally: “Is one of us the DOG in this scenario?” “Yes, you are the dog.” “I am the dog!!??” “Yes, you’re the dog.”
Brilliant Natasha & Grace! Interesting; I never would have done that to my beloved rescue dog (may he RIP), yet I’ve done it to myself, numerous times. aiyaiyai………
Mango, same here! I would never let anyone irresponsible watch my beloved Winston, but I’ve put myself in the hands of irresponsible people (more than once).
p.s. RIP to your dog and here’s to him living it up in Doggie Heaven where the bacon is unlimited and fetch always goes into extra innings 🙂
Grace – lol! Love your analogy about wanting to adopt a puppy it is so true and highlights how ridiculous it sounds when you replace ‘puppy’ with ‘girlfriend’! Emphasis for me is on the bit where the man puts the back of his hand to his forehead, sighs wistfully, and laments to all who’ll listen (and plenty do!!) that in spite of all his earnest efforts, for some reason he just can’t seem to keep a puppy.
My last bf liked to sigh wistfully about how he couldn’t keep a girlfriend ‘because his job kept him out of town a lot’. I replied that I sincerely doubted that was the reason why he couldn’t keep a girlfriend, as I happen to know that many women, myself included, appreciate having some time to themselves. I told him it was much more likely the real reason he couldn’t keep a girlfriend was his inappropriate boundaries with his female ‘friends’. He didn’t really respond to that, as I guess I just wasn’t reading from his ‘script’ correctly, lol …
“Baggage” comes from refusing to look in the mirror and do the introspection necessary to heal from and let go of past relationships. It was easy to see the baggage of the men I have had relationships with but what was far more valuable to me was finally coming to see my own baggage. Everyone has a history – that is just part of life. What turns history into baggage is denial and an unwillingness to look at your own role in that history.
My last AC could tell you chapter and verse what was “wrong” with each of his past girlfriends but could not see what was wrong with himself. I hated him for that. Then I looked at myself and realized I needed a porter and some skycarts to move my own matching set of luggage. Like him, I had become very good at seeing the baggage of my exes but was in deep denial about my own issues and ghosts.
It has taken me many months to unpack my baggage but I feel much lighter and better for it. It makes my journey through life a hell of a lot easier. Having “history” is normal, having “baggage” is not. Being completely unwilling to acknowledge and clean out one’s own “baggage” is a giant red warning flag that is not to be ignored or overlooked, either in yourself or in others. The trick is getting out of denial enough to see the baggage for what it really is.
Natasha and Grace, yes,me too, spot on!! what a hoot you are! – and that is exactly how the dog shelter scenario would play out!
Debra, I think you too hit the nail on the head for me with this:
“The trick is getting out of denial enough to see the baggage for what it really is.”
In my epic relationship with the EU I was in an out of denial more times that I had hot dinners – probably just as often as his blowing hot and cold (I was that dog in that shelter! I was back and forth more times than a ping-pong ball!). In fact he blows as chilly as an arctic wind when I am ‘out of denial’ – he cuts me right out – and I have been out of denial for quite some time now, so he is not contacting me at all (no surprise to me!), nor have I contacted him… and what surprises me most now is that I just don’t care, and I have no itching at all to contact him (to give him notice that I am back in denial therefore it would be safe for him to return, as would have been my previous behaviour!); I am definitely out of denial… and so far there’s no hint of me going back in to it and I do not want to go back there! Again. Ever. God willing, I can now really begin to move on. I have to keep trusting in me (and I see more than ever now that the most important thing is to stay well clear of him or nothing will ever change for me; in fact I know it would just get worse and worse).
Thanks for your comments… it reminds me that I must, at all costs, maintain my current mind-set, which is seeing the baggage (his and mine) for what it really is and staying out of denial.
“Having “history” is normal, having “baggage” is not. Being completely unwilling to acknowledge and clean out one’s own “baggage” is a giant red warning flag that is not to be ignored or overlooked, either in yourself or in others. ”
So true! Been with the current boyfriend for 6 months now and it’s the best relationship i’ve ever had and he’s a genuinely decent person. He has history though – his dad was a violent alcoholic, he was severely bullied in school, he’s been messed around no end by an EU woman, but he still maintains integrity. The key to this is that he doesn’t make any of this about HIM. He’s always thought of those people as having ‘issues’ that they took out on him, not that he wasn’t a worthwhile person. I fond this really inspiring. And also he doesn’t use it as an excuse to be cruel to others, to have a ‘the world owes me a living’ attitude. Just because you baggage, history, whatever, does not give anyone the right to dodge responsibility.
Minky, that’s a great description of the difference between history and baggage, thank you!
I’m immediately stirred up by it, knowing that I have always made all my history about me. I think – wait – I was a kid – and when I wondered, is it me? everyone around was happy to tell it me it was!
No fair! Not my fault! Where are those people that let me believe it was about me so I can punch them? …
The full realization that it wasn’t about me, but that I still didn’t learn the most effective ways of responding to other people’s baggage / projections / abuse / manipulation, is a wonderful spot to be at.
There is all the possibility and feeling that there IS something I can do about “it”: I can learn how someone who doesn’t make other people’s baggage about themselves would react.
It has taken a long time to learn the difference between the difference between “it’s not my fault” and “i have no control in this situation.” Thanks Minky for the clarity.
I had a man who flip-flapped, pushed and pulled, dangled the carrot of a real relationship in front of me while always passing me up for others based on his perception that I had too much baggage, ie: I have kids. He didn’t say this at the beginning of the “relationship,” mind you, but only after I wanted to know the “real” reason he had backed out of having a real relationship with me that *he* instigated by asking me more than a few times at separate intervals over a 3 year period to be his girlfriend. Believe me, he gave plenty of excuses before this one, but this is the one that stuck. Probably because there’s absolutely nothing I can change about the fact that I have kids so its an easy way out for him. But why would he even instigate it in the first place if he was just going to back out?! I can respect someone who says upfront that they don’t want a relationship with someone who has kids, but this wasn’t the case. When did kids become “baggage,” and why in the hell would someone do that over and over again?
Deejay,
I think what you describe is just typical of the EU. He deliberately chooses someone who is not his perfect idea of a mate ( wrong religion, wrong colour, has children, too short, too tall, too young, too old, has blue eyes) all the things she can never actually change, so that he can be involved at a safe emotional distance, knowing that he will never be *really* involved; and when you start expecting him to actually get involved and offer you a real relationship he uses these things (your “baggage”) as his way out.
I remember when I met my Mr EU – after 3 months of his inital hot pursuit of me he suddenly – out of the blue – turned very cold and ran away… when I pursued him for an explanation I recall him squirming and shirking on the end of a phone (he would not see me face to face) telling me ‘I really always saw myself marrying a young Catholic virgin girl’. Seriously. He actually said that. (marriage, by the way, had neven benn mentioned by me… I just wanted to know what the eff had happened). But get this – his previous girlfriend but one had been a Jew and had had a number of abortions… his so called “ex” at the time was a Muslim girl (who was not a virgin)… so how effed up is that explanation?? I am a Catholic (ticked the box there) – but am unmarried mother (but no abortions – tick that box!) but not a virgin and not young. I remember pointing out to him how his previous girlfriends were neither young, Catholic nor virgins – quite the reverse, but of course he could not explain his contraditions. I am not making any judgements here, I am juts illustrating the point about out how the things he claimed were (inherently, unchangeably) wrong with me were things he knew about from the outset and that his previous relationships fitted his criteria even less than I did! It’s bizzare.
I know now of course that they choose the most unlikely candidate so that they always have a ‘logical’ (!) reason to get out of the involvement whenever they want – the reason they come up with is not your baggage, it is actually ‘who you are’, which never appeared to be a problem in the first place! It’s just an excuse that they keep in their back pocket – it’s his ticket for the exit door – it’s not a reason – they really do not have a reason that even they can make any sense of.
Deejay, Fearless is right! My ex-AC and I knew eachother/he jerked me around for 5 years. So for 5 years he knew I was half-Jewish, half-Catholic. All of a sudden, after he promised a real relationship/future faked and the future was upon him….he started making rude remarks about Jews. I. kid. you. not. Do I think he’s actually a racist? I think he probably isn’t, but I mean really, if you’re trying to get out of something is there a more spectacular way to chop and vanish?! You and I both dodged a bullet with these idiots.
Yes, Natasha it is pretty spectacular! The ‘reason’ they give is chosen specifically to be a reason that is by definition unsolvable. Even if deejay told her guy that she’d have her the children adopted first thing tomorrow morning, he’d just wince and pick something else, like she was born in the wrong country… now fix that! The reasons they give are red herrings.
But it occurs to me that the wierd thing is – the paradox almost? – is that the reason he chooses you is not because he chooses you but because he knows he doesn’t choose you. Or put another way, it is by dint of the fact you were chosen that you are not going to be chosen. It’s a fait accomplis.
It’s sad really, these guys will go through life getting involved with women they have already identified as women they will not get involved with. You are chosen not because you are what he is looking for but because you are not what he’s looking for…my head hurts now just thinking about it (imagine how he feels!).
Who cares how he feels!!!
Fearless, that is so true! I always say I am so glad I’m not an EUM/AC, because it must be exhausting sometimes. If this is how they behave in all their relationships, their lives must be a never ending rollercoaster ride of people hating them, drama and (in the case of assclowns) trying to keep their lies straight. The sad part is, something about it must work for them, or they wouldn’t keep doing it!
LOVE how you pointed out the issues, Nat! Excellent way to get me – or anyone – to open their eyes!
“And while we’re on the subject, the issue isn’t that they’re married/attached – it’s that they are married/attached and they’re still slinking around you trying to make out like they’re an honest person in a bad situation while they use you up for what they need and have the best of both worlds. There’s no such thing as an honest cheat – that’s an oxymoron right there. Cheating is about being dishonest in order to gain an advantage or to avoid something undesirable.”
Brutally honest. So honest I feel physically sick. How did I ever let this happen!?
Some days I feel like I’ve moved on. Other days my heart soul and body are totally paralysed because I know the above statement is right, it describes what happened and what I allowed to happen – and I can no longer deny it.
Hi Leigh,
Of course I picked up on the same comment from Natalie’s post and thought about it as well. Here’s what I’m thinking: While the exMM had the best of both worlds for a while and gained the advantage, we were both trying to avoid something undesireable. I’m no longer trying to avoid the undesireable. I think after Debra’s post and the comments from Fearless, I realized that the exMM’s baggage isn’t mine. He thinks he is trapped in a loveless marriage with no choice. That is his baggage not mine. Of course he has choices. I shouldn’t place my life on hold because he thinks he is trapped but still wants the benefits of “living” with me at my expense. I also off-loaded my father and mother’s baggage as my mother thought she was trapped in a loveless marriage and my father thought he was trapped too. That was their baggage not mine…hell I was a little kid and didn’t have anything to do with their loveless marriage. I didn’t have anything to do as well with the exMM’s loveless marriage. I can’t deny or excuse that I lied and cheated. I own it. At some point, I’ve got to forgive everybody including myself and call the skycap. The load of carrying everybodys baggage just gets too heavy. I’m not sure this is any comfort as I’m wading in a ton of baggage myself, trying to sort out their (parents) baggage, his (exMM) baggage, and my baggage. But as I sort every piece, I finding most of it is theirs. I just paid for it.
Sorry, I always remember something after I’ve posted…the oddest thing about sorting through “my baggage”, I’m the only one NOT trapped in a loveless marriage. Until now, however, I’ve allowed myself to be trapped in their loveless marriages whether it is my mother and father and/or ex MM. I’ve played the Lady in Waiting all my life. Dear God and Natalie, give me the strength to unload their baggage and not be trapped by their poor choices and my past poor choices. That sounds like a good prayer.
Hi Runnergirl,
I know exactly what you mean. I think that when a person plays the nice girl they take on other people’s baggage to gain some sort of acceptance. Low self esteem plays into it as well.
The trick for me was casting off the toxic relationships and people in my life. Now that’s done. I used to be good at taking my fears and turning them into something productive, some type of action for me. I’m not so good at that at the moment.
I get lots of ideas but lack the last bit of drive to see it through. In saying that I got over one stumbling block – I got back to taking photographs again. It was the one thing exMM and I shared an interest in and it used to break my heart every time I tried to do it after the end of it. I do it now, no problem, because it’s what I love to do.
I do sometimes get paralysed when I realise the truth, that he had the best of both worlds and I let that happen. That I slept with a MM and that’s wrong for all kinds of reasons. However, I know I made that choice at the time I also have the choice now to take my fear and make my life work for me and leave the negative stuff behind.
I’m happier and over him. I have forgiven myself and got over my guilt of doing this to another woman. I have got over the inner torment of deciding if I should tell her or not. As far as I’m concerned, it’s history. It’s their marriage, if he decides to stay good for him, if she decides to stay with him good for her. It is none of my business and I want nothing to do with it.
I just need to open my world up again and realise that whilst I’m regaining my happiness that clarity and truth will take my breath away. I truly believe that happens when you start getting comfortable with your emotions.
Time, clarity and truth to self is a great healer. It helps one grow.
*hugs*
“Time, clarity and truth to self is a great healer.” True words of wisdom.
Leigh,
you made a mistake. Join the club – if there’s any space left 🙂
Focus on the good thing that has come of this – you now recognise your involvement with this particlar guy as the mistake that it was – Eureka! Now you don’t need to keep on making it. You are good to go! Just over there you’ll now find the door to the rest of your life… head through it!
Good point Debra, I have been cleaning out my own baggage too for the last 6 months and I feel light and free, it’s a good place isn’t it?
The last couple of men I have been out with have all been “blame shifters” – the ex was a bitch, my dad beat me, my mummy hated me blah blah blah. I just don’t wanna hear that shit anymore 🙂
In an unsent letter to my ex EUW I said that everyone has a past, and has problems. Either we put them in the past and move on or become trapped by them and they ruin our lives. I choose the first option.
Thank God for you Natalie. I keep coming back and reading your posts and what all the other unhappy folks are saying. Sometimes I have to force myself – kind of like looking at your bank account when you know you don’t have enough money …
I’m doing okay right now. Since the honest-to-goodness NC has begun – about 2 weeks, I do find myself feeling … a bit more peaceful, less agitated and more like my happy, silly self. I like my silly self! The AC did not – just like my dad didn’t … hmmm. Sorry, that’s just how I am.
I’m not dumb, I just like to enjoy life. Now I’m seeing that I just got on the AC’s treadmill with him and thought I could be happy. I tried to get him off – to get him out and enjoy life, but I could not. No, he will not. So OK, that is fine for him to stay there, but I don’t have to stay there with him. I felt obligated to keep him company in his cave. I just can’t do it anymore. It’s boring – it’s the same old-same old. It ain’t livin! and I want to live!
This has hit the nail on the head for me. My ‘over-empathising’ and thinking that not everyones perfect and who am I to think I’m better than someone else attitude … has got me: Nowehere.
So now (thanks to NML) I’ve decided to trust my judgement more -which is in turn boosting me self esteem. I take more time to think and decide and dont rush in (yes like ‘fools rush in’).
I’ve often been very perceptive about others but always overidden my own instinct/judgement by thinking I should give people the benefit of the doubt and be understanding and non-judgemental. Doesnt help that I used to be in a ‘helping’ profession!
Now I make judgements and take on board information as it passes my radar which either confirms or alters my judgement. Many times it confirms my initial thoughts. Many times.
As I’ve read not to raise adult people like children up from the ground, I no longer do. I am much better at sticking to my boundaries and boundary sticking is increasing my self esteem too.
So whilst I’m not pefrect and not expecting perfection I do have standards and trying to maintain them isnt always easier (but I’m pretty sure it gets easier more and more). I make the effort to try and be the person I want to be and also to match the person I’m looking for. I cant expect to find a match to my wants/desires if I’m not making the effort in that dept myself. On the other hand I know more about what important and whats not.
The nicest thing is my instinct have always told me that my own feelings are important -and that seems right to me, its confirmed on here. I’ve read loads of books that basicaly tell you to ignore your own feelings and follow a ‘plan’ or behave in a certain way.
Not forgetting my own *feelings* are related to my dignity and self respect -not to my fantasies and libido!!
I dont waste time on people who dont deserve my time anymore -that includes friends who cant be bothered to call me either.
