Confused and Hurt

You are in love with a man who is terrified of intimacy. You said yourself that whenever you are emotionally or physically intimate that he runs for the hills.

I suggest that you search my Advice Archives under the key words, fear of intimacy, fear of commitment, and 40 and still waiting.

In these articles that I mention above, I talk about how you can pull back in order to minimize your partner's need to run.

You can also mirror your partner's fears by verbalizing doubts yourself.

' I'm not sure that we should see each other. 'I'm not so sure that I want to get too close to a married man. I may not be free to see you.' By carrying the fear on your shoulders, it often relieves the other person's fear.

Realize that these techniques will bring your lover in closer, but they probably won't solve the underlying causes of his fear. Not, unless you have the stomach to use these techniques for a very long time. At this point, I think you need to focus off of your lover and do some soul-searching yourself.

You said that you would be willing to have a committed relationship with anyone. Do you realize that you sound like you are willing to settle for crumbs? When we are willing to settle for crumbs, that's what we receive. I can't help but notice that in both your relationships you have received emotional crumbs. Have you ever wondered why you accept so little?

If I had to guess, I would say that your early life was very depriving and empty. What does this have to do with the bind you're in now? It is normal for all of us to recreate the emotional climate of our first families. If we received little love and affection, then that's what we recreate as adults.

If you are like most women, you grew up with a distant father who never gave you enough love and attention. And, if you are like many women who grew up feeling unloved, you probably carry the wish to win to distant man's love. If you examine both your relationships, you can see the parallel. In the case of your first marriage, your husband had no time for you-- he was married to his work and activities. In the case of your lover, he is married and incapable of closeness.

If it feels like I am on target, then please also search my Advice Archives under, unfinished business, childhood wounds, happy ending, and repetition compulsion. In these articles, I talk about how we all recreate the dramas of childhood and then try to work for a happier ending. The problem is: since we naturally choose lovers who are as damaged as the parents who let us down, we rarely achieve our happy endings. Instead, we chase our own emotional tails, trying to obtain blood from stones. The only way to break this impossible struggle is to chose people that are different from the people who let us down as kids.

At this point, I want that voice in your head to begin speaking differently. Instead of saying I'll settle for anything. I want you to say: I must be with a man that treats me like his princess, his number one. You deserve this and the little girl in you that was short-changed as a child needs this in order to heal the old wounds.

Promise me, no more settling.