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How to Reconcile the Forces of Love and Pride

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/01/2001 - 8:00pm
in
January 1, 2001

Question

Dear Dr. Turndorf,

My boyfriend and I have been dating for a year, but have been friends for about two. I'm 28, and he just turned 27.

We were living the perfect relationship: mutual respect, a healthy dose of lust, and a great deal of physical and emotional affection. We were very much in love and started to plan moving out together in the Spring. We were talking about marriage as well.

Until. . . Two weeks ago, he went to India for his roommate's wedding - a trip that lasted 6 days. Upon his return, he told me that he met a woman there (she lives locally in the US and was visiting as well), and he started having feelings for her. These feelings made him question his love for me:

How can he love me when he is able to feel for someone else? I have pushed, and pushed to give him the easy way out and to tell me honestly that he's leaving me in order to pursue another option.

He claims it is not; he claims that this episode has caused him to question his feelings for me, and he does not know the difference between caring for someone, and being in love. He wants to step away from our relationship to discover his feelings.

However, he did admit that part of this search will probably include pursuing this other woman. It didn't make sense to me, since we both admit that our relationship grew in intensity every day.

Until the moment he stepped onto that plane, we were furiously and deeply in love. Deep down inside, I think I scared him terribly, and now he just wants to get away. And no, there was not one inkling of a warning sign. Nothing but an outpouring of love and affection.

Dr. , I'm at a loss at how to find the balance between giving him the space he so needs, yet maintaining my self-respect. He's been such an amazing partner throughout our history together, I feel I owe him some leeway and keep harboring hope. But I also feel I owe myself some closure. I have now become a nervous wreck and am having problems eating and functioning in life.

How do I reconcile the forces of love and pride that have begun to battle in my heart?

I am at a loss; please help.

Thanks for your attention


Answer

You are in a terrible, terrible bind. I hear that you want to give him some time to find himself. But, I am afraid that time will not solve the issue for him.

He has been tempted by another woman, which has led him to doubt whether his feelings for you are what they should be. What he doesn't know is that he is going to meet lots of women for whom he will feel attracted to and with whom he could establish a compatible relationship

I recently quoted a statistic in which it was estimated that each of us could be compatible with approximately 10, 000 different people. What's he going to do each time he meets one of those 10, 000 possibles? Take another hike? What he needs to see is that developing feelings of attraction for others is quite normal. He needs to work on making a commitment to one woman and feeling peace whenever normal feelings of attraction for others arise. Running off is not facing the real issue

Even if he hooks up with this next woman, I suspect that he will find himself taking a hike on her. I say this because you and he had a near perfect relationship. How can he improve on that? Even if he is lucky enough to establish just as good a relationship with this new woman as he had with you, then what? He gets attracted to someone else, and he's gone again. His life is doomed, and he needs to be told this.

In light of this new information, I think you can see that giving him time is not the point. If he isn't able to stick with you and work in therapy on becoming more comfortable with periodic temptations, there is no relationship with him, not now, not ever. No amount of time away from you will help him to grasp this lesson that must be learned by talking and working through, not by flying the coop.

You alluded to the fact that this man is frightened of intimacy. If you are right, then this attraction is a smoke screen that enables him to distance himself without facing his real issues.

You might want to drop that bomb on him as well. You have nothing to lose, since you've lost him already. All we can hope for is that you speak the truth and that it stops him dead in his tracks. If he is deaf to your words, then you have no choice but to grieve and move on.

- Doctor Love

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