love avoidance

[dave]

hi - i'm a 52 year old guy. I have struggled with relationships my whole life. The general pattern is that I start to date someone and then after a few days or weeks, usually after we've started to have sex, I get super anxious and need to get away. The anxiety is constant and I can't get it out of my head. There is a stone in my chest and a big vice around my head. The only cure is to stop seeing the person.

The frustrating paradox is that I am very lonely and yearn to love someone and have someone in my life, and the moment I end something I start fantasizing about the next one, and looking.

The last 4 years have been different in that I've been dating the same woman for all that time. We are not a good match at all. I think I go on seeing her because I'm afraid to hurt her and afraid of being alone again. But I feel constant anxiety about the relationship and I contact her more out of compulsion than really wanting to. I have also been staying with her because I feel I will be anxious with anyone, so what does it matter? I also fear that my depression will ramp up if I am alone.

[Background: I have an abusive, handicapped older sister. She was very invasive and manipulative, but sometimes affectionate, which I totally hated. I loved my mum but she was very distant and powerless and I felt betrayed by her when she and my dad left me in boarding school. My relationship with my mum was a bit emotionally incestuous I believe. I was scared of my dad]

Does anyone else have this sort of relationship anxiety? I literally don't know anyone else with this problem.

[dave]

would love some feedback on this ...

[oak]

I can offer some advice, but you aren't going to like it. You are welcome to disregard anything I say.

Basically, it is time to become your own man. At 52, now is the time to get going. This is it, man.

If your sister is abusive you never have to see her again. The choice is yours. Decide right now, and have the courage of your convictions to live that decision.

Regarding your 4-year relationship, it is time for a DTR with your SO. I can easily tell you what a DTR and SO are, or you can look it up yourself (ie become your own man). If your SO wants marriage, let her down gently so she can pursue what she wants.

If you want to date more, here's what you do: Buy this book "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Read it cover to cover multiple times to where you almost have it memorized.

Then go to your favorite e-book store, and search for "dating". Find the 10 top rated dating books and buy them all. Then do as they say.

Then thicken your blood. I mean: eat a steak, yell at a tree, punch a pillow. Apologize to people you've hurt.

Shower, shave, wear clean clothes and get out of the house. Just start talking to people.

Show a genuine interest in people, even if you have to fake it. This is the difference between success and failure.

When your brain comes up with excuses of why you can't (read: won't) do something because of x reason, ask: has a person who is x ever dated someone amazing? If yes, that is your brain lying.

For example, your profile says you have Tourettes. That is tough, I assume, since I stutter and while not exactly the same, it is close enough for our purposes.

Ask yourself: has a person with Tourettes ever had an awesome job, an amazing SO, a rich life?

Tim Howard, Howard Hughes, Dan Akyroyd. That's good company.

David Beckham married Posh Spice.

Remember what the dating books say: if you can't hide it, feature it.

So when you go out, and start talking to people, and have a Tourettes symptom, make it such a calm, chill moment that the person walking away will say "I had never met anyone with Tourettes before, but that guy was so cool. I'm glad I met him."

Keep in mind that I couldn't put a sentence together until age 15, so I know of what I speak. Charm is your answer.

In closing: if you are looking for a helping hand, look to the end of your arm.

[Murphy]

You definitely need to get out of that relationship. If you know you're not a good match, and you're not happy, why waste your time with it. If you're looking for permission, it's definitely granted. It totally sucks being alone after a long relationship, but there's also some relief if it the relationship wasn't serving you.

[dave]

thanks for the feedback. It's a complex issue. I am 99% certain that I will feel the exact same way with the next girlfriend if I leave this one and find someone else. Thus far in my life I've been squeezed between the universal desire to hook up with someone and my very own neurotic and seemingly-outside-my-control anxieties about intimacy. That's what I haven't been able to resolve yet. Interestingly the therapist I've been seeing the last few years has been encouraging me to stay in the relationship because he feels I need to face down my anxieties. And I am less anxious than I was a couple years ago.

[dave]

p.s regarding my sister, I keep contact with her to a minimum but cutting her off is impossible as she lives with my mum and I choose to stay in touch wit my mum, so sister is unavoidable. After mum is gone, I expect to see very little of my sister. I will probably move out of the area anyway.

[Beany Boo]

I recommend googling a little about attachment styles. Your style sounds like the anxious-avoidant attachment style. Mine is fearful-avoidant. I struggle with intimate relationships at all. It's totally involuntary so please don't feel guilty about it.

Involuntary is probably the wrong word. It's instinctual; pre-intellectual.

I've successfully avoided getting into relationships but, if I ever 'failed' I'd spend every moment secretly terrified of getting shamefully close and then even worse, not being able to step back from that suffocating position in a safe, autonomous manner.

My mother would use me as her (non-sexual) little husband and leave me in a void when that role got out of control. So, you know, a lot of impotent, inarticulate rage.

She was doing it with little awareness of it's life-long effect on me. No excuse. I struggled, and managed, to put the boundaries in place with her, so I'm protected from those feelings now. That's from all the therapy.

My confidence about my attachment style is building. It has a lot to do with how you give and get consent with a partner; when you learnt something very different as a child. Also it's about withdrawing historical consent that as a child you didn't get a chance to exercise.

You may always be anxious. Or you may discover how to come into the relationship with the consent and negotiated boundaries you need. Even if you are always anxious you may find someone with a secure-loving attachment style; or even another anxious-avoidant who just happens to be on the same page as you about what is happening with you both, and between you.

[dave]

thanks for the reply. It's good to hear from someone who has very similar issues. I have known about attachment theory for a long time and you are right, I've always pegged myself as anxious avoidant. It's something that gets talked about very little and I have had a very hard time finding anything to read on the subject or people who can relate to my experiences. I have a couple of friends who I think are dismissive avoidant but, not surprisingly, they're not big on opening up.

You described yourself as fearful avoidant. Is that different from anxious avoidant?

My experiences with my mum were very similar to what you described, and I agree with you that issues such as consent and boundaries are huge. I never asserted boundaries when younger, and still struggle with it. My mentally handicapped sister was very invasive. With girlfriends I seem to have no sense of actually wanting to be with the person and enjoying the person. I think all I'm aware of is "what does she want from me" and "how do I avoid her being angry at me" and various feelings of obligation and duty. And that there is something threatening about the whole thing.

[Beany Boo]

Likewise it's good talking about it.

Yes it's similar, anxious-, fearful-. I'm afraid of them choosing me, staying with me, going away, not coming back. My personality is perfectly honed to just keep people at bay. I've devoted my life to keeping people at bay. Inadvertently devoted, that is.

It sucks when I meet someone I like. The response is too strong to avoid, avoiding!

My dad would get furious if my mom deviated and took longer than expected getting back from the store. Over-furious. I remember thinking his reaction was ridiculous. Until I reacted the same way.

I spent a lot of time just thinking it isn't real; that I'm not this way; that the creeping fear of others is what is real.

Now I'm in a state of acceptance; that this is about the people I come from; that I'm always going to have this. But it's not the end state. Therapy continues.

I'm negotiating my feelings with others much more effectively these days. I can trade primal fear of loss for say, dissatisfying impasses that eventually reach connection and mutual understanding. The hard part is finding ways to put boundaries in place whilst avoiding being reactive about the fear that's rushing like a torrent under everything. It's seems impossible until a boundary actually sticks and suddenly a lifetimes suffering slowly takes a pause.

The expectation I'm managing with now is something like, I gonna be afraid of getting close to anyone, it's going to happen. Maybe more so than for others. The pictures that that fear throws out are going to overwhelm me. But some of them are a shared responsibility and require negotiations over time. Some of them can actually be addressed in joint decisions. Some of them are about protecting the relationship from the influences surrounding it. Some pictures stopped existing outside my imagination when I was still a small boy, except now when I enter an unfamiliar situation. They're not all unfamiliar situations; not all.

At least one, is about how can I possibly expose this wonderful person to the rigid and cruel patterns my parents laid down? The best response I have to that today is, carefully and with changes we agree to together.