Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2018 12:20:47 GMT
... Is that you can try with every iota of good intent, patience, and generosity you can muster - but if they are not self-aware enough of their attachment issue, and equate the buzzing feeling of an activated attachment system to signalling a prospect of love, you will potentially come off as too boring for them, or that there isn't enough "chemistry".
You might really love somebody, but if they don't believe to the same degree that they deserve that love, your love can feel itchy, irritating and repulsive.
You can really love somebody and want to offer them the love they never had - freely and abundantly - but if all they ever knew was having to work hard for love, they might see your generosity as indication of your desperation, and devalue you in their minds.
This is true ... or at least, from my own experience.
Until I learned how to love myself a bit more, I just couldn't resonate with someone who didn't make me hustle for their love. I saw a man who needed me to consistently prove myself to him, or a man who was one foot out of the door, and I falsely conflated that with value, instead of realising that he probably had just as little self-love as I did, and that neither of our values could ever be marked up or down or be put "on trial", but I thought that's how it worked.
If someone tried loving me nicely when I had my self-love deficit, it felt abrasive to me, because it rubbed up my belief system the wrong way... this wasn't supposed to be the feeling of love (or at least, this wasn't the comfortable pattern I knew of hustling and then being devalued and discarded) and so I would leave in search of that all familiar feeling I thought was love - control.
I am not saying that we cannot be changed .... I am saying it takes a lot of self awareness and capacity for moving toward discomfort for this kind of person to meet you where you're at, and realise what true value looks like. Unless I went to therapy, I never would have changed, because I didn't know that I didn't know the problem - it was other people. I knew intellectually that I was perpetuating it but I couldn't hold onto that idea until I liked myself enough to forgive myself and allow it into my narrative. Only then did I realise that love is uncomfortable because I don't believe I deserve it, and that a good relationship signalled itself through my own itchy discomfort and boredom.
You might really love somebody, but if they don't believe to the same degree that they deserve that love, your love can feel itchy, irritating and repulsive.
You can really love somebody and want to offer them the love they never had - freely and abundantly - but if all they ever knew was having to work hard for love, they might see your generosity as indication of your desperation, and devalue you in their minds.
This is true ... or at least, from my own experience.
Until I learned how to love myself a bit more, I just couldn't resonate with someone who didn't make me hustle for their love. I saw a man who needed me to consistently prove myself to him, or a man who was one foot out of the door, and I falsely conflated that with value, instead of realising that he probably had just as little self-love as I did, and that neither of our values could ever be marked up or down or be put "on trial", but I thought that's how it worked.
If someone tried loving me nicely when I had my self-love deficit, it felt abrasive to me, because it rubbed up my belief system the wrong way... this wasn't supposed to be the feeling of love (or at least, this wasn't the comfortable pattern I knew of hustling and then being devalued and discarded) and so I would leave in search of that all familiar feeling I thought was love - control.
I am not saying that we cannot be changed .... I am saying it takes a lot of self awareness and capacity for moving toward discomfort for this kind of person to meet you where you're at, and realise what true value looks like. Unless I went to therapy, I never would have changed, because I didn't know that I didn't know the problem - it was other people. I knew intellectually that I was perpetuating it but I couldn't hold onto that idea until I liked myself enough to forgive myself and allow it into my narrative. Only then did I realise that love is uncomfortable because I don't believe I deserve it, and that a good relationship signalled itself through my own itchy discomfort and boredom.