It seems scary and once I get past feeling rejected -I realise its cos there not on my wavelength, so why waste the time. 🙂 xx
Yes, Natasha and Fearless! It is a paradox in that even if there was some way to change my having kids (which, of course, I would never do for any man), he would choose another excuse! I heard plenty of excuses before this one, but this one has stuck only because it is who I am- a mother. Even though my kids will grow to become adults, I will always be a mother. And he even had the gall to text me Happy Mother’s Day, to which I didn’t respond. Being a mother isn’t baggage, but obviously he thinks the responsibilty that comes along with having kids is. I once told him that he had baggage, too, most of which is emotional. I even spouted off what it was as if he could even grasp the concept, or admit to himself or to me that it was true. He just flatly told me that that’s not baggage. Oh, the denial is amazing. The lack of responsibilty for oneself, much less anyone else, is mind-blowing. And crazy-making. Obviously, I’m not over it. I know you’re right, Natasha and Fearless. I dodged a bullet. He probably feels that he’s dodged a bullet, too. I know it’s impossible to make sense of the irrational, but it’s in my personality to do so. He’s been in a relationship with a woman for a year now, whom I’ve never met, and he’s having her move in. There I go trying to figure out why her and not me. Maybe she just had less baggage?
Deejay, I wouldn’t say ‘why her and not me’ until her stuff is actually moved into his house! The thing of it is when they go on to other relationships and it looks like the next woman is getting more, you don’t know what’s actually going on there. One of the other ladies made a genius comment about how each and every one of us was the next girl after someone else. Believe me, it will come to a point when you really don’t care! Luckily, I have no idea what goes on in my ex-AC’s life, but if I saw an engagement announcement for him tomorrow, I wouldn’t feel badly – I would think, “Oy vey, that poor woman.” Selfishness, irresponsibility and cowardice are NOT attractive qualities in a man. If they choose to get themselves together in a relationship with someone else, so be it, but if they were assclowns when we were involved with them, that’s who they were to us and that’s really all that matters. *Hugs*
Natasha you couldn’t be more right “Selfishness, irresponsibility and cowardice are NOT attractive qualities in a man”. And as far as my ex’s GF is concern I too say “Oy vey, that poor woman”.
Fearless xxx… your post on staying “,not in denial ” resonates….I have been doing ok…..NC for a few weeks now ( including THE BIRTHDAY)… but today not a good day….no reason …just remembering the good times when I woke this morning…..replaying all our conversations….cried all day ( damn you Adele …doesn’t help !!! )…..and so tempted to break _NC …..I haven’t yet…but how come we go from feeling so strong…esp when reading BR….to just wanting to hear from him ?? ….anything ??? ……anyone know which old posts will be helpful in NOT contacting him…..I have to be honest …right now I miss him….I miss laughing….I miss being held tight….I miss sex….I miss my friend ….. but for weeks I haven’t missed the jackasse…..does anyone else have ups and downs ?? …. maybe I should open a dog shelter …..apparently….great career move……
Fitness, the ups and downs even out over time until one day you realize that you haven’t had a down time in a while. Hang in there, it does get better, but stay NC. NC saved me. I went complete NC and blocked every form of communication. This way I eliminated the ‘waiting’ to see if he would contact me, because he couldn’t. Before I blocked him I would get a text or email, and even though I didn’t answer it it set me back just to read it, like tearing off the scab and rubbing a little salt in.
I love Adele too. Try listening to “Let Him Fly” by Patty Griffin. It is the perfect and empowering song about letting go for the right reasons and applied to my situation after going NC with my ex AC. When your having a good day, listen to “Heavenly Day” by her as well. Music has a way of soothing my soul.
Stay strong : ) and don’t look back.
Fitnessfreak – whenever I have a wobble I read the article about not being the Girl Who Cried Wolf … that one always helps me look at things in a different light! I also have a list at home entitled ‘Remember How It Felt When…’ with some of the awful things he said and did on it. It’s an embarrassingly long list and he should have been flushed for every damn thing on it. Just reading it helps remind me how terrible I felt a lot of the time. It doesn’t take the pain away, but a dose of reality helps to take the edge off!
But don’t be too hard on yourself – implementing NC leaves you experiencing a complete kaleidoscope of feelings, but if you wait it out, it WILL pass and your mood will shift. Hang in there!
