Ok, so instead of filling this post with paragraphs and fluff, I'm going to get right down to it and make use of lists moreso than my typical writing. I'm gonna change the names to protect the innocent and all that jazz. First of all let's establish the relationships of merit (there's one of the five that are pretty much inconsequential, so I'll leave it out).
Relationships:
1. Clarissa--My first love, lasted 3 months
2. Suzanna--My first relationship after tanking hard from my first love 5 years prior, lasted 2 months
3. Yazmine--I'll give my exwife an interesting name (instead of the negative route), lasted 6 years.
4. Isabella--first relationship outside of the divorce, lasted 3 months
It's not my fault, it's hers:
***Write down all the reasons why your past relationships didn't work out. Not from a "what did I do wrong" stance, but "what did she do wrong.***
1. Clarissa: This relationship was really doomed to failure, not only because we were so young, but because it was like a pressure cooker boiling up. What did she do wrong? I'm finding it hard to find things. As far as the relationship was concerned, I was like a puppy dog in love. I don't think I harbor any ill feelings towards her. I hardly ever see her anymore. I suspect that she was using me as a cover up for the situation between her and an older man in our church, but I have no way of seeing if that was a fact or not. This relationship is too old and long ago for me to think of any details that she did wrong. The relationship itself was very good (in a puppy dog sort of way). I had the butterflies, the whole nine yards. It was the ending of this relationship that was my undoing, not the relationship itself (or her). Blech, first one and I already am not following the exercise. Don't worry, I got bullet points for the rest of them. :D
Why she was emotionally unavailable to me: I'm not so sure she wasn't. Which is an interesting thought that this was the only relationship I've been in that's been like that. But discovering that all relationships after this one has been affected by this first real one isn't something that's new. But seeing it in this light, makes it interesting to me.
2. Suzanna:A. She was a bit of a slut
B. She had just ended a long term relationship with her boyfriend
C. She used me as a rebound for that
D. She was a party girl, wild and uninhibited, and she didn't really care ABOUT me. She was using me.
E. She was fucking four other guys while with me
F. She didn't respect me
Why she was emotionally unavailable to me: I was a rebound to her. She had just come off a serious relationship and she wasn't ready for anything serious at all. She wanted to experiment around with other guys. I wanted more than she had to offer.
3. Yazmine: (where the hell do I start?)
A. She was overly jealous
B. She was clingy
C. She was a fucking slob
D. She had mental issues (not professionally, but I won't go into why I know that)
E. She had issues with me going out with friends
F. She had issues with my mother
G. She pulled me away from my family
H. All she wanted to do was eat, sleep, fuck, or go visit family. I was bored with that and with her.
I. She had no drive to do anything
J. She took took took took toook took took with little give. She wanted ME to give, and got upset the times I wouldn't.
K. She walked around the house all the time naked. PLEASE, leave SOMETHING to my imagination if you want to have sex with me.
I'll stop there. I could spend days and days on this list. Those are the main ones that came to mind immediately and I stopped where I had to pause to think of something else.
Why she was emotionally unavailable to me: For years I've believed that she was emotionally unavailable to me because I was emotionally unavailable to her, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. I was never into her the way I probably should have been. I went out with her the first time, not because I truly wanted to or was extremely attracted to her (there was attraction but not the way it should be), but because I felt guilty that I knew she had a huge crush on me and her friends kept telling me to ask her out. I was always forced toward this relationship instead of naturally being drawn, so on a lot of levels I was never fully invested in her. But in the interest of looking at it from what SHE did, let me see if there's anything I think of. She was young (like 16 when we met), and she'd never had a serious relationship before either. So neither one of us really knew how relationships worked. She wanted to stay in a box, I wanted to be free (in a sense). I wanted to get away from our hometown and branch out, she got homesick the year we were away when I was at college and didn't want to leave. We were always on two different wavelengths, and hence I now believe that we were just incompatible, although we intially hit it off and got along great. We went from being that lovey couple everybody was jealous of, to just the opposite and the transition tore us apart.
4. Isabella: (the positives far outweigh the negatives, so I consider this to be my only "plus" relationship to date, so the negative stuff here is overshadowed by the good stuff. But it is a writing exercise after all and I want to do this publicly...so...)
A. She was too far away
B. There was very little (almost non-existent) face time
C. She was just coming off a long term relationship
D. She didn't (and couldn't) cut ties with her ex because there were kids involved, but I think the relationship with him was probably inappropriate from what I told her I wanted.
E. She had detachment issues (can't remember the right word for it right now). Basically she never allowed anyone to get close to her, and if they did she would push them away.
F. Her idea of a serious relationship clashed with what I would have eventually wanted in a serious relationship.
G. She would tell me things that I specifically told her NOT to tell me. I suspect as an attempt to try and make me jealous or get a reaction out of me of some kind.
H. Her bond with her ex was just far too strong for any other guy to break.
Why she was not emotionally available to me: She too had just come out of a serious relationship, and her number one devotion has always and will always be to only one man, I suspect until death of one or the other of them. She never really had it to offer, because it's already there for someone else. And even though she became physically available, there was never any chance of emotional availability because of that strong bond. She couldn't be available to me, because she could never be kept apart from him. And I actually admire that, even if I don't admire the way they cope with it (by constant separation and reconciliation).
Conclusions:
Something I discovered from this exercise is something I've always been aware of, but have never looked at from an "emotionally available" point of view. That the ending of my first relationship has spiralled this intense desire to protect myself. I went through massive pain on that first break up and I've never truly reconciled myself to face opening myself up to that pain again.
I came close in my last relationship, by being completely and totally honest (well, 99% of the time anyway), not holding anything back, allowing myself to let go and just relish the experience while it lasted. But the distance was there in the form that it was always going to be an impossible relationship. And I think I knew that, but I didn't allow myself to truly realize that.
Stay tuned for the second half of this exercise to be continued later...
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