katy
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Post by katy on Aug 17, 2016 13:14:44 GMT
I found your post fascinating and extremely helpful. Several of your statements were almost word for word what I heard from the avoidant whom I dealt with. It was very interesting to read about these interactions from an avoidant's point of view. My background is that I've been married for over 20 years to a man who also has hermit-like tendencies. He can be very fun and charming in public, but he prefers to retreat to his comfort zone and isn't especially interested in interacting with too many people when he's off work. My husband was pretty commitment-phobic when we first met and we dated for five years before we got married. After five years, we knew that we were daily-life compatible. We've always tried to figure out compromises to situations that aren't working for either of us. It's certainly not always perfect, but we try very hard to negotiate settlements if one of us feels that there's a problem. We also both try to act according to Stephen Covey's Emotional Bank Account: integratedleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Your_Emotnal_Bank_Acct.pdf. As an example, once in a while I can go down into worry spirals and my husband, even though he'd probably rather be reading a book, will listen to me when I need to talk out a situation. I try to accommodate him by not demanding that he participate in lots of things that I know he doesn't enjoy like going to the grocery store. I try to leave him alone to be a hermit unless it's critical that I need his presence. My avoidant story: I met a dog breeder who helped us to train our rescue dog. He seemed charming and very friendly to me and to my husband. Since I'm not a hermit, I had more interaction with him than my husband did. The dog breeder quickly give me the impression that he was delighted to know us. We got along so well that the breeder and I began to write an article for his Web site about my experiences training our dog. As we began the writing, he did mention a few times that he found it a drain when so many people wanted so much interaction to talk about their dogs. I assumed that I was in the inner circle and that he was talking about other people that he had less connection to. We had what seemed like a friendly connection for about six months. I probably reached out more to him, but he was always immediately, apparently, happily responsive. He appeared so friendly that my husband and I were actually going to visit him and to meet his dogs. Suddenly, the breeder started telling me that he was really busy with work and that we had to limit our communications to text messages. I assumed that he was busy with work and that things would return to normal when the rush was over. Then, he began telling me that I was tormenting him and bothering him and finally things evolved into him basically hating me. I tried to assure him that I'm a reasonable person and I suggested that we could talk about how we could develop a compromise so that both of us could feel OK. My suggestion about a compromise to allow us to finish writing the article sent him into very erratic, shunning behavior. Your post helped me to see that he didn't state, in a way that was clear enough for me to understand, that he was beginning to feel pressured. If I had understood what he was trying to tell me and if he had been able to compromise, we could have figured out the best way to interact. What I saw was a person who appeared to be very content with how we were interacting, when, actually, his tension level must have been building up until he felt overwhelmed and he felt compelled to very nastily withdraw so that he would get rid of me. It was extremely confusing and very hurtful to have somebody who had seemed so kind and praising, suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, go for the jugular and try to eviscerate me. I may be reading it wrong, but what I saw in some of your descriptions is that you've gotten into situations where you tried to be cooperative until you reached your limit and then you had to get away. I'm an animal rescuer and it seems incredible that a woman who wanted to marry you would so misread you that she would expect you to give up your rescue animals. And, with the current woman, from my experience, you and she could develop compromises about how much money you spend, how the house is arranged, how much free time you need, etc. You really gave me some very valuable insights. You have reconfirmed that some people have a higher need of restorative alone time. The trick seems to be to be able, early in the relationship, to negotiate with another person to get your needs met and also to allow the other person to feel OK. If you start negotiating early in a relationship, you'll be able to see if compromises work with the other person. You'll also be able to see if they can respect your need for alone time and for independence. I hope things work out for you. Best wishes, Katy |
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Post by Mary on Aug 22, 2016 22:01:45 GMT
Hi DH, I definitely relate to your battery metaphor. I don't know why, but it's very difficult to recharge the battery while still in a relationship. I get towards the bottom of the barrel and try to run on fumes and become more irritated and irrational. The problem for me is that I don't always know why I am irritated or that I need to ask for space until it's too late. I think that the right partner will give space when it's needed and it sound like you need more space and independence than you are getting. I, too, never really know if the things that irritate me actually irritate me or if it's just an excuse to leave the relationship. The mind has a way of playing tricks on you. It will do anything to rationalize the fear.
Even though I am very aware of the pitfalls of my avoidant issues, in a lot of situations, I can't avoid acting the way I do.
Like you, I go back and forth, wondering if it's best to just be alone, or keep on combating the issue. I have had several years of therapy, which have helped make me aware of the issues and why they are there, however, it has not been able to really "change" the way I think.
The only reason I am in a relationship today, is that my partner is aware of my issue and somehow, accepts it as part of me. I say and do stupid irrational things and somehow he stands by me.