Fitness, my favorite two articles when I’m having those down moments are “Suck it and See” and “Miss You, Miss You but I’m not Doing Anything to Get Back with You”. All the comments are fabulous as well. In fact, it is a beautiful day and I’m having similar thoughts about what we may be doing today so I think I’ll read the articles too. Another thing I do is write in my journal or re-read my Unsent Letter which is filled with his baggage that he dumped at my doorstep. Natalie’s statement about communicating that I’m an option and settling for crumbs also rings in my brain every time I get nostalgic. Congratulations on not being the Birthday Girl Welcome Wagon and an option. That’s must have been a good boost to your self esteem.
In fact, what I’d most likely being doing today if I was still involved is settling for a crumb which I would have been waiting all week for. How undignified and humiliating. Hang in there. No more crumbs. No more making him the priority when I’m merely an option for him. We deserve better and can have better, right?
I think just writing this out again helped.
Fitness
try this one from February (I was catching up on the archives earlier):
“How Much Time Are You Actually Spending Thinking About YOU?”
I don’t want to be off topic (and I feel I am hogging the comments so I’ll step back a bit after this one) but can I just say that the blog I’ve pointed out to Fitnessfreak is a stormer, Nat; it really hits home what I have been doing so habitually for years and years in all my relationships and explains to me now why I take so long to get over them (or out of them!); I spent too much time feeling sorry for myself, dwelling on my loss and my misery and not focusing on just getting bloody well over it and past it! And, Grace, your comments there are so insightful, enlightening and helpful – thanks for sharing your experiences.
Fitness, focus on you; on getting past it, not on staying in it…I feel for you as I know where you’re at and I am not sure yet I can save myself from going back into denial… but I feel different. I feel I get it… it’s a battle; there is much at stake; it’s not a game; it’s my life. You need to arm yourself and not throw down your best weapon – you. You need you now more than ever. You need to be able to rely on you… you cannot rely on him and ‘all the good times’. If they meant the same for him as they did to you, he’d be there – he’d be ‘in’. To allow yourself to fall into a pit of self pity is to be in the middle of the battle field fighting for your life and your cause and stopping to weep over the dead… it’s understandable, but it’s not going to get you out of there alive; it is counterproductive. The job is to disentangle yourself from a damaging and self-defeating involvement. Focus on the job: getting you and your life back.
Good luck to you.
Which blog? Other than this one?
Sorry Magnolia (if I am reading your question correctly) – I think I was saying ‘blog’ when I should really have been saying ‘post’ ? (I’m a bit of a daftie about these things). See… this is what happens when I wander off topic ((sorry))
Baggage has many forms, I just found out a few hours ago, after googling EUM’s name ,incredibly.. from another. unrelated web site , via a post put on there by another woman ( it has his name etc on there) that the A…HOLE I was involved with for a very long time , apparently has an STI , which he neglected to ever mention to me. I’m really upset , I will go to docs and have test ASAP. If I’d have known , I wouldn’t have ever been intimate with him.This is probably the worse form of baggage /abuse. that one can experience. I pray I haven’t caught it, I haven’t had any symptoms.I hope this isn’t off post and that it will be published as a reminder to everyone…. to please,please….. be careful.
Pam,
Sorry to hear.. and thank you for sharing. I really hope you’ll be clear, in the end. ((hugs)).
One hell of a baggage, indeed.
One of my strictly non-negotiable rule/boundary EVER, is that STD (inc.HIV) testing is a MUST (for both of us), prior to getting sexually intimate with my partners. I don’t care if they’ve been married to the same woman for 20 years, and only had one sexual partner since, with condoms or whatever. Some STD’s are silent and a condom sure isn’t enough protection. Period.
This is something I never feel uncomfortable discussing in the early stages of dating. And let me tell you, if men are put off or shocked by it, then let them chaffs scurry out of the wheat sack, and run!
Phew.
Lucy…I like the way you speak!
