Hi all --
Maybe I should have titled this "If this is Sunday, I must be obsessing!"
I'm feeling anxious today - tomorrow starts a new semester and I'm teaching three courses - two which are completely new for me. When I start to feel anxious, I begin to look for things to control ... my family, my body, my mind. I came here this morning thinking about a question I wanted to put out there, and when I reread this thread, I realized the new question was just a variation on the one I started with. I hate these "circle" days when things feel edgy and I need to focus on something but desperately want to focus on something else - something that isn't as important at that moment and so feels safer. These are the times when I understand my sons' and their own battles with perfectionism; I have long used a method of avoiding finding out I can't do something perfectly by merely procrastinating. Today I can't completely procrastinate, and I know I will get myself focused on the few things I have to get done before my first class - I even know that these are good courses I have designed and that the whole thing will be really great once it gets going - but at this very moment, I'm sitting here with my body tensing and my mind despairing and I want so much to just go shake and control someone else.
I have been putting my Wonder Warrior Woman Princess on guard against me and my wish at these times to throw myself against the brick wall that currently is my husband. I know throwing myself there doesn't do any good - for me and my peace of mind, for our relationship and whatever that is or isn't, or for my husband, in case I've decided that I should do it "for him." If you listen hard right now, I would guess you can here WWWP's ululation echoing off my inner heart - she's on the move big time to keep me from "going there."
What is it that makes emotionally unavailable people attractive? I woke up thinking about this. I don't think it's completely self-esteem or my not feeling worthy of someone being emotionally "there." I wonder if it's another part of this control thing - that if I am with someone who is emotionally distant, I get to determine how much I am focused on them. When my second son - my 13 year old - comes and hugs and hangs around, I find myself pushing him away. He's the most sensitive kid - he's incredibly astute about people and situations, and he has an over-developed sense of justice - and he is the farthest thing from emotionally distant; he doesn't just wear his heart on his sleeve, he carries it in his hand and gives it to you. So I look at my relationship with him, and I know that I have pushed him back at times. I work at not doing that - at giving him back the hugs and letting him hang around and trying to explain when I just really need some space and that it's not him but me needing that - but I wonder... If this is what a relationship with an emotionally available person is like and if I find that so uncomfortable, will I be able to stop being drawn to the person who isn't right there, who isn't intuitively knowing that I'm hurting and so comes up to embrace me? My eldest son, at 17, has already learned how to be that reserved man from his dad and his early sense that he needed to protect me, so I know how my actions or lack of them can set the space in the relationship just fine.
But while I have friends who are warm and giving like my second son, I wonder if can I let go of this need to pursue and control the distance in order to have a more healthy & intimate love relationship?
Ok, so those are unfair questions - at least in terms of anyone being able to answer them. Who can ever know if I will be able to change? Maybe the more helpful question is "How do I stop being attracted to that co-dependent/controlling relationship?" Is this a boundary thing? Is this another warrior woman thing? Is this really an inner child thing?
And see, I've managed to procrastinate from looking at and addressing what I need to have done for tomorrow. So I guess I will put these things out there, and now take that child in hand and help her find her way back to the table to finish her homework.
Questions, questions, all around ... and not a drop of patience to drink...
UM