Before all of the drama yesterday, I had intended to post about what H told me about issues he's dealing with in therapy.
I always knew that H had a picture of himself being a "lone wolf" and a "self-contained unit" that didn't need or want a relationship. He's the kind of person who is very sensitive, but builds 10" inch thick concrete steel-reinforced walls around his vulnerable feelings and inner self.
Most of his life, he'd had a long series of friendships with women that involved sex. He seemed to move in and out of these friendships easily with no serious emotional connections. Most of those women told him that he was a great guy, a good friend, but seemed so adverse to commitment that they just moved on after a while.
When he and I got together, he was almost 40 and for the first time he really fell in love and really wanted to be in a relationship. I could see that even though he still had problems with intimacy, he let me in more than he ever had with anyone. I really felt honored that he did that and thought that he would in-time see that I was a safe person to do that with and that he would find acceptance and love the more he let me in.
I did get better that way for a long time, then it started going backwards. He started pulling back in to the point where he nearly shut me out entirely then began an EA.
He says he told his therapist that he wants to come home and also knows that I've been very patient but felt that he shouldn't test my patience much longer.
The therapist told him that she was worried about him coming home. He has described to her and to me that he likes being with people and loves being in a family, but has a low tolerance level for being with people for too long. When he reaches that tolerance level, he goes into his cave mentally and emotionally for a long time and starts craving solitude and fantasizing about running away from everything and everyone. He has, at various points in his life, gotten to that stage and did a big cut and run. He left everything behind and would literally run to the other side of the world and not look back. He has had a pattern of sabotaging himself and then running away from the mess.
The therapist said that, after looking at his MMPI test and getting to know him, that she was very surprised that he had chosen people-oriented professions and had chosen to be in a committed relationship and in a family.
He's not quite full-blown antisocial and a recluse, but close enough to cause problems. I also have a strong streak of that, so for a long time, we allowed each other lots of alone time and didn't feel threatened about that.
H also had it pointed out to him that he rarely uses "we" statements, and uses lots of "I" statements. I know exactly what the therapist is talking about there....I always noticed that when he'd talk about anything beyond the near future, it was almost like he didn't see me in the picture!
The therapist said they need to get to the root of his problem with sabotaging/isolating/cut and run escape behaviour and they had barely scratched that surface. They think his A was very much a part of that pattern. The therapist is worried that he will come home and then in a year or so start back into that behaviour and wanting to isolate and escape to a place he can have extreme solitude and absolute control.
All of this rings very true to me. I'd be a lot more worried if I didn't know that H intended to be in therapy long-term to work on these issues.
I do have to realistically question my goals here. I love him very much and he's my best friend. I want our R enough to go through all of this crap of trying to rebuild our R. Could it be though, that no matter what we do and no matter how much we love each other....his basic personality and makeup is incompatible with having a long-term R? I seriously wonder if this is one of those situations where I should just say "I'll always love you, but this won't work because we can't change who we truly are".
I'd really love to hear some feedback from you all about these questions. I'd especially like to hear some objective feedback Shiny and Yashie and a few of the other folks around here with expertise in psychology.