I don't have any advice as I am in the same boat. The one real thing that I have learned this far, is it takes a very special person to handle what I call my "madness" and I am hoping one day, I can learn enough so that I don't have the knee jerk reactions.
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dh
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Post by dh on Aug 30, 2016 20:18:29 GMT
Not too many posts on this forum ... I just thought I'd chime back in to say that I talked about the DA stuff with my therapist, and also talked about some of the difficulties my partner and I are having, and he thinks that it isn't all just DA. We're definitely having a rough time because she gave up a job to move in with me, and hasn't found a new one, so I'm picking up all of her expenses in the meantime. I'm feeling unappreciated, as all of the income I'm making from working extra hours goes toward her expenses, and instead of thank yous I hear things like, 'Some men would be proud that they're able to provide for a partner.' That may be true, but being told essentially that I should be pleased to be able to work extra and not enjoy the income for myself is a bit ... much. So, maybe I do have some DA tendencies. But I'm also in a situation where reverting to a more solo/hermit lifestyle would leave me with more money, more time for hobbies I enjoy, and greater peace of mind. Back to that battery metaphor ... it's like I'm a battery that's worn down, and instead of getting recharged, lately my partner has drawn more and more out of me. Who _wouldn't_ want to step out of that situation?
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katy
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Post by katy on Aug 31, 2016 3:07:51 GMT
I'm definitely not avoidant and I would still be pretty annoyed by her comment - to me it sounded very ungrateful and high-handed. It maybe too late because too many relationship patterns have been set and you may not feel motivated enough to save a relationship with this particular woman, but, in my view, this situation where she hasn't found a job as soon as expected, is a "family" problem that needs discussion and compromise to resolve.
I believe that you said that this woman wanted to get married. Being married means that you are a team who work together to solve family problems. This is a pre-marriage "family" problem which has many potential solutions which could be brainstormed, discussed, and put into action. You both could develop a "family" budget where you both make decisions about how the available money will be spent (since you earned the money you definitely have a say in how it gets spent), you could figure out how to cut down on expenses (for example, she cooks meals instead of you both going out to dinner), she does some kind of work such as temporary work or substitute teaching while she's job hunting in her field, etc.
Your needing free time to yourself is another thing that can be brainstormed and negotiated. You need what you need and she needs what she needs and hopefully she's mature and independent enough to allow you to recharge your batteries
If this woman isn't willing to sit down and work to solve these "family" problems, she's probably not very collaborative, and will probably not be a very successful marriage partner.
And, since I'm already throwing my two cents in, from what you've said, I'm pretty suspicious of her life planning ability. Why did she give up a job, move, and not have a job-hunting period plan all worked out with you before she got there? To just assume that you'd fully support her without any pre-planning and discussion seems pretty like pretty poor planning.
Working out this budget / money situation will give you a great opportunity to see who she really is. Is she collaborative and hard-working to support your "family" or is she very entitled and just assumes that you'll do all of the work?
Best wishes,
Katy
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dh
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Post by dh on Sept 1, 2016 15:00:49 GMT
That's all good advice. We have (sort of) developed a "family budget," but it's one in which I'm paying for everything at the moment, including her adult daughter's cell phone (they're on a plan together & that's the only way to ensure that the daughter has a phone). Living alone, I'm super-thrifty (I cut and stack my own firewood and heat with it in the winter, for example - saves on electricity AND on a gym membership. I don't even like using the oven in the summer when we have the AC on, because the oven adds heat to the house - so cutting out things like restaurant meals is already a way of life for me). I'm actually the one who is less willing to 'sit down and talk about' things, only because I see that as a single person I pretty much had everything figured out in managing my personal finances, and in stuff like the household chores. Life was really pretty easy for me as a single guy. I spent less than I made; laundry on weekends, make a loaf of bread in the bread machine weekly to pack my lunches, etc.) I didn't need to buy a lot of stuff or go out much. I tend not to want to be collaborative, because what I've learned about being on a team is that I end up doing all the work, and the experience I'm having currently doesn't dispel that notion for me. (For example, before she moved in, she pledged a donation to her college on a monthly payment plan; now she can't afford that donation, so guess who's paying her monthly charitable contribution? Right ... the teammate over here.)
I mean, if you were to offer me free room and board, plus pay my monthly expenses like cell phone & car insurance; and I had my own car ... I wouldn't also ask you for cigarette money too. I'd get a job at one of the many restaurants near me that have signs out that say "NOW HIRING" just to pay for my own gas and cigarettes, if nothing else. But that's just me.
