Several months ago I wrote a series of blogs about different masks that we wear, that I wear, when it comes to relationships. One of the masks that I focused on was “The Sabotager”. As I re-read what I wrote about that mask before I started writing this blog, I was almost in disbelief that I had written these words less than a year ago. It’s not that I didn’t believe them when I wrote them, it just feels like now, months and many experiences later, I understand these words at a level that is far deeper than I could have imagined back then.
So, to put it bluntly, I recently figured out that I sabotage relationships. And in figuring out that I do this, I almost lost out on another relationship that had a lot of great qualities. After dating a really great guy for only a couple weeks I noticed my anxiety level creeping upwards and recognized that no matter how much I tried to be nonchalant, I continued to let my mind get the best of me. On one particular night we had a minor miscommunication and while I do maintain that the consideration of communication that I was asking for was still appropriate, after a two hour conversation regarding this conflict that should never happen at that point in a relationship, something within me clicked. As the days had been passing by, I was actually preparing for him to break my heart. Though he never gave any indication that he was, in fact he continually affirmed how much he enjoyed spending time with me and liked who I was, I was choosing instead to listen to past experiences and my negative internal loop instead of actually looking at reality.
Making it through that conversation and still being committed to getting to know each other left me both with a sense of relief and peace, but also some major reflection that I needed to do in regards to what my anxiety was all about, why my reaction was so inflated and really what the hell had just happened. As I sat in my chair with my coffee, a book and my journal in hand the next morning I slowly but surely came to the profound realization that as much as I desire a deep and intimate relationship, life has handed me enough experiences that often times make me less than hopeful of that happening. And as much as I hate the ending of any relationship and the depth of loneliness that it seems to leave me, I have truly become an expert at dealing with it. And if I am being honest, there is a sense of seduction in being the perpetual victim—passed over again and again by various men.
The fact of the matter is, being in a relationship is risky. It involves vulnerability and courage and always leaves a possibility that you could get hurt. And if you have been in relationships that have ended less than amicably, it would seem that your natural reaction would be to create some sort of defense mechanism that is designed to protect you from the pain of relationships ending.
Perhaps its pride or maybe just my own blind spot, but it was hard for me to recognize these sabotaging patterns for quite a long time. I never had any extreme behaviors, public meltdowns, rants or overly dramatic instances that would have been, obviously, sabotaging. For me I think it was more that I went in to a relationship expecting it to end and expecting to get hurt, so I made sure that it happened in too many cases. While I never made things up or took extreme measures to sabotage a relationship, I do know that my expectations that I projected onto my potential-future-boyfriends surely did not make staying with me easy. And while there have been a few of those guys along the way where the ending of the relationship truly was all on them and NOT due to my sabotaging behaviors, I can look back now and see that there were many other relationship endings that had at least in some part to do with my own efforts to make my self-fulfilling prophecies come true.
In my last blog I talk about the process of figuring out the way to date that most greatly reflects my desires and values. I have come to realize that in finding this balance involves looking at the pace at which a relationship develops and in focusing on this I have realized this is the area that I am prone to sabotage a relationship. Prior to the last few months I had gotten used to relationships starting (and ending) quickly. Within days we were spending every day together, communicating all day and even having conversations discussing our futures together. But 6-8 weeks in, things fizzled out and I was left again by myself on a Friday night.
With this as a pattern beginning to become ingrained in my mind, you can imagine that a few weeks into a relationship triggers my body and mind into an automatic panic response. I’ve been through it so many times it seems that my body naturally begins to believe the end is near and sometimes even forces the end of the relationship through various means.
So, you can imagine my surprise and uncertainty when, a few weeks into our relationship we had only gone on a handful of dates, texted sporadically and talked on the phone when our schedules allowed. Though I was told this was normal dating, it was so far from my traditional experiences that it became difficult to know how to handle it in a mature way. So I began doing the only thing I knew how to do: sabotage the relationship. I took something small and allowed it to be made into a much bigger deal than I needed to make it and prepared myself for him to end it with me that night. But he didn’t. And I admit, I had no clue how to handle it. Yet, something was very right. Call it super natural patience, grace or whatever, he calmly identified the ways that he made it clear, several times each day, that he was interested in me and wanting to pursue a relationship with me. And after explaining it, he stuck around. And he was there the next day. And the day after that.
For me that was, what a therapist would call, an emotionally corrective experience. Throughout my entire life I have been told that I am too much to handle and that I need to find someone who will ‘put up with me’. I suppose many times I have created situations in which I have become too much to handle and basically fulfilled that prophecy in my life. For many years I prayed for a man that COULD handle the intensity of me, one that wouldn’t walk away the first sign of trouble. It took me a while to believe for myself that I wasn’t too much to handle and that the people who told me that repeatedly were wrong, but to have someone stand in front of you and reflect back the opposite of that cognitive distortion, stick around and remind me over and over what he likes about me, provides a healing experience that acts as a loudspeaker over those negative messages.
In the days following that instance I have caught myself daily, naturally turning towards sabotaging actions when my anxiety arises. I do wish they would go away and that my gut reaction would be one of peace and presence, but I do think that the next best thing is being able to observe myself and choose how to act in a different way. So now, though the pattern is new, I am proud to say that I have started developing a new pattern: not sabotaging a relationship. And in that I have come, face to face, on a brand new level with both the risk and reward that is involved in a relationship. Not sabotaging means I don’t get to control the situation in an effort to protect myself. Not sabotaging means that I get to be present in the relationship. Not sabotaging allows love to enter in.
[Author’s Note: This blog was written a little over a month prior to being posted so lest you get your hopes up that perhaps I am dating someone, no worries, this one also disappeared a couple weeks later! However, I am grateful for the lessons that I learned, they were much needed. Additionally, it’s great to know that there truly was nothing that I could have done differently, his disappearance was on his own accordance; stay tuned for the next blog for my theories on this phenomenon!]
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