He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (9 page)

Six months ago Marc, thirty-eight and once divorced, met Sally, a twenty-nine-year-old divorcée with a four-year-old child. The minute he saw her, he “flipped” over the way she looked. He says he fell in love with her and with her daughter almost immediately.

“This was something I really thought I wanted. My first wife
never wanted children, and it was a major issue in our marriage. But Sally loved kids, and her daughter was wonderful. I liked the feeling the whole thing gave me, the sense of being able to take care of them.”

Marc told his friends and family that he had finally met the woman for him. For her part Sally—a struggling single parent—saw Marc as a “gift from above.” It took very little for him to convince her to move into his house
and
quit her job and come work for him in the small video business he owned. A few days before Sally was to move in, Marc began to experience feelings of “pressure” and anxiety. His anxiety was so intense that he began questioning his judgment, wondering whether he was making a huge mistake. As he began to have these thoughts, he found himself thinking about another woman he had once known and loved, a woman who had rejected him in order to marry another man.

“I had heard that this old girlfriend had gotten separated, so I called her. Coincidentally this was the day Sally was moving in. Two hours before the movers were due to arrive, I met my old girlfriend for coffee, and I realized that I was still attracted to her
—very
attracted to her. I realized that by committing myself so quickly to Sally, I wasn’t giving myself a chance. I had only been divorced four years, and I hadn’t explored all my options. All in all I was pretty miserable and confused. I went through the motions of helping Sally move in. She was thrilled; I was like the walking dead. I didn’t know what to do.”

As you can imagine, it was only a short time before Marc’s mood—“withdrawn, distracted, and upset”—affected Sally’s happiness. Every time she asked him what was wrong, he replied, “It’s not you. Don’t worry.” According to Marc, Sally assumed he was having business difficulties he hadn’t shared with her.

“It wasn’t Sally, but it was Sally. I had started talking to this other woman on a daily basis, and the sexual tension was unbelievable. Finally, when Sally and her daughter had been in my house for about two weeks, it got too much. I had to tell her.

“I told Sally the truth, that I still loved her, but that I needed to see other people. And I told her that I still had feelings for my old girlfriend and that I needed to get some resolution in this situation. Sally was very disappointed, to say the least. Fortunately she was able to get her old apartment back. She wasn’t so lucky with
her job, so she continued to work for me for several months while she looked for another job. We went to bed together a few more times, but even though I still cared for her, I knew that I was never going to make a commitment to her.

“This was a very bad period in my life. I definitely wasn’t fair to Sally, because I still had feelings for her—you might even call it love. I was afraid that leaving her might be the biggest mistake of my life, and I felt terrible guilt about her daughter. As you can imagine, it wasn’t an easy situation. In many ways Sally was very good to me, very caring. I needed that, and I took advantage of her desire to give. It was hard for me to give that up.

“It got very weird at the end. Sally and I would work together all day, then we would go home together, and she would make dinner for the three of us. I would eat, and then I would go out to see the other woman. I would come home to sleep with Sally. Sally would cry. Sometimes I would cry too, because I really felt that way. I mean I had feelings. I’m a very emotional person. As you can imagine, we started fighting. When Sally realized that we were never going to become the family unit she imagined, she was very jealous and very angry.”

Now, here comes the part when Marc does some fancy footwork to rationalize his behavior and throws the blame on Sally for being less than perfect.

“I think what happened is that right before the move, I began to see a side to Sally that I didn’t really like all that much. She got all tense about moving in and started getting insecure. She kept asking me if I was really certain about what I was doing. I think it was her asking, as much as anything, that made me see my reservations.

“And then she needed help packing, and her mother and one of her older sisters came over. Together they sort of took over, you know. I saw a side to her that I hadn’t seen before. She was real sloppy sometimes in her closets. And she was tired a lot. She didn’t always get along with her mother, but I could see that in many ways she had some of the same bossy personality traits. Not to mention the same body type, and her mom had definitely gone to pot physically. Yes, I got scared, but I think rightfully so. Of course I hurt her, but it was better that I did it then before things got even more serious. No?”

Shortly after Sally moved out, Marc and his old girlfriend also broke up. He says he realizes that he was probably just “using” her to “get out” of the situation with Sally. His explanation: “I went overboard with Sally, but the way I figure it is if we had been right for each other, it would have worked out.”

Anyone listening to Marc’s story can see that his behavior was at best chaotic, confused, and irresponsible. One day he is in love with one woman, the next he is ready to sabotage the relationship to pursue an old girlfriend. One minute he is appreciating that someone is making him dinner, the next he is rushing off to see the old girlfriend. After having sex with one woman, he rushes home to cry with another. None of this seems to make very much sense.

What makes even less sense is Marc’s method of dealing with the facts of his life. Essentially he manages to deny that he has a problem and to rationalize his behavior by telling himself that Sally is not the right woman. Otherwise he would behave differently. When we listen to Marc, we find it difficult to argue with him. Of course he behaved like a jerk, but maybe what he’s saying is true. Maybe if he and Sally were meant to be together, they would be together. That’s what the romance novels and movies would have us believe. This kind of logic manages completely to obscure Marc’s commitment conflicts and the way in which they cause him to act out.

THE FANTASY COVER-UP

When we hear someone like Marc talking about the problems in his relationships, we may think that he is being unrealistic, but even so we hesitate to tell him so. After all, we may tell ourselves, perhaps Marc is right, perhaps there is a perfect mate whom he is fated to meet. We don’t want to burst his romantic bubble. Isn’t that what the entire culture of romance has told us to expect?

