I agree with your reasoning, Mojo. I think you should keep thinking of him/referring to him as "lover"-- that emphasizes your relationship as one of pleasure, not possesiveness or ownership, etc. Good thinking.
and one day I had this brilliant insight: it wasn't that I wanted to be WITH him; I wanted to BE him.
I think this is brilliant and does explain alot of fused behaviour. If you want to BE someone then you want to merge with them. You want them to mind-read, you want them to feel your emotions you get upset at anything that indicates their differentiation from you, because that ruins the fantasy that you are them and just as cool/smart/physically fit etc as they are.
What I am wondering is how it happens the other way? Why would someone who gets involved with someone who wants to be them stick with the relationship, because a lot do, is it simply a strong need for other validation?
Mojo: I absolutely agree with Lil that are on the right track by thinking of NG as your 'lover' not your 'boyfriend'.
Last night I took my wedding ring off. I've done it before and it was for the same reason. I do not want H and I to take each other for granted, I want us both to be always reminded that the R takes work not a piece of paper and a couple of gold rings to keep functioning well.
I went out to a BBC Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall last night with colleagues. The music was amazing and we had a great time. It was while I was listening to the music and thinking about the fact that H does not like music that I realised that there is no way that I am spending the rest of my life doing things which keep me shackled to someone who is so different from me. I am not saying I want us to split, all I am saying is that I completely get the Schnarchian bar scene. I am open to whatever will come my way in life and thinking is H going to be OK with this is really not going to concern me anymore.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
I think this is brilliant and does explain alot of fused behaviour. If you want to BE someone then you want to merge with them. You want them to mind-read, you want them to feel your emotions you get upset at anything that indicates their differentiation from you, because that ruins the fantasy that you are them and just as cool/smart/physically fit etc as they are.
I recently read somewhere "Opposites attract, then attack." My 2bx is very introverted and because I am the daughter of a manic-depressive, I have borderline qualities that cause me to sort of swing down into introversion then back up into extroversion. I felt like I was being punished all the time in my marriage because it seemed like my 2bx kept acting to keep me in my more introverted somewhat depressive mode. It is fairly apparent to me that I have been shopping for the "opposite" with my dating. All three of the men to whom I have been strongly attracted personality-wise so far (including the 2 I atually had sex with)were more extroverted/social than me (When I toddle around town with NG every place we go somebody comes up and say "Hi" to him and I find myself in the role of the relatively quiet blond on his arm. It's truly bizarre for me). It's like I'm telling myself I deserve the reward of being with someone who is fun and will act to keep me in a slightly manic mode. So, I predict that if I'm not self-aware the next mistake I will make is that I will end up in a LTR/marriage with somebody like Bill Clinton (and you guys know I ain't no Hilary).
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
When you begin to live in an unfused way it feels like a breath of fresh air. Last nite my H wanted to ML and I just did not have a shred of sexuality to work with, and I turned him down. Now this is huge, because I have made a mental note to myself never to reject him and to push through when I am feeling LD. And most of the time I am happy afterwards, but there have been times where I just felt overextended. Last nite I really felt my boundaries and knew my limit and I turned him down. And as mrs.cac says, the sky did not fall. I worked through the fusion to get to a place where I feel I try to do the right thing, but sometimes I have to do the right thing for myself. I felt free of the guilt that has plagued me from my past LD behavior.
Incidentally, in the middle of the night I suddenly got horny, and I think it was a result of this psychological freeing. So I took my panties off and somewhere early morning H got the message!
I am really thinking that this whole fusion/differentiation Schnarch-type stuff is just so on track. It's like I installed anti-fusion scanware into my brain. Unfortunately it makes the simplest of decisions much more complicated as I try to work through what's fused and what's not. I guess as I know myself better this will get easier.
It is the exact same thing with sex, and, I would suspect, the reason CeMar feels so dissatisfied... why many HD people feel so dissatisfied with sex.
BINGO! With sex, it is the same way. If you only get it when you ask for it and never get an indication of desire for it otherwise it is exactly the same feeling. In fact so much so, that I'm finding it is often hard to get/maintain an erection knowing that she's only doing it because of me, not because she wants it for herself.
Yes... however, for you to accept crap sex is akin to someone fishing for a compliment:
Quote:
For me to 'fish for a compliment' from him would be my own attempt to 'fuse' with him. Anything he might deliver after my 'fishing' will not feel genuine, to both he and I, because I am prompting him to give it. He now cannot give freely, and with feeling, for in my 'fishing,' I have robbed him of the opportunity.
Everyone, including HD's, understand how unattractive it is to fish for compliments... but replace the above 'fish for compliments,' with 'fish for sex.'
An HD might do that every now and then, and get away with it, but if they constantly seek LD crap sex, all it will do is repel the LD.
And to me, that is the contribution the HD makes to the SSM. You can see it with a compliment, but you can't see it with sex. And please do not tell me it isn't the same thing. Unattractive behavior is unattractive behavior, regardless of what you are asking for.
I actually agree with you here. I guess the reason why we keep "fishing for sex" anyway is that if we don't then there is none forthcoming. Now I do realize (thanks to the recent discussions here for reminding me), that there are things the HD can do to make a compliment more likely without directly fishing for it, but it sure isn't the obvious path, and I know I was totally blind to it before coming here. It is way to easy to be lazy about it and revert to fishing rather than doing the hard work to make yourself more attractive.
That said, I think the making more attractive will only go so far for a give pair of personalities.
Obviously... we need a workshop. We can do this. Would u b willing?
LOL. I have lately been thinking of this board as the 'Univeristy of Relationships' or how about the 'University of the Erotic' that sounds more fun. What with Mojo submitting essays, Corri setting up workshops, Lil submitting book lists for us all. We study and debate and conduct field trials, report our results back to the class. This is definitely a place of higher learning.
When do we get to graduate?
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Yes, I would be. At this point I feel like I've got one foot nailed to the floor, and have been hovering around a state of don't care anymore. Mainly because I'm so mired in my own sh!t that I can't see my way out.