So as a person who can identify pretty closely with all of the stuff Jeb's book says about Avoidants, my concern is that if I marry this person, I'm just in deeper with no incentive for the situation I'm in now to get better or change. It just gives the "team" more power over me.
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katy
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Post by katy on Sept 1, 2016 17:34:01 GMT
My quick take is that you don't sound very enchanted with this woman and that marrying her could be a nightmare for you. She sounds as though she has no concept of how you choose to spend / save money and that probably things would only get worse as time goes on.
You're in a situation which sounds difficult - she's in your house without an income and she seems very unconcerned about how she's imposing on your goodwill. What would happen if you changed the rules of the game and said that in one month you weren't going to work overtime and that you were going to run the house the way that makes you feel comfortable financially? That would mean that her adult daughter can pay for her own cell phone and she can pay for her own college donations and cigarettes. She'll have a month to decide if she wants to start living according to your values and get a job or if she wants to move out. Only you know how you'd feel if she moved out but it doesn't sound as though you'd be all that ripped up if you were left to your own devices. If you feel really guilty that she moved to be with you, and if she has absolutely no savings, you could give her a good-bye stipend to pay for a deposit on an apartment and for a few expenses until she gets a job.
It's not avoidant to want to be in a relationship with somebody who shares your values. You're seeing a side to this woman which might not have been so obvious when she had an independent income stream, but how people spend money is an extremely important part of relationship compatibility.
This woman definitely sounds to me as though she has no problem imposing on you and not contributing her fair share. Please remember, before you get married, she's theoretically on her best behavior - after you are married, all of this would probably get worse. After you got married, she would feel 100% entitled!
You absolutely have the right to live the way you want to and, as difficult as it is, it's better to deal with the situation now rather than after you get married and have years of misery.
Good luck,
Katy
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dh
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Post by dh on Sept 6, 2016 19:30:44 GMT
Thank you for those kind words. It is indeed a difficult situation; it will unfold over time until something either changes or erupts. Some things have started to unravel over the weekend, but I probably shouldn't keep posting a bunch of personal details here.
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katy
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Post by katy on Sept 9, 2016 19:16:17 GMT
Your posts made me think about the real estate agent training that I had years ago (not my long-term career because I wasn't enough of a shark) where they talked about different money spending and saving styles. Buying a house tends to bring out a person's real, deep-seated money style. The person at the high importance end of the continuum is more interested in the price, interest rates, points, resale value, etc. The person at the low importance end of the continuum is more likely to be swayed by the color of the granite in the kitchen. People are always somewhere on the money spending/saving continuum - low, high, or somewhere in the middle.
In the agent training they discussed how to figure out where a person is on the money importance continuum so that you can appeal to their values when you are discussing houses with them. The agent's nightmare is when two people are in radically different places on the continuum and are trying to buy a house together.
People take their money styles very seriously. How you spend and save your money is a very personal decision that has to do with your power, safety, future, etc. So, it's not odd that you are feeling extremely frustrated by a person who has a very different money importance style.
I hope things work out for you.
Best wishes,
Katy
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dh
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Post by dh on Sept 13, 2016 18:24:18 GMT
Hi Katy,
Thank you again. I think it's more than just 'money style' at play; I'm starting to see that there's a codependent pattern. It was my partner (a psych major) who first brought up the idea of me having a disorder (we started at schizoid personality disorder after she'd seen a forum about it where a poster wrote "You are in some kind of relationship with a man who is sensitive, self-sufficient, intellectual, non-prejudiced, and a profound thinker with a natural affinity for animals.
Yet, alongside these positive traits, he shows no signs of emotion, is detached, anti-social, and incapable of intimacy," which, admittedly seemed to describe me in some ways (but the larger picture of schizoid personality disorder didn't fit perfectly). I kept looking for answers and learned about Dismissive Avoidant, which also seems to fit me in many ways. But lately I've been reading more about codependency and that seems to fit too (I'm the Caretaker half of that model - partner is unemployed and a smoker, and I'm resentful about buying cigarettes when she doesn't seem willing to apply for a temporary job at Target or such to earn cigarette money). So, I'm feeling resentful and put-upon, as I read Caretakers get after a while; but as I look back on past relationships, I can see that (to paraphrase The Shining) I am The Caretaker; I've always been The Caretaker.
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Post by Mary on Sept 13, 2016 18:57:54 GMT
DH, you may have some avoidant traits, but I'm not sure that's what it is for you. Avoidant and Caretaker don't fit together in my mind. I can only speak for myself, but as an avoidant, I would have never gotten so far into the situation you are currently in.
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raco
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Post by raco on Sept 13, 2016 19:34:18 GMT
dh,
If you were codependent, then you would be somewhat addicted to the situation, and you would be obsessed about fulfilling your partner's needs no matter the consequences for you. It seems to me that you're everything but codependent.
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katy
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Post by katy on Sept 13, 2016 19:46:31 GMT
I'm not an expert, but I do remember that when I read your first posts, my thought was that you have dealt with many women who seem to be very interested in taking from you. I remember you mentioning several of them who wanted titles to your house and car. My thought was that somehow you hook up with a "type" who expect to partake in the material things that you have to offer.
It could be that you do somehow believe that you need to take care of women who need you and then you feel alienated when they don't show any initiative to take care of themselves or to be equal partners.
And, it could be that once you get into these situations, you don't have the thought to negotiate new ways of dealing with these women so that it's an equal partnership, ensuring that your needs and wishes are accommodated as well as the woman's needs and wishes. If somebody is a "taker", you often have to be very firm with them so that things are equal and you don't feel taken advantage of.
This is a weird example of a very overt taker that we ran into once. My husband knew some people through a Civil War reenactment group. One of the men was a little odd - he had walked out on his normal wife the nurse and had hooked up with a strange woman who had been married something like five times. The man and that woman decided to get married and she decided that they wanted to have the wedding at our house which is out in the country. She decided that I should be her matron of honor. The whole thing was very outrageous - we didn't know them and her "deciding" what she wanted from us was very high-handed.
I told her no - we were not going to have a group of her friends, whom we didn't know, have access to our house and property. She tried to guilt me into it because we were "friends" and our husbands were in the reenactment group. She also tried many other manipulations to sway me. I stood firm and said no. If I had said yes, I would have been very resentful and it would have been a very bad situation.
You sound like a very nice person who has been hooked up with women who aren't living the equal partner model. Once you clearly see what kind of person you are looking for and you begin negotiating for your rights from the beginning, I'm sure that you'll feel less taken advantage of.
Good luck.
Katy
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dh
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Post by dh on Sept 14, 2016 15:28:47 GMT
DA seems to fit me because in general my solution to any relationship problem is to break up; and I really enjoy my alone time and independence. (Honestly, a log cabin on 20 acres in the middle of nowhere would suit me just fine.) I read Jeb's whole book, and could pretty clearly see myself in it. I got this far into this relationship because she is very sweet and it was long distance and she was employed - so I thought great, I've finally met a strong, independent woman. Now she's been living at my place for 3 months and hasn't found a job yet. She needs cigarettes, so I suck it up and buy the carton she asks for($70). At the rate they're disappearing, it looks like 3 cartons a month. I'm paying her cell phone bill (which includes her adult daughter who lives out of state - another $200 a month). Car insurance. A life insurance policy. The monthly minimum on her credit cards. And I'm just not all that confident that a job is going to materialize any time soon (like by Christmas. Or next spring). The obvious solution is to just say GTFO, but I feel guilty about that because she gave up a job to move in with me (and because we were engaged and I have backed out of the engagement). I feel like 3 months isn't long enough for me to be as angry and resentful as I feel most of the time. But all I know is I'm shelling out money that I certainly don't want to spend to please someone who wears me down a little more every single day. I'm not terribly good at being firm and saying no. When it comes to spending $70 on a carton of cigarettes, my heart says, "This is bullshit," but I did it anyway. And a few days from now, she'll need another carton. I feel through this relationship experience that maybe I'm just a unique breed of crazy (avoidant traits, but also feeling responsibility to 'do what's right'). When I live alone, my life is tranquil and I'm pretty happy (or at least content), and I feel like I'm in control of my life. (I don't want to control others; but I do want to have as much control over my own life as possible.) I feel like if I had any sense at all, after this I would just give up on relationships completely because I'll be much happier and better off that way. I can, after all, take care of myself perfectly fine. I feel like love is a curse - it starts off great, but when someone says, "I love you," it's going to end up with me being resentful about spending $200 a month on cigarettes, and I don't even smoke. I hope I never hear anyone say they love me ever again (except for my brother & my mother).
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Post by Mary on Sept 14, 2016 16:18:22 GMT
DH, the reason I say that avoidant doesn't seem to fit you is that what you are thinking and feeling in your current situation seems normal to me. I don't think many people would be happy with someone moving in and then you are paying all her bills and for 3 cartons a month. Other (non avoidants) should chime in here, but I think breaking up in that situation is a completely normal thought. Also, feeling guilty about breaking up is not in my vocabulary as an avoidant. I would guess most avoidants have no such thoughts, but can only speak for myself.
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Post by Jo on Sept 14, 2016 16:45:33 GMT
Hi, I'm definitely not a avoidant, but I would feel resentful about this relationship, and I could not endure it, so I agree with Mary in that respect.
Best wishes, Jo.
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