#12 Should I stay in this relationship?

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#12 Should I stay in this relationship?

Post by Gabby » Sat Apr 09, 2005 2:36 pm

Dear Abby: I love my boy friend very much, but he's not affectionate in any way. When I ask him if he loves me, he gets angry. He told me that he said he loved me once, and after that, he shouldn't have to repeat it. He says he wants an independent woman who makes no demands.

Abby, I enjoy his company. He takes me out every weekend and calls me every day. But he never holds my hand or kisses me. I need some affection and reassurance of his love, but he refuses to give it to me. Should I stay in this relationship? MISS GLORIA IN GEORGIA

DEAR MISS GLORIA: Metaphorically speaking, you are fire and your boyfriend is ice, a decidedly incompatible combination.

Since he is unwilling to fulfill your needs, you should consider ending this relationship so you can be free to find a man who is a better match. ABBY


Gabby’s Response:

Hi Gloria: It's so great that you wrote. Your father would be terribly disappointed to know that he trained to you to seek affection from a seriously shutdown person; that you can't recognize it, and that you don't know that you deserve to be treated with love and respect, would cause him disappointment. It's possible that you're intent on punishing your parents by dating someone you know would invalidate and upset them.

I'm concerned that you have stayed with him this long. More so, that you attracted him into your life. Not to worry, your genius is at work here. Whenever I hear someone blaming another for supposedly undesirable results I'm suspect.

Even if you dump him, which I'm not certain you will (you are confronting your addiction here), you'd still have to get to what you created him in your life for. In some way he is your mirror. Put another way, no actualized woman would go out on a first date, let alone a second with him. That is to say, they would recognize his inability to acknowledge and to come from, to operate from, love, immediately. It's not hard to see unless one has similar stuff going on. You might look and see who in your life would say the same about you. Sometimes we act like we're a loving person. We think of ourselves as affectionate; we have an affectionate act and have come to believe it. It gives us something to be right about, something to make other's wrong for, But in truth we are as comparatively bound up and angry as he is.

Inappropriate, dramatized anger such as his, "...don't make me repeat it..." is always used to hide a withhold or perpetration. There are no exceptions to this fundamental communication principle. His communication is what's referred to as an invalidating make-wrong. It's both controlling and condescending. Under it is fear. Why you can't recognize it as such and why you would hang around for more is your far greater problem. If after reading this reply you continue to interact with him for another 24 hours, for any reason, you will have revealed that you are addicted to abuse and that you need equally as much therapy as he does.

Have you entertained the idea that you're supposed to love everyone as you do him and that there is something else far more magnificent than you can possible imagine that comes from true supportive intercourse. In other words, you don't have to live with or marry everyone you love.

Get some therapy/counseling, just for yourself. Thank you, Gabby

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