Intellectually, I know that this man has repeatedly shown me who he is with his actions, and that he could never give me the relationship that I want and deserve. However, I am having a hard time emotionally. Someone commented on one of Natalie’s previous posts that she wondered if her AC only treated her that way while being respectful to everyone else, as if there was something he saw in her that gave him this liberty with her emotions that no on
Sorry, accidently hit the publish button. Lol. Anyway, as if the AC didn’t take that liberty with anyone else but her. I know what matters is how he treated me… intellectually, I know that. But my heart still wonders if he’s giving his girlfriend the relationship I wanted, and it hurts.
deejay
it’s old fashioned, but i say what you feel is jealousy. which is a natural emotion and nothing to be ashamed of. but don’t confuse it with a Sign that you are inadequate. Though it’s a clue that you should no longer get involved with people who disrespect you. That’s how you avoid being disrespected. Tell em to get lost.
I don’t know how long it is since you broke up and it takes time to heal, but do be careful of continuing to value his opinion and his judgment long after he has left the building. What he thinks, feel and does now is irrelevant. He didn’t have The Answers when you were together, he certainly doesn’t have them now. To give a lot of headspace to an ex’s new relationship can get stalkerish and obsessive. It’s jut not helpful to say the least.
I’m grateful that I have no clue what any of my exes are up to. No staying friends, no mutual friends, no facebook, nada. I really believe it’s better that way.
“I’m grateful that I have no clue what any of my exes are up to. No staying friends, no mutual friends, no facebook, nada. I really believe it’s better that way.”
Oh Grace, I so agree! Whenever I finish with someone that hasn’t treated me well, I go into what I like to call Asshole Witness (and Facebook) Protection. If they didn’t respect or value me, what good could come of me knowing what goes on in their lives? Lord knows a lot of EUMs and ACs like to poke around in their ex’s lives, so why go there ourselves? I say: Cut. Them. Off.
deejay, way I see it – gaurantee, if he is an AC he has been trying to take liberties with women all his life; whether he gets to take those liberties or not is the woman’s decision, not his.
If I might relate a little anecdote for a moment about what can happen when we make arguments to justify bad behaviour through the ‘baggage’ excuse…My friends ex AC was the office ‘bike’ for years, married man, cheated on his wife constantly, then got divorced, choose my friend as next sucker, messed her about for 10 years and two other women (simultaneously) – one of them for at least 15 years. Lied his ass off constantly; turned up and left when he felt like it; did vanishing acts for months at a time with no explanation; was never where he said he was… an out-and-out horror of a man, who complained frequently about the bad behaviour of youngsters and pontificated about how “standards” of behaviour have gone to the dogs, failing to recognise he was the dog! But, you know, my friend made all the excuses for him – he had a hard childhood, had a difficult elderly mother, had spent all his savings; had to live in a city 250 miles away from her… she seemed to have forgetten that he didn’t live 250 miles until long after she had started seeing him – he had moved there when his long-term other girl/f who lived in that city found him the job. Lo and behold, he disappears for a while and next thing she hears from him he is getting married – to a whole new woman altogether! And he did marry this woman – and my friend spent months and months defeated, humiliated and obsessed endlessly about ‘why her and not me’?? And she still does from time to time. Now, I ask you, deejay, do you think my friend was spending her time, her emotions and her energies wisely by trying to figure out the answer to that?
Deejay – see Nat’s post: He’s with someone else – Why her and not me?
(Nat, if I am way off topic again and talking too much and you don’t publish – no quibbles from me!)
Hey deejay – there’s actually a lot on this site from Natalie and those who comment about the ‘perfect for the next person’ fear. My view is that you just have to not torture yourself with it. You have to not care. You’re focusing on something that may or may not be true – while, I think, it is not the case that you create in others an ability and tendency to treat you poorly, it would be naive to suppose that people don’t act differently with different people at different times in their lives (different people allow for the expression of different qualities, make you feel more or less comfortable, powerful, understood and accountable, self-beliefs, circumstances and stressors change etc). People do things for a variety of reasons, some of which don’t make sense at all, and aren’t even truly known to the person. I really don’t think you should think about this at all. But if there’s still a niggle, all you can do is be honest about whether or not you behaved in ways to allow this guy to be a d*ck for longer than you should have let him. That’s all. Once you know that, you can take it as your lesson for next time, and be grateful, in a way, that you’re now likely to be a better, stronger and more self-loving, person in a relationhip, when that happens. Until then, don’t focus on what he’s doing (as your imagination will almost certainly make his life better than reality – he still has to wake up and go to the toilet and worry about money and death etc!), focus on things that will help you feel good.
