#106 Abuse survivor afraid to be honest / Time to begin therapy.
DEAR ABBY: I am a 33-year-old man who has never been in a serious relationship until now. I have been seeing “Stephie” for eight months and think I may be in love with her.
I have successfully managed to evade Stephie's questions about my past and got away with it until recently. She keeps asking me about the scars on my body. (I was physically abused by my parents when I was a child.) Regrettably, I lied to her about the nature of the scars.
Stephie wants to be married and start a family, and so do I. She wants her kids to have a great dad, and I think I can be a very good parent. I would never do to my kids what was done to me.
On the one hand, I want an open, honest relationship with her. On the other, I'm afraid if I tell her the truth she will leave me, and I’ll spiral into another five-year depression I may not be able to escape from.
My parents are both dead now. so I could continue to lie without Stephie ever knowing. But I get the feeling she doesn’t entirely believe what I've been telling her. What should I do? - SURVIVOR IN
OHIO
DEAR SURVIVOR: Because you are discussing a future together, it's time to level with Stephie about everything. That you would not want to discuss this painful subject at the beginning of a relationship is understandable. But please do not continue the deception.
You should also explain to Stephie about your period of clinical depression. If she’s going to marry you, she has the right to know your medical history.
Yes, telling her may be risky. However, if she loves you she will accept you just the way you are. And if she isn’t up to the challenge, it’s better to find out now before becoming any more involved.
PS. If you feel that a breakup could trigger another round of depression, it is important that you talk to a psychotherapist NOW. The abuse you suffered in childhood may have left emotional scars as lasting as the physical ones, but with therapy you may be able to heal. Abby
Gabby's Reply:
Hi Survivor: It’s great that you feel ready for an intimate relationship, even more so that you knew enough to reach out for support.
To be blunt, you are not ready for a relationship. You have postponed your therapy. Included in therapy and coaching will be conversations about integrity and telling the truth, communications you didn’t experience having with your parents (not through to mutual satisfaction).
Your question, “Should I tell them the truth” reveals that you are missing some of the fundamentals required for a successful personal relationship. You most certainly have run across others who have posed this quandary, “to be honest or not?” so it’s not that you don’t understand concepts such as lying by ommission and deceit. One of several problems is that you don’t automatically tell the truth. You are run by fear. The answer to your question is: What would expect your daughter's suitor to do?
Another problem is that deception (lying, presenting yourself as mentally healthy) hasn’t bothered you enough yet for you to have come clean with her. It’s not that a person who operates from integrity doesn’t lie, it’s that when they do it immediately bothers them, so much so that they are automatically driven to come clean about it, usually before going to sleep, always before sex. Your integrity is so out that you were able to continue interacting with her about other topics without being aware that the experience of communication with her is virtually impossible. The boldfaced lie (and omission) should have caused you a restless night. In a relationship in which one partner withholds a thought from the other, they both end up doing their imitation of communication with each other. Neither know who the other really is, both are having a relationship with their partner’s “honest act.”
Now here’s the surprise. Stephie herself needs considerable coaching and counseling. She is unconscious. A conscious person can tell in a nano-second that you are dragging around something (it’s written on your face, it’s an aura thing). Even if she could sense something she continued into another conversation with you without clearing up the confusion. In other words, she’s not committed to being complete, confusion and uncertainty is OK. Confusion and doubt serve as barriers to being here now.
Notice also she didn’t catch you on your verbal lie. It reveals that she too is hiding one or more significant thoughts from you, thoughts that by the way she believes may be a deal-breaker for you with her.
A person who is whole and complete simply doesn’t attract/date those that need therapy. Their integrity is such that they can immediately tell that the person is withholding something. When playing poker a tell is an unconscious communication—in a personal relationship a tell is a communication (usually nonverbal) that indicates there is a withhold, an incomplete, in the space, something that’s serving as a barrier to the experience of communication. A person of integrity can hear a lie and is driven to get to the truth. Lying around them is virtually impossible; they create an experience of love and respect. It’s a privilege to hang around them; it would be suicidal, and an affront to them, to lie. Someone who is used to lying (to hiding certain thoughts), to not being committed to communicating openly and honestly, can’t always hear another’s lie.
Re: “…and I’ll spiral into another five-year depression.” You’ll be ready for a personal relationship when you know that you are healed. It’s possible to identify the interaction (time, locale, persons involved), that began the depression. That incident is called an incomplete. Once you’ve completed it, (communicated the incident responsibly) similar interactions won’t trigger depression. You must get therapy so as to complete your addiction to depresion; else you'll dