rambling

I can be quite the wordsmith on paper. It’s talking about my feelings, my emotions, and my wants and needs out loud that completely eludes me. 

I read a book during december about emotionally unavailable men. The book concluded that the girls who fall for those men are themselves emotionally unavailable. I realized as I read it that I was guilty as charged. I didn’t read the book because of John, but because of Matthew. He was acting strangely, I couldn’t figure it out, so like the nerd I am I turned to books to figure it out. Matthew is pretty textbook emotionally unavailable. But what I realized as I was reading the book is that many of the "symptoms" of emotionally unavailable men actually fit me even better than they fit him. 

There’s this thing the book describes as "managing down expectations." It works by the emotionally unavailable person appearing to be chasing the relationship, completely invested in it at the beginning. Then, once the other person is comfortable, the EU person backs off just a little bit. Doesn’t give quite as much to the relationship, and lets the partner get used to getting a little bit less attention from them. Slowly, the EU person will manage their partners expectations down to whatever level the EU person is most comfortable at. So if commitment level is rated on a scale of 1 – 10, then the EU person might start the relationship as an 8 or 9, but ultimately manage it down to a 3 or 4, because that’s as much as they are really comfortable giving to a relationship. 

Anyway, that’s me. And even after recognizing those behaviors in myself when I read the book in December, I didn’t see that I had been doing it during January up to now until just a few nights ago. When John and I agreed to try and really work things out, I overcommited myself to it. I wanted to make him more comfortable, because I knew he didn’t trust me, and I was scared he would just quit trying and leave again. So I told him I had taken divorce off the table in my mind, and that it was okay if he hadn’t, but that that was where I was at. Let me just say right here that I really did believe myself. I really had taken divorce off the table as far as I was concerned, but I didn’t realize how deep my motivations went for doing that.

So our first few weeks went really well. I practiced listening, and tried to show constantly that I genuinely cared about his feelings. I started making time for him on a weekly schedule that we have up in our room. Date nights, romantic time, etc. We even had sex a few times. But then I started to withdrawal. 

I think the pulling back happened after the night I saw Matthew. I didn’t talk to him, I just saw him, and really "see" is a pretty strong word since I failed to look any higher than his shirt and I deliberately made my gaze skip over him anytime my head went in his direction. Anyway, this is all also around the same time as my therapy got really serious. We had done our first EMDR session, and I was *really* shaken by it. Two weeks later when we did EMDR again, I left the session okay, but over the following week I almost completely withdrew from John. The focus of my EMDR sessions hinges on a particularly awful blackout John had this past year, and through this kind of free association thing that’s a part of it, I am working through the trauma associated with that event and related events, to eventually (hopefully), process it completely so that it no longer effects my daily life and so that I can feel safe again (specifically with John). What’s freaky about this EMDR stuff, is that before we started, I knew that bad things had happened, but I thought I was totally over them. Soooo not true. I keep remembering things at random, reasons why my relationship and sex life with John went down the drain. I’m not sure I could have remembered this stuff even if asked specifically about it before…it’s like I had totally blocked the memories. Back on track though…

After I saw Matthew and I started EMDR, John and I didn’t have sex again. We tried maybe once or twice, but had to stop. We got really, really distant from each other and I think he was contemplating just leaving again (and I think I was secretly hoping for it), but something happened for him and he made a decision that he wasn’t going to run, that he would not "let" us get a divorce. So he came back stronger and that made me feel a little safer and we resumed our pseudo-marriage relationship. Only now, I’m not trying at all. Not even a little bit. He is doing all the work, and he knows it, and I know it. 

And in all this I recognize that we are back to square one. I work at pretending to be happy that he’s here with me, and he works on our relationship. This is exactly how it was before I went home with Matthew, except that before that, John and I had plenty of sex (some of it even good). Also before, John didn’t even realize how far down I had managed his expectations of me. Now, he’s pretty acutely aware of it. He keeps telling me that I have to be in this, and in those conversations I get super defensive and shut down, but I always come back just enough to keep him around.

Tell me, what exactly am I keeping him around for? To torture him? To torture myself? I guess I am hoping that the EMDR therapy will be enough to make me feel safe with him again, and that beyond that, I’ll actually be able to be attracted to him again, and that we can live together happily. But EMDR takes time, and in the meantime, we’re falling apart.