Deejay, I agree with Elle! I went through wondering about this the first few weeks after I went NC with my ex-AC and, believe me when I say this, there will come a point when you couldn’t care less. There are many, many, many men in the world (wow, I sound like Blanche Devereaux), so EVEN IF he does act differently with this woman, so what? I promise you there are lots more men out there for you to have fun, chemistry and, most importantly, a mutually respectful relationship with. He’s not only the last man you’ll ever meet and be attracted to and…he’s just not that special!
@Natasha Awww, thanks for passing on some love to ‘my boy’. I think dogs are awesome. Honestly, I’d rather spend the afternoon rolling around with a dog, than with some men 😉
I love it! Amen sister! 🙂
Hi Natalie.
Great post on perfect relationships. I don’t feel I’m in the perfect relationship (is there such thing as a perfect relationship?) but I am in a very happy relationship and have everything I want and need from it.
When I was with my ex girlfriend, the relationship was far from perfect in that we argued constantly and we got to the point that anytime we were together, we annoyed each other. However, a few years down the line after speaking with her I now realize that whether you have baggage or an imperfect attitude, a realtionship is what you make it.
You can single handedly affect your relationship for the better, but you have to change your own actions first. If you can push someone’s button in a negative way, you can learn how to push someone’s buttons in a positive way too.
Magnolia, sorry I can’t find the blog I was referring to. I’ve been reading blogs on this site for a few months now, and most, if not all, resonate with me. I can see these things intellectually, but the difficulty is with the heart. I’ve been NC for ten days… this time. Yes, I’ve tried NC before and always broke it, either by sending a text or an email, or responding to one
“Crumbs are not an adequate diet for a relationship–they leave you hungry and hurt.”–my new mantra…
“The fact is that you achieve a lot more genuinely trying. The person that’s actively endeavouring to be more, to live congruently with their values achieves greater results on the way than someone who says “Eff it. I’ll just see how much I can get away with coasting with all my code amber and red behaviour“.”
This paragraph gives me some comfort because it describes me. This is NOT in vain. 🙂
Great entry, by the way. This should be read in tandem with the BS Diet.
hello there
u r changing me!!! and i am grateful for that. I adopt a lot of your attitudes. I have now gained more insight that by sure would help me in the future.
Love this post Natalie. The worst thing about this for me is that alot of other women get on their band wagon, tell you your wrong, and then you get to thinking…maybe I am reacting, maybe I am a heartless cow…my mum always said I was thoughtless, out spoken….and Im back on the merry go round. Alot of people especially men think Im out spoken and if the truth be told maybe I am bordering on the Miss Indepenent Fall back girl. Now this for me is a default position always has been, I can remember at the age of about 7 watching the antics of a fully grown man…dad..totally throw a whole family into years of turbulent chaos. But even then I was like…this guys an idiot, his friends are idiots, but the role models I had were women shouting me down, telling me what did I know, his sisters my aunties were the worst, in their eyes I was some deliquent child…for what…telling the truth about my dickhead dad. But even today at 43, I had a 21 year old tell me I had a negative attitude to men…no I have negative attitude towards assclowns…and then low and behold he did exactly what I knew he was going to do…ie cheat on her…and then behind me in the office…I heard a group of women rationlise his behavior away with the…He was drunk, and shes a tramp line. With this kind of mentality around me in society how the hell are we meant to break away, when women are just as complicit in this damn mess as the men. I have managed to haul myself out of total terrible 10 years of 3 major assclowns. Now if I had done what I knew I should have done from the get go I would now possibly either be living a life of happiness alone or with a great guy. But no Im trying to heal my bloody inner child, lick my terrible wounds and put some sembalance of a life back together. You see the thing is I knew who I was at 7!!!!!!! No the Miss Independent is possibly not the best default position, but this time when any damn assclown says to me some Rinky Dinky Dick Wad Rubbish about, Ive to much work, I need my own space, I need to…Its just that… instead listening to some of the crap women Im surronded by, Im gonna listen to myself, not read to much into it and listen to them….what they are saying IM UNAVAILABLE, BUT I COULD DO WITH A HOOK UP!! Lets hope my next 20 years are more productive!