Mates - Emotionally Unavailable

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eskielover said:
I wanted someone I could share life with the things I enjoy, the good times, the bad.....but the key word is share & partnership. For me, without that, there is no marriage & I can't be emotionally available when I feel that way about the marriage.....because in my mind a marriage has to be both or it is nothing.

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Very powerful. I agree. ((((eskielover))))

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Rhapsody said:
I believe this to be due to the fact that we (humans) will continue to pick partners that are the same way until we have personally healed and grown past our own wounded issues / past...... this is what the book and site I mentioned in my first post is all about, good reading.

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I agree. My therapist has said the same--I keep playing out the same relationship from my childhood in an effort to finally do it right. Somehow that makes it seem not so awful to me, that I have chosen this mess of a marriage, like it is some inner attempt to finally conquer my past. I am working on that. I know for sure that this is going to be the last time I am ever with someone like my husband again. Uh, uh, not doing that again. No way. I am growing because of this experience (the 20 year marriage and ending it), and I am growing beyond the need to reenact this. The curtain is going down on this performance.

Rhapsody, I looked at your first post and don't see a link or book mentioned. Can you post it again? Sounds like it might be really helpful.

(((hugs))) for all who need them.

now you all know why i've been divorced for the past 17 years!!! living with someone who isn't emotionally available (and lives in a bubble of his own making) nearly killed me. literally. my BP was high, i was around 98 lbs and a complete emotional wreck. i left him with no self-esteem, no confidence and thoughts of suicide.

he married someone the age of his oldest son and called me about a year later to ask if i would be his confidant!!!!! like hell, i would. actually, what i said was way worse than that and i hung up on him.

people who withdraw, usually have done it early on in life, and we bear the brunt of it when they marry. i've now had two opportunities to marry really fine men and i won't do it. i loved Bill but he wanted me to make changes (moving to WV) that i wasn't comfortable with. Andre has carried a ring around for 20 years and i keep it for awhile and then it goes back to Canada. i am not able to unlock the baggage yet that i have accumulated all of these years alone. i cannot trust a man yet.

i really feel for you all. it doesn't get better, at least my situation didn't. it just chipped away at me until i was like a cardboard woman.....now that i am alone, i am very lonely but can't get over the hurdle of thinking that i may be hurt once again. so, i'm just trying to build a life for myself and slowly move forward .

i'm still dating Andre. he says he's waited since 1986, what's a few more years.......

Right now, I am feeling really good about being alone. I don't feel like I'm at a bad place in life & know that I want & will enjoy being alone. I truely feel that I don't need anyone in my life for company or anything else. Right now, my feelings are that I am truely satisfied with where my life is going....alone on my farm, with my 11 eskies, & horses. Maybe it will be rough not having someone to talk to when I want to say something & have someone hear what I have to say, but then, all it has been it yelling because I feel that what I have been saying isn't heard anyway. So I really haven't lost anything anyway.

I can't imagine ever wanting another relationship in the future. I can't imaging that anyone could ever fill the needs of the partnership role that I really need in the first place. Maybe my expectations were too high in the first place, but high expectations are what I hold for myself.....why should I lower my standards for anyone else that will be close around me. If they aren't of equal mindset, there would only be fights anyway & who needs that just so I can have someone to talk to.

I enjoy talking to my doggies. They don't argue back.....but they do talk in their own little barks & woofs. The peacefulness I have been missing is so needed in my life.

Debbie

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sunrise said:
Rhapsody, I looked at your first post and don't see a link or book mentioned. Can you post it again? Sounds like it might be really helpful.

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Ooops - Sorry there Girl, My Bad..... it was not in this thred, but rather in the first thread I started on a new Relationship T / book - the thread that caused me to create this one.

Here is the LINK to the other thread.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/showf...&o=186&fpart=1

I ordered the book and I am reading it now - it is AWESOME for Understanding the WHY'S - and Chapter 3 tells you all about why and how people tend to pick their mates.

I will write a summary to Chapter 3 later on tonight when I have a little more time.

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bebop said:
I don't know hon. I know my current husband is much different than any I have ever been with.

I won't get married again I don't think if this one goes out the window.

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It is not so much that the men are the same, but more as to what Characteristics they hold in each of them that are similar to your caregivers (from early child hood) - those people and situations that created your early wounds..... each and every one of our mates will mimic the past to us until we are able to heal - in order to complete the unfinished work we all have in an effort to find our true self.

I understand how you feel, for I too have stated that very same thing - either thru death or divorce, all I know is no more relationship man for me.