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Tired of Choking on Your Emotions

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 03/26/2001 - 8:00pm
in
March 26, 2001

Question

Dear Dr. Love,

I'm a 23 year old girl who has moved a state away from my small home town a year and a half ago to experience life in the big city. It's been a roller coaster experience as I've tried to find a meaningful career and establish a close network of friends, but I still feel like I'm only working to pay the bills and I'm unfulfilled with my everyday life.

In addition to all the changes I've been going through I started dating a guy about 7 months ago. Our relationship has been fun, but not as intense and emotionally expressive as my last relationships. I feel like my boyfriend avoids topics of intimacy and I've honestly only heard him say 'I love you' 5 times in these 7 months (all of these were due to prompting by me). He meets almost any situation with sarcasm, which gets old after awhile.

In the first months of our relationship we broke up twice, both times when I questioned his distance, and he'd agree with me that it wasn't working out, so I'd dump him. But both times he won me back, showing me his sweet side that I want to see everyday, but after a few days we always returned to the emotionally blah state that has come to define this relationship for me. Lately I've been considering returning to my hometown to save money by not paying rent. I'm so uncertain of my future and I'm going through a lot of internal stress thinking about the trials of moving again and not fitting in somewhere again.

On top of all this, my boyfriend and I never discuss the topic, although it's been mentioned that I may leave in 2 months. When I bring up the fact that I need to save money and should probably go back to my parent's house for the summer he nonchalantly will say something like, well you should do that then. Childishly I want him to jump at my feet and say something like he'll think of me everyday and that we'll be able to work through the distance thing somehow, but he just rationally supports whatever I say and never mentions if he'd like us to stay together or not.

In the past I've dated guys that were willing to follow me to the ends of the earth and I never doubted their feelings. Of course I always ended up breaking their hearts because I didn't respect their blind love, and I really believed that long distance relationships were foolish. Now I feel like I am old enough and could handle a long-distant relationship for awhile, but I feel like my boyfriend is either so fatalistic that he's above human emotions or that he really doesn't give a damn. I know I need to approach him in a more direct way about this, but I struggle to find the right words to use to get him to express something deeper than a nutty joke or some passive compliance to whatever I say I want.

I want him to open up to me, but maybe there's nothing there for him to reveal, and that 's what frightens me. Just one last bit of information: He's a very good person to his family. He has two nieces that worship him because he's always playing with them and helping them with homework, he never forgets to walk the family's dogs and his parents rely on him endlessly to fix things in their house. He prides himself on his responsibility in all areas and next to him I feel like a hopeless dreamer, who bases all decisions on hopes and dreams rather than realities.

He makes me miss my family and wish that I could be there for them in the same way he is for his. I feel like he would never consider leaving his town to experience where I'm from and knowing that means I would always be sacrificing something by being with him. I apologize for the length of this letter, I just feel that there are so many aspects to analyze and I've been going in mental circles trying to figure out what to do with this guy. I would appreciate any advice you can give me about this. I'm at a loss of ideas on how to approach this matter, but I'm tired of choking on my emotions.

Thank you for your help.


Answer

You spoke of feeling empty and unfulfilled and I understand why. You have described a frustrating relationship in which you are receiving emotional crumbs. You secretly hope that he will one day soon declare his love (like when you tell him that you are leaving).

Meanwhile, he doesn't give you anything but encouragement to take a hike! What comes through loud and clear is that you are drawn to the type of man who frustrates you by withholding his love. What's more, the men who can give you their love are unappealing to you. Remember that you said that you have ended all previous relationships with such men. No wonder you feel unfulfilled. You can't receive from those who are willing to give; and you are drawn to men who can't give: this is the formula for emptiness and unfulfillment.

In order for you to break free of this pattern, you need to understand why your mind is drawing you to men who can't return your love. If you've been reading my columns for a while, you are familiar with the concept of repetition compulsion (an unconscious mechanism in which we compulsively recreate our childhood trauma). A good example of a repetition compulsion is a woman, who grew up with a father who left home when she was young, who keeps choosing men who don't stick around. The unconscious mind recreates the childhood trauma with the hope of healing the wound.

The first step in the recreation is to choose a partner who resembles the parent who let us down. The unconscious mind hopes that this time around we will receive from our lover or spouse the emotional goodies that we were deprived of in childhood. And, when these goodies come our way, it is hoped that the original wound will be magically healed. So, for example, the girl whose father left home and who chooses an abandoning boyfriend hopes that her love and loyalty will'fix' her boyfriend and make him stay with her.

Of course these repetitions never bring about a happy ending to the original trauma precisely because the lovers we choose are as damaged as the parents who let us down, which means that they cannot give us any more or any better than our parents did.

Now, back to you. You are clearly living a repetition compulsion. You keep hoping that your boyfriend will come around and love you, but he doesn't because he can't. Meanwhile, the men who can give to you are of no interest. Why? Because your unconscious mind is too caught up in repeating the trauma you suffered. So you keep being drawn to men who can't love you. What appeal is there is being loved by someone who gives it freely? You want to struggle and wrestle for that love. If and when that love finally comes, your mind thinks that it will be healed of your original wound.

But, as you can see, this plan isn't working. All you end up feeling is empty and unfulfilled, which you will continue to feel as long as you keep chosing men who can't give. Don't waste time trying to figure your boyfriend out or on hoping that he will magically come around (your happy ending to the childhood wound). Focus on becoming aware of yourself and on understanding the type of healing you need. Then, start choosing men who can give you what you want.

If men who offer you love still feel unappealing, then go in to therapy for additional help on breaking this repetition compulsion.

- Doctor Love

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