Cold differentiation, fusion and stuff.

[fearless]

Hi Cobra.

Martelo is going to regret having both of us on his thread with our long posts

Your comments are interesting to me and I have some sincere questions about them so please bear with me because I am asking in order to understand and not to be contrary. (Okay a little contrary ) )

Giving is altruistic and out of concern for the other, but the getting is always somewhere in the back of my mind, and I think in the back of everyone’s mind.

This sentence confused me a bit. First you say giving is altruistic (selfless) but then you say it's not (selfish - getting is ALWAYS in the back of of the mind). So which is it for you - selfless or selfish? And do you believe that everyone thinks like you?

Then the statement that it is in the back of everyone's mind is not true for ME. I can't believe that I am the only one that feels that way either! NOW it's true that I get something out of giving. I get peace of mind that I am doing the right thing, that I am caring for someone, that I am acting true to the person I most want to be, etc. BUT I do NOT do things to get something in return from OTHERS.

It comforts me to know that she has a need for me and that I can provide for that need (a la Dieda).

How does that sentence have anything to do with Dieda?

Also you don't seem to be comforted by your wife's NEED to talk to you about her work issues. Her need is to talk to you and you could provide for that need by listening to her. Instead that need of hers irritates you and "makes" you resent her. I'm curious as to why you resent that need especially given the statement you just made above. Which needs of her do you like providing for?

There is some disconnect between your earlier comments about disliking your wife's need to complain AND your statement that you are comforted by being needed. I am just curious whether you see it as a disconnect.

But with my past, I have been conditioned to learn that the decision of today will not be the decision of tomorrow. My mother would be all sweet and kind one day, doing things for me, showing concern, and then the next day she could be ticked off over something, go into a rage, then decide to cut off whatever support she had offered earlier. Her decision, though emotionally fueled, was still a decision. She could choose to turn on or off support on a whim, and so any relationship with her purely out of choice was dangerous.

Do you believe that your mom really made a choice? Do you believe she was conscious enough of herself to be emotionally deciding to be in a rage? I just wonder if her actual "choice" was more about choosing not control herself. I don't remember reading much about her before so it's hard for me to know much from the little you wrote here.

Ironically the one thing that did hold us together was the emotional bond, the same thing that drove her to take such crazy actions/reactions in the first place. The tie of the emotional connection is what kept us coming back together even when the relationship had been severed. The emotional tug or the fusion was the one thing I COULD count on, even though the timing of when we reconciled was uncertain. Fusion brought a level of certainty.

This sounds so much like the stories of abuse I have heard of. One counselor I read wrote about a 7 year old girl in the hospital for having her fingers tips severely burned. The 7 year old could not stop screaming and crying for her mother and couldn't be consoled by any one else. Can you guess who it was that purposely burned her finger tips?

I have NEVER seen anyone who is really differentiated.

Interesting. I am and my best friends are all differentiated. Plenty of others that I know and have met have seemed pretty differentiated also. Now of course I can't say that we are perfectly differentiated but then again most fused people are "perfectly" fused. I'm talking about the overall general tendency of people. (To be clear, it is like calling someone smart. That doesn't mean that they NEVER do something stupid or make a mistake. It just means that overall they are smart. (However you want to define it - I.Q., common sense, etc.))

I can better understand how the idea of being fused (however unpleasantly, cruelly and potentially abusively) can seem so much better to you than the idea being differentiated. Your description about your mom and your relationship with her definitely seems like the framework for other relationships (especially with women). You don't seem to have an emotional foundation on which to believe and trust that women can be strong and nurturing and caring. That is something that no one deserves to have to grow up without and unfortunately I am learning (from the boards and from conversations with friends) that it is much more common that I have ever realized.