Stop Running from Love: Three Steps to Overcoming Emotional Distancing and Fear of Intimacy (2 page)

Each of the three steps requires a commitment to becoming focused and trying out something new. The information and exercises in this book will help you create a solid foundation for freedom and joy in your intimate relationships. Of course, no real transformation can take place without some hard work. Insight may happen in a sudden flash, but transformation takes both inspiration and perspiration.

The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. In the following chapters, you will learn how to engage in each step and you will learn how others have used the ARC model to leave loneliness behind.

In this book, you’ll have the opportunity to follow the stories of a variety of distancers. You will learn how they used distancing, where their distancing got started, and how they were able to transform and transcend their distancing patterns. There are many reasons to share these stories. Healing generally works best through a process of identification that allows you to see parts of yourself in another person’s experience. These stories will also provide you with a connection to a community of other people who have struggled with the same issues you are facing. By becoming acquainted with the distancers in this book, you will not have to make the major changes you plan to make in isolation.

As you begin the process of engaging with this new model of change, you’ll be provided with many opportunities to explore all of the interrelated influences that contribute to becoming a distancer. You will undoubtedly find stories quite similar to your own and stories that are very different. This approach emphasizes understanding the larger context of what made us who we are and teaches us how to change our intimate relationships by making deeper connections in our communities.

Instead of trying to understand and change everything having to do with your intimate relationships, you will begin your journey by entering the community of women and men who are also accomplished distancers through hearing their stories. By doing this, you will learn how to make deeper connections within the “village” that is needed to support every couple’s health and happiness.

For readers who are willing to open to intimacy in love, the information and exercises in this book will lead to change. Of course, when you recognize how you’ve been sabotaging your relationships, you will have to risk opening yourself to vulnerability and possible heartbreak. So if you’ve chosen to look at the distancing factors in how you relate to intimates, you are taking a brave step.

Safe Passage Through Love’s Landscape

You are now entering exciting new territory where you are, indeed, the expert.

When you identify yourself as a distancer, you take the first step toward change. Beginning your safe passage through the threatening terrain of intimacy may often be uncomfortable. However, this book will help you to move slowly and it will allow you to give yourself lots of wiggle room. Reassure yourself that if this is not the right time for you to make big changes, you can stay right where you are until you feel ready.

Most distancers resist giving up the defenses that have allowed them to feel safe, even though they may have endured years of dissatisfaction and loneliness. My approach to working with distancers is to begin one step removed from any major change-making interactions. In my years of working with traumatized children and adults, I’ve learned that change often needs to be a slow, gentle process, emphasizing recovery through mindfulness of the mind-body connection. Too often the distancer is threatened by confrontational statements or advised to change behaviors that have functioned as protection against loss or pain. It is obvious that forcing the distancer to try something that feels too threatening will only increase the distancer’s need to run or put up a wall.

Using the Mind-Body Connection

Everyone needs a variety of learning modalities to approach old problems; variety in how you can learn will help you to access parts of your brain you haven’t used before. You will not only learn more about your communication and choice-making patterns, but you will be offered exercises to help you become aware of how your body tells its own story and creates warning signals and roadblocks, as well as opening new doors to change.

All of the work you are about to begin will help you move into closer relationships by teaching you to use mindfulness, to surrender control over the things that have kept you in a defensive place up until now. You will learn to feel comfortable with the idea that you do not actually have very much control over others or many of the circumstances that come your way. This is a process that involves a new awareness of old patterns that have been operating under the radar for a long time. It draws on new research and intervention tactics based in twenty-first-century knowledge of how our complex brains work in close relationships.

The Freedom to Say No

There is no rule that says all human beings must be in deep, committed relationships. This book may help you become comfortable with remaining single (or supporting someone else in that choice). Some people recognize that they are neither lonely nor unhappy being single, despite the social pressure to form couple relationships. Many single people have satisfying lives filled with friends, work, creativity, spiritual pursuits, and so forth, and do not experience chronic unhappiness or loneliness.

You will need a notebook or journal to write in (or you can take notes on your computer) as you work through the exercises in this book. You are beginning the process of creating your own book, one in which you’re the expert about yourself, something you can look over periodically to see how far you have come, while you move along your path to healthier relationships. You will be guided to write down your answers to the questions and to make notes so you won’t forget your initial responses to what you will have just read. It’s common for people to quickly forget something that makes them nervous or uncomfortable. Recording your thoughts and discoveries is a very important part of the change process. The odds are good that if you simply read this book without actively engaging in its exercises, you will miss valuable clues for solving the mysteries of your relational life.