We think there are some very strong reasons why so many of us use denial or rationalization as ways of masking our commitment conflicts. When our relationships end or founder, we don’t look to our commitment issues. Instead we look to romantic fantasies that are accepted and reinforced by much of the world around us. In
these fantasies people who are meant to be together are fated. Once their eyes meet, circumstances will conspire to keep them happy forever.

Many people say that they don’t have unrealistic fantasies, that they are prepared to accept mere mortals as their mates. They tend to forget that when we fantasize, we think not only about how our future beloveds will look and behave, we also think about how we will feel when we are with them. We think about bliss and trust and sexual desire that doesn’t stop. Even when we are prepared to accept our mate’s imperfections, we are not prepared to accept our own everyday feelings of irritability and fatigue. We expect to feel close and bonded and perfectly at one with each other—
all the time
. We certainly don’t expect ever to feel bored, ambivalent, anxious, or annoyed. If any of these emotions surface, the fantasy is destroyed.

Keep in mind that many single people with serious commitment conflicts never even think about the possibility of dealing with marital quarrels, marital boredom, or marital breakups. They don’t think about these realistic possibilities because most of their thoughts about commitment are based on fantasy. In the never-never land of their imaginations, there are no overflowing garbage pails, intrusive alarm clocks, dirty socks, or annoying reading lamps. The partners of their imagination are fantasy images: Like airbrushed photographs, they never get sick, never get old, never get fat, and most important never get real.

Those with serious commitment conflicts are experts in romantic fantasy. They live and love in fantasy land because that’s the only place where they can resolve their conflicts. In their dreams, and only in their dreams, can they feel both committed and free. Although they tend to deny it, what they are usually dreaming about is high romance and not everyday, down-to-earth commitment.

FANTASY MODELS FOR A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP

The mythologies and fairy tales of our culture are extraordinarily limited when it comes to producing models of a committed relationship. The fairy tales of childhood, for example, are not
about commitment. Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White—these are about romance. They give us no information about what happens once the commitment has been made. Once they were married, did Cinderella and the Prince argue about how to redecorate the ballroom? After the kids were born, did Cinderella reconcile with her family for the sake of the children? Did her rotten stepsisters come around every weekend and make trouble? As the couple got older, did the Prince’s sexual enthusiasm wane? Did Cinderella’s hormones ever go awry? Did she suffer from PMS, postpartum depression, or menopausal fatigue?

What about Beauty and the Beast? Once the Beast became a mere human mortal, did he lose some of his initial appeal? Once Beauty had transformed the Beast with the power of her love, did she feel as though she were at loose ends? Did she need a new project, a new focus for her energies?

And how about Snow White? Once she was awake and talking, did she say the things her Prince wanted to hear? Or had she spent too many years living with the Seven Little Dwarfs to be able to relate to his world? Did he get bored with her? Did she try to change him? Did he wish she would stop talking so much?

These are answers we will never know, because our fairy tales don’t take us past the wedding day. When the idyllic fairy-tale couple walks through the doors to marriage, we don’t see what happens next. For most of us, when the initial romance starts to fade, we face reality uneasily. Suddenly everything is no longer perfect, and we lose the hope of ever having fairy-tale perfection. It can feel as though a part of us is dying. Perhaps it is a fear of the unknown, or a fear of repeating the lives of our parents—but it always means giving up fantasies and romantic illusion. Not an easy thing to do for anyone, but particularly difficult for someone with commitment conflicts. Without the fantasy we may feel as though there is nothing exciting left.

EARLY MESSAGES FROM OUR PARENTS

Since we are talking about relationships, we cannot disregard the important messages about relationships that we carry over from our parents’ lives. These contribute significantly to our ex
pectations, fantasies, and fears. If one or both of your parents were controlling, you may worry about control; if they were smothering, you may well feel smothered; if they were absent or neglectful, you may be carrying around old wounds and resentments. The messages we received from our parents when we were children all influence our ability to build real partnerships with real partners.

ROMANCE, NOT COMMITMENT

“In my head I have committed myself wholeheartedly to some very unlikely men. I mean, really bad-news guys—rodeo riders with drug problems, married men who lived in Japan, temperamental bisexual artists, you name it, I’ve loved it. In retrospect I wonder what I could have possibly been thinking. The most amazing part is that in each instance I would find myself fantasizing about ‘being saved’ by these impossible choices.”

—ANNA, thirty-nine

“I become obsessed with the women who’ve gotten away—women who, for one reason or another, are beyond my reach. I keep thinking they might be perfect for me. Once, for example, I fell head over heels in love with a woman who I spotted from a moving car. I never saw her again, but I carried this picture of her around in my head for years. I was positive that we were meant for each other. My mother, who is pretty disgusted with my single state, recently asked me if I had ever met any woman who I thought I could marry. I asked her to clarify what she meant by ‘met.’ I told her that if it didn’t matter whether or not we had ever actually spoken, then there was this woman in a car. I could have married her.”

—KEN, thirty-five

Many people with commitment conflicts are incurable romantics with the most traditional views on love and marriage; they may firmly believe that when they get married, it will be “till death do us part.” Because they see relationships as tremendous obligations, they typically insist that they respect the sanctity of the marriage vows, even when they are behaving quite differently. If they’ve never been married before, they make it clear that marriage is something they only want to do once in their lives; if they
have married before, they want the next one to be the last one. These people want their love to be forever and they expect a total “in love” sensation all the time. And they don’t care how many statistics suggest otherwise. Until reality creeps in, they imagine each of their loves as destined or ordained by karma.

Experts in romantic fantasy, these men and women prefer to live and love in fantasy relationships because real relationships can evolve into real commitment, and that’s much too threatening. The problem is that if you follow your fantasies, you can end up leading a very confusing and unfulfilling life.

IS IT COMMITMENT OR IS IT A FANTASY?