I started this blog as way to bring out all the thoughts jumbled in my head brought upon by what I had hoped would be a relationship with a charming, intelligent, beautiful Jewish man I had recently met. And he was those things which is what, in the moment baffled me and turned me a bit upside down and on my head, SPLAT!
I have found in writing the posts and re-reading them a few times, I am able to digest the lesson in them and release them. Before I started this blog they would rerun in my head, torturing me. So I am ever grateful to the invention of blogging for offering this to me and for those of you who come and read my blog and post comments and share in my process taking an interest in what I have to say.
So here I am thinking, how could I have found this person, who seemed to be just what I had been asking for, only to realize through not only my mind, but what was happening to my body, that this person was treating me in a toxic way, and that I would have to let go of him quickly? Although I always listened intently to his feelings I found myself completely confused as to why he was always angry about something with me, when I was paying close attention to his wants. My nerves were literally frayed. Days before I broke up with the bloke, I started to get stomach problems. And quite frankly I lost my “drive”…not a good sign for a 36 year old woman!
Basically in a nut shell, no pun intended, he was the kind of guy that designs his relationships by, “I’ll love you if you do this but not that.” (Quote from A Course in Miracles) And well if you don’t understand this women, then read this sentence over and over until you do…no self respecting woman should stay with a man who demands a relationship be had by you with him in this way. He is saying that your worth is based on what you do or think.
In a healthy relationship when one partner is not happy with something the other does, they communicate with each other telling them how it hurts them and then that person listens to what the other has to say, their reasoning or their apology. A discussion of the misunderstandings is had thereby clearing up the misunderstandings. This is normal. This has to happen. But this is different than “I’ll love you if you do this but not that!” The latter is tantamount to being a trained monkey and I am not a trained monkey. I am a smart, beautiful Jewish woman in her mid-thirties ready to meet the right man to be her life partner.
DTM wanted me to change instead of looking within. He didn’t understand that a woman can have a thought or opinion that has no reflection on him, what he felt or thought or did.
I remember the one and only breakfast we had together. Somehow the subject of organic foods came up. It appeared that we held the same views on healthy foods and organic products and I was thrilled. I was thinking we would be able to connect on this. I was thinking I will be able to agree with him and that will make him feel good. WRONG. The mere mention that in order to eat healthier I shop at Whole Foods invited anger in his response. It wasn’t a conversation and exchange of thoughts and ideas, but I had no idea. In his mind it was as if I contradicted him with the idea I had just expressed. I was verbally whipped when he let me know how I just didn’t get it because by the time all that food I buy at Whole Foods gets to me, the chemicals used to package everything and transport it to me has polluted everything, therefore making the organic food itself null and void!
I remember sitting there stunned. It wasn’t the information that stunned me, it was the delivery of it. The tone and the look on his face said, “How dare you say that to me!” And so I said nothing in return. Absolutely nothing.
In similar type conversations I had tried to speak with him about how it was hurting me. What I received in response was, “You don’t realize how you sound. THIS is how it lands for me.”
With this person, for whatever reason, it was always going to be my fault. The script in his head was too strong. It was painful to realize.
I love how Marianne Williamson says in her book, A Return to Love (p66) “Old Newtonian physics claimed that things have an objective reality separate from our perception of them. Quantum physics, and particularly Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, reveal that, as our perception of an object changes, the object itself literally changes…Thus, as A Course in Miracles says, our greatest tool for changing the world is our capacity to change our mind about the world.”
DTM had a certain perception of me and therefore that is what I was. It didn’t matter if I repeated word for word what he said, it would have been received as countering him and landing that way for him. No amount of me saying to him, “change the way you see things and the things you see change,” could help me or us. I wanted it to. But the further we got from the first date the worse his behavior towards me got.
Marianne Williamson writes on page 68 of A Return to Love, “Something that’s important to know about spiritual wisdom is that, when spoken at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or to the wrong person, the one who speaks sounds more like a fool than a wise one.”
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Monday, December 10, 2007
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5 comments:
I forget where I read it, but several years ago I read a passage that said something to the effect that men are generally resistant to change and women often try to force change (although you're ex sounds like the opposite in this regard). It went on to say that change is inevitable and it's only when the man stops resisting change and the woman stops forcing change that a couple can grow and change TOGETHER. From what you've posted it doesn't seem that your ex understood or appreciated that.
Your ex was an idiot. There is NOTHING you would have said or done that would of made this person happy. this person will never be happy. He is afraid of happiness.
It seems to me that your ex is an individual with major control issues... self-control, and control of others. It sounds like he could also benefit from some anger-management therapy.
If your portrait of this individual is accurate (and I have no reason to believe that it is not) then it seems to me that he will never be truly "happy" unless CONFLICT is bred continuously in your relationship, and HE is the one that breeds and controls its existence and tone.
In his mind, (wether he is aware of it or not) that means making you feel badly about yourself after every session of verbal sparring that he encites.
This is not a healthy relationship. It is not love. It is not even "like".
The strongest relationships are ones where both partners are fulfilled emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically. They are the ones where both partners are joyfyully INSPIRED to be the very best people that they can be for each other.
One simply cannot be inspired to improve themselves with the constant conflict and brow-beating of their partner.
That is far too energy-draining.
One cannot feel good about themselves if they feel trapped within a volatile relationship full of anger and negativity.
The truth is that even in the best of relationships, conflict WILL arise. You would both not be human if it did not.
However, conflict should always come with an eye toward resolution and reconciliation from both parties, and a desire to resume a harmonious partnering.
When conflict erupts in the absence of mutual respect, then that is the path to resentment, anger, and even mutual destruction.
And for the partner that has the tendency to remain "silently stunned", as you did in the breakfast episode you cited, eventually only doubt, shame, lonliness and misery are his or her partner.
You are a contientious, attractive young woman who KNOWS that you deserve better. THAT is already your first victory.
Your second victory was getting rid of an emotional CANCER in your life that threatened to poison you several orders faster than the proverbial pesticides that this emotional bully berrated you about.
So take a bow, and then hold your chin up high.
Now, repeatedly reinforcing for YOURSELF that you deserve someone who will respect you and make you feel good about yourself... even in the face of disagreements... will be your ULTIMATE triumph.
A very wise woman I know once said that to me... and I believe she said it to YOU once too.
She was wise indeed. That's why I married her.
Darklord: You were the first male to restore my faith in men, many years ago when it was all I could do to lift myself off my floor each day.
Every single woman who has been blindsighted by an EUM Narcissist should be blessed with such an experience as I was, to allow each of them the chance to know that not all men behave that way, just the ones they keep giving their attention to, thinking this is just the way it is, because they truly do not know that there are other types of men out there to date.
Your words, as always, are very profound and I will be thinking about them a lot. Thank you for sharing. I hope you will continue to do so.
Thank you Lauren, for such kind and flattering words.
And thank you also for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of your life, and to offer my friendship to you in this way.
If my words of advise can help any other troubled individuals that read them, then I am all the more grateful.
Nothing would make me happier than to see this pattern of inappropriate and un-worthy men finally expelled forever from your life.
It WILL happen.
Just keep your faith in God's best desires for you, keep your faith in the goodness and WORTHINESS within yourself, and surround yourself with the love, support, and positivity of good friends and family wherever and whenever possible.
The strong, uplifted, confident, dignified woman that this prescription will create will most effectively REPELL self-centered arrogant losers, and ATTRACT decent, attentive, loving men who ARE out there looking for someone special just like you.
And you can most certainly count on me to periodically share my thoughts with you and others in this blog .
After all, life is simply NOT worth living if it is absent of compassion for others.
That's my view anyway. And I suspect that this is a tenet of life that your most recent male comanion never learned.
The unfortunate likely result is that he will never truly be happy with anyone in his life, AND he will continue to make others around him un-happy as well.
That's NOT what you deserve. That's NOT the type of person you're "destined" to be with.
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