This is the moment to take a true leap of faith and to give yourself another chance. Love may not be easy, but when it works, it’s worth the journey.

Through many years as a psychotherapist and as a survivor, I’ve learned how the human spirit can transcend old forms of bondage. Today, distancing is a growing challenge for both women and men in their intimate relationships. I’ve been inspired by my work with people trapped in the aftermath of traumatic experiences. I’ve witnessed the many ways traumatized people sabotage their relationships but eventually learn to love and be loved. I have a deep and genuine optimism that we can learn to hold our ground and stay steady on the path of love.

All distancers have the capacity to end the dissatisfaction that shrouds their relationships. Despite your disappointments in love, you are now risking hope. Somewhere deep inside yourself, you’ve always believed that your loneliness will end, that your relationship problems eventually will become something you will have the tools to fix. If you are ready to embark on an ultimately successful journey through the slippery slopes of love, this book can offer you a new perspective on relationships and it will teach you effective strategies for change.

This book may be helpful even if you don’t identify yourself as a distancer. You can share what you learn from the book with a partner or friend who is a distancer. Or perhaps the people you get involved with are distancers, and this book will help you understand them better. You may work in a professional role with people who distance. Whatever your experience, you will benefit from exploring this new, uncharted territory. You may even surprise yourself by getting acquainted with the distancer part of yourself.

Take this opportunity to feel the freshness of starting a new chapter in your life—even if right now there’s no significant other in your heart. Keep yourself open and willing, trust that you will stay firm on solid ground, and let yourself enjoy your journey to true intimacy.

1

When you name something, you begin the process of making a connection. A new pet becomes part of your family from the moment you give it a name. Once we can identify an illness, we know how to treat its symptoms. You can begin to leave loneliness behind by identifying yourself (or someone you care about) along the distancer spectrum.

You may have recognized that something is missing in your experience of intimate relationships, but you don’t really know how to identify your relationship dilemmas. You will probably feel both curiosity and anxiety as you discover new ways to name that impenetrable cloud that comes between you and others. You will feel less alone when you can identify with other people who also maintain a whirlwind of activity between themselves and others, or who pull back, run away, or hide from intimacy.

In this chapter you’ll be introduced to the various ways that people distance in their romantic relationships. Reading the stories of others who distance in or from their relationships will help you learn to identify the ways that you are a distancer. You will begin with some thinking and writing about yourself, using various exercises to help you deepen and expand your knowledge of yourself.

To start this new venture, look for yourself among the following styles of distancing.

“Distancing” is a big category. Distancers come in many shapes and sizes. They can be single or in long-term couple relationships, gay or straight, women or men, young or old. Here are a few brief glimpses of typical distancers:

Typical Distancing Patterns

The sexual distancer. Yvonne dreads the weekends. Her partner will want to make love and Yvonne will find herself once again coming up with an excuse or else just leaving her body during the love-making. “I can feel love, but I can’t open myself up sexually,” she writes in her journal.

Yvonne is a sexual distancer.

The emotional distancer. Howard is married to a distancer. He tells the marriage counselor, “I know that Sally cares about me, but she just never has time for me. It’s the kids, it’s her best friend calling up in the middle of some big drama, it’s a deadline at work—you name it and she’s got it.” If a couple needed attention like a person needs food, this couple here would have starved to death a long time ago.

Howard’s wife, Sally, is a “Superwoman” distancer, keeping herself distracted from intimacy by all the things she does for others. Men also engage in this form of distancing, often as workaholics, sports addicts, or Superdads who have no time for their partners.

Chris is another emotional distancer. Beth complains about Chris, who is her partner, this way: “I just can’t get through to her,” she says, with a weary shrug of her shoulders. “It feels a lot of the time like there’s nobody home emotionally.” Beth doesn’t want to leave Chris—they’ve been together for ten years. But she does want a deeper emotional connection.

