The idea of a life partner to support you in times of distress, and to share good times and bad, is pretty attractive to most people. Its just such as shame that the whole process - from locking eyes across a crowded bingo hall to finding yourself contemplating bloody murder at the local pub - is generally laced with an exquisite form of pain that is at least as addictive as the most popular narcotic (or possibly even chocolate).
As a species, we are hard-wired to crave intimate social contact, and partnering with a significant other is an instinctive human trait. Many animals share this trait, to differing degrees, and all animals are impelled by biological forces to seek out and couple with others of the same species (or, in a few disturbing cases, with members of different species).
The human experience of this ubiquitous trait is somewhat more complicated than most, though, and it is the intricacies of this particular dance that usually has me, at best completely bewildered and at worst curled up in the foetal position wishing the planet would just stop turning.
Like many people with emotional issues, I have discovered that I instinctively seek out partners that are broken and in need of serious and sustained emotional attention. Listening, supporting and fretting over some-one else’s dramas is a lovely, self-serving form of avoidance that is guaranteed to make me look and feel like a sensitive martyr, while at the same time neatly sidestepping any feelings I may have about anything that may actually be going on in my own reality.
So, I am into serial monogamy with people who need constant emotional attention and who are usually incapable of reciprocating and offering any real support in return. This, of course, is something that I do, in fact, need quite a bit of. So you can see where problems might arise. (I suspect that I am not alone in this fun little vortex of mental and emotional instability.)
The dance continues every day, as I try to decide whether to continue the stop-start rhythm of the beat I have been grooving to for the last seven years, or admit defeat, give up on the whole thing and get off the dance-floor (that’s it for the dancing metaphors – I promise).
As everything else in life continues to confound me, I have to decide if I should enjoy the safe haven of being with someone I love dearly - but is clearly giving me more to deal with than I need - or trying to struggle on with life feeling very alone, but knowing it is probably for the best in the long run.
I have friends. I do interact with other people regularly, although less so since I have been out of work. But the comfort of being with someone that knows me inside and out, that finishes my sentences before I have the first word out, and that makes me feel actively loved just by sitting in a room with me, is very seductive and it is very easy to fall back into toxic patterns. I tell myself that, since I know this, I will be less likely to actually do so, but I suspect I may be being a little optimistic.
In the short term, I have opted for the feel-good, but maybe illusionary, safety of a slightly limited form of familiar territory. I do feel a whole lot better for having someone that I know loves me around (even if he does have his own demons that are crazy about going a few rounds with mine). I have no idea whether this will turn out to be a positive long-term strategy, but like everything, I will just need to give it a little time before I can make any definitive assessments.
Depending on my mental state – I will keep you posted.
______________________________________________
Feel free to copy and publish this article online, but please include the authors details and link below.
Author:
Neurons works online from where ever she happens to be a the time.Learn how you can do it, too, by visiting www.neurons.ws or www.livedontwork.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment