June: My month of challenge and realization

Sometimes it’s very hard to maintain only healthy relationships. June was apparently my month to face these challenges head on.

My relationship with J was still developing; we hadn’t been seeing one another for very long, about 3 months. As I got to know him I began to see small twinges of behaviors that felt all too familiar…and I don’t mean in a good way. J is a wonderful man, in so many ways, but he struggles with self-doubt and a tremendous want/need to be praised and reassured of his partner’s feelings. He also becomes dreadfully jealous of other men when they are in the company of his partner. Over the years I have learned that these behaviors, when habitual, are unhealthy. So, I do my best to maintain a life free of these, not only for myself but also for my children.

One night, standing in J’s kitchen, I wrapped my arms around him and told him of my developing feelings for him, as he had done just moments before. Instead of a smile or positive response, I was met with a look of confusion and the reply “Are you sure? I mean, do you mean it?” This immediately shot up red flags for me. I made a ‘mental note’  of his reaction, replying ““Please don’t ask me to justify my feelings like this, if I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t say it.” But told myself I that my reaction would be different if this were to happen again. It did happen again, in fact it happened regularly. After the third time I decided to talk to him about it. The conversation that followed only solidified my fears as he began explaining that he  needs  constant reassurance and praise from the person in his life. While I understand that verbalizing your feelings to those in your life is tremendously important; in fact, I’m all for it, to have a deep rooted  need  for reassurance from sources outside yourself is a big indicator of self doubt and insecurity issues. I explained my feelings, fears, reasoning… I covered everything. By the end of the conversation I thought we had come to an understanding: While I am developing feelings for the wonderful aspects of the man before me, I will not take part in unhealthy enabling. After all, you can not love another person until you learn to love yourself and someone taking part in these behaviors is attempting to fill a personal void with someone else’s reactions, emotions, etc… not healthy.  

J and I talked for a while that evening and by the end of the conversation I felt comfortable, believing that this could actually be behind us. It wasn’t. For the weeks that followed I was pushed and paraded to reassure him of not only my feelings and the reasons for them, but he began to spill over into obsessing questions regarding my minute by minute whereabouts, whom I had talked to that day, who I was spending time with and why, etc. MAJOR red flags! I didn’t placate his need for these reassurances, instead I tried to point out what I was feeling and why. Doing this gently wasn’t working so, by last week I was responding with “J, stop. I am not doing this…” 

Once I began to see these red flags in early June, I had a deep rooted feeling that this relationship was not going to survive. I had seen so many wonderful parts of J and clung to them, hoping that continuing not to feed his  insecurity monster  would eventually have an effect. I knew better –the only effect was that his insecurities grew, which in turn pushed me farther away. By the third week of June I had had enough.

It all ended in a gruesome display of insecurity. What possesses any person to feel that possessive clinginess is acceptable, I’ll never know. We had met a friend of mine, a male friend and his two children that are dear friends of my children, for ice cream. J was visiting us and came as well. He had met our friends before and actually displayed the same tendencies then, but I, at that time, excused them away as puppy love  reactions since we had only been dating for a couple of weeks… bad choice. Anyway, we met S and his boys for ice cream. The kids and I were looking forward to this because we hadn’t seen them in a few weeks and they were getting ready to leave for and extended vacation. I had a disk of photos to give them and this was the perfect way to do it.

 J, the kids and I arrived first… so far, everything was normal, everyone was happy, and wandering around the dairy farm where we decided to meet. I was thinking that this was going to be a wonderful evening. S and his boys arrived just minutes later. As I lifted my hand to waive at them from across the parking lot J grabbed it and began stroking my fingers. At first I thought he was only trying to hold my hand, but as S came closer, J wrapped his arm tightly around my waist. Hmmm, I thought. While trying to say Hello J began pawing at me like a horny high school boy. This embarrassed me, as my children, S’s children, my friend, and around 100 people were standing around. I pulled away, he pulled back tighter. S knew of a problem I had been having with my car, for around four months now… long before beginning to date J. Being in the industry, even with my car’s manufacturer, he knew just how to fix it. I popped the hood and he began looking around. J released his hold of me and shot over by S, looking into the car as well. He stepped back and sternly commented “Mina, all you had to do was ask me and I could have had this taken care of for you.” (I had mentioned it to him, many times, he had actually talked to me about in on at least 4 occasions, saying that I needed to take it somewhere to get it fixed… btw, this ‘thing’ is a burned out headlight. I had been hauling around a replacement bulb in my glove box for more than 3 months) S smiled uncomfortably as he fixed my problem in minutes flat.

This is when the fun really began! As we all walked inside J returned to my side and slid his arm tightly around my waist. We ordered and sat down to enjoy our ice cream and company. S had brought pictures from when he was a child of the lakefront that they were about to visit on their family vacation. J maintained his ‘glued status’, never allowing a second that he wasn’t ‘attached’. Later he had excused himself to put the tray away and S leaned over whispering,” This is awful, I’m sorry. Should we go so he’ll stop?” (S wasn’t the only one to recognize J’s unhealthy behavior, my children too had commented) I was furious that J’s insecurity and territory issues had been THAT abundant and had made my friend and family feel uncomfortable. His behavior wasn’t just affecting me! I asked S to stay. The rest of the evening went on with J clinging, interrupting conversations, complaining, and just plain being rude and childishly territorial. After S and his boys had left we returned home, my two went to bed, and I put this relationship behind me.

I realize that everyone has their insecure moments, moments of clinginess, etc, but habitual patterns such as this are not healthy, for anyone. While it is terribly hard to walk away from all of the wonderful attributes that I had begun to adore in J, I know that unhealthy tendency is not something that I want to welcome into my life. Not feeding his insecurity monster hadn’t had a positive effect, the problems were growing. There is never a place for possession or control in a healthy relationship and it is never someone else’s responsibility to fill another person’s inner void. A healthy relationship is only possible with a whole person; one that loves and respects themselves as well as others.

So, I get to try this again… I’ll work my way back up to bat in time, for now I need a breather.

~ by mina75 on June 30, 2009.