The controlling distancer. Rick is a thirty-something married man with two children. He is a big, powerful guy who was a football star in high school. He married Carla, his high school girlfriend, right after he completed two years of military service. Rick distances by being so completely in charge of everything that Carla equates their marriage to living in a perpetual boot camp, with Rick always barking orders at her and the kids. Now that their older son has hit adolescence, he is starting to rebel against his father’s military style of parenting. Rick’s efforts to take care of everything and everyone around him have led the couple to the brink of divorce.

Rick distances by being a control freak.

Mutual distancing. Jack and Diane are both distancers. Diane began breaking up with Jack not long after they began their love-at-first-sight steamy romance. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t think I’m ready to get into anything serious right now,” she tells him. “I know, I know… I said that you were everything I ever wanted and I never wanted us to be apart. I’m really sorry, but I’ve realized I need to take some time for myself. I’ll call you…”

Diane will, in fact, call Jack. She will cajole him to come back before he’s even finished the two-hour drive back to Connecticut where he lives. This drama will be played out many times before Jack realizes that he has to be the one to walk away.

Diane is a very fearful distancer. She has a history of falling in love, but then changing her mind. Jack is a distancer too, but he always ends up looking like the “good guy.” Jack distances by using high levels of denial, shutting down inside, and never recognizing his complicity in their mutual distancing dance.

The ambivalent distancer. Ben’s friends are talking about whether they should invite him over to meet their recently divorced friend Jill. “You know, I’d hate to see Jill get her hopes up…” Molly says to her husband. “Ben will just do what he always does. Start out as Mr. Wonderful and then eventually it will be ‘Hi Ho Silver Away!’ Jill won’t know what hit her.”

Ben typifies the kind of ambivalent distancer who is great at the beginning of a relationship. Unfortunately, he always finds a good reason to back away when the relationship starts to get serious.

Varieties of avoidant distancers. Danny is another charming distancer with a slightly different operating style. He has been dating the same woman for three years, but keeps himself locked away in a mental fortress populated with fantasy characters. He is a successful young science-fiction writer, but he is afraid to enter the real world of the heart.

Janine has a great time with her friends, but she avoids intimate relationships completely. She is resistant when anyone tries to get her to meet a man. She says she’s “not interested.” Yet Janine secretly hopes that one day the right man will magically step into her world. Janine is the classic “someday my prince will come” distancer, terrified of being vulnerable, yet hoping The One will show up and magically make love feel safe for her.

Andrew is like Janine—he’s a distancer who can’t get close enough to a potential partner to establish a relationship. He can’t slow down long enough to make it through an entire evening, let alone a lasting relationship. Andrew spins through life, a charming, desirable young man who wants an intimate relationship but has no idea how he can make that happen.

Andrew and Janine are both examples of distancers who seem to be relationship phobic and yet long to find love.

There are three broad and encompassing distancer categories: the Disappearing Distancer, the Defended Distancer, and the Distracted Distancer. Within each of these categories, there are predictable variations. The people you’ve just met fit into these categories and illustrate variations within these three central divisions.

The Disappearing Distancer

Disappearing distancers are the easiest category of distancers to identify. You may recognize yourself as the disappearing distancer who completely avoids getting into relationships. Or you may be the type of disappearing distancer who occasionally approaches courtship but is too afraid of being trapped or smothered to stick around for long.

The Defended Distancer

The second category is crowded, so if you are a defended distancer you have plenty of company. The defended distancer gets into relationships but always has one foot out the door or seems to float in and out of relational reach. Sometimes, the defended distancer is a perfectionist, unable to settle for a “good enough” relationship, even when it’s right there at the doorstep. This is just another way to avoid feeling vulnerable: “I’ll reject you before you can reject or abandon me.”

The defended distancer is more covert in his or her distancing behavior than the disappearing distancer, but is also fearful about risking emotional and/or sexual vulnerability. Defended distancers are often tortured by their ambivalence, never allowing themselves to feel securely attached in their relationships. Upsetting themselves and their partners, they change their minds back and forth, first in, then out.

Much of what we know about gender stereotypes would make us think that most defended distancers are men. But if you are a woman who avoids emotional vulnerability, you aren’t alone. Many women keep themselves emotionally at a distance. They are less likely to be confronted about it, though. One obvious reason for this is that most men have been socialized to avoid emotional vulnerability and so the male partners of female distancers may not easily recognize what’s really going on. Also, female emotional distancing is underreported in books, magazines, research studies, and frequently goes undetected in couples counseling.

The Distracted Distancer

The third category is the best disguised among the three major categories of distancer. The distracted distancer appears in many manifestations. The distracted distancer stays too busy to spend quality time with her (or his) partner, thus avoiding couple closeness and intimacy. Distracted distancers may be superproviders, focusing all their efforts on accomplishing necessary tasks: parenting, working, keeping up the home, doing community service, and so on. When the distracted distancer’s efforts are on behalf of the family, he or she can appear to be very committed to the well-being of the partner, even though the couple relationship is getting shortchanged.

There are many different manifestations of the distracted distancer. One example is the crisis addict who is swept up in one crisis after another, leaving little time or space for anything else. Someone who is involved in an all-consuming spiritual practice, or is a full-time advocate for the homeless, or has dedicated his or her life to protecting the environment is likely to have a partner who feels neglected by this distracted distancer.

Celia, Super Businesswoman

Celia runs her own real estate business. She’s an attractive woman who hopes she’ll find the partner of her dreams. Her marriage ended in divorce. Her husband had an affair that left Celia shaken and vulnerable, but she has dated on and off for quite a while. She is puzzled by her ongoing single life. “Why can’t I find someone?” she asks her therapist.

The answer lies in Celia’s total focus on her career. She works at least fifty hours a week, leaving herself almost no time to meet potential partners or to deepen a new relationship.

“What happened to that nice guy you had dinner with?” Celia’s sister asks.

Celia shakes her head. “I’m not really sure,” she admits. “We were having a great time kind of joking around online. It seemed like it was hard to find a time to get together. I guess I don’t really know what happened.”

Like other distracted distancers, Celia avoids getting hurt again by keeping a whirlwind of activity between herself and her potential love interests. She is so busy that she scarcely notices that her dates eventually give up after discovering how difficult it is to spend time with her.

As you read through the descriptions of the following distancing styles, you may discover that you also recognize yourself in these descriptions. Keep track of all that you discover about yourself by working with the questionnaires. Make notes at the end of each section so that you can contrast and compare your own experiences with what you’ve read at the end of the chapter. Everything you write will help you focus on what seems to fit your style most significantly and will direct you to the changes you will be making as we move from Step One to Step Three.

Exercise

Finding the Distancer Description That Fits You

This is the first of many exercises designed to help you find yourself, and give you the tools you need to help in analyzing and eventually changing your distancer patterns. This is the time you should start the journal discussed in the introduction.

Take a few minutes right now to write down whatever first impressions come to you about the distancing styles you’ve been reading about.

If you have trouble starting to write, you can begin by answering these questions: Whom do you most identify with? Do you think you have a little bit of each distancing style in your repertoire? Has your distancing style changed over time?

Even if you just write only a few sentences, it will help you begin to keep a record of your developing awareness about the distancing you do in your relationships.

Learning from Stories About Distancers

Now that you’ve got an overview of the territory, you are ready to jump in, and learn from the following stories about these various distancers. This will give you more information about how other people enact their distancing patterns. Just like listening to someone’s story on a talk show or in a support group, reading about other distancers will help you to learn more about yourself. It will also help you to feel a connection with others who’ve been struggling with the same feelings of bewilderment and loneliness.

Be aware that as you begin to recognize yourself as a distancer, you may feel shaken by this new identity. But keep in mind that the self you are beginning to discover is not a one-dimensional cartoon character. Don’t go to extremes: nothing is ever as simple and one-dimensional as the daily horoscopes in the newspaper would have us believe. You’ve always been a complex person, you’ve always varied in how you relate to others in the different parts of your life. You are now just beginning to explore new parts of yourself: nothing should be written in stone.

Here’s another cautionary note: distancers are not always consistent in their relationships. You can be a major distancer in one relationship, but less so in another. Or, as your life or your partners change, you may utilize different styles of distancing. You may discover that more than one of the distancer styles fit you. What’s important is to begin to learn about yourself using these profiles as a point of reference. No one size fits all and no one remains the same size forever.

The Disappearing Distancer

The disappearing distancer is the person who avoids intimate relationships, exhibiting a relational form of anorexia. This kind of distancer, consciously or not, wishes for an intimate relationship yet avoids allowing this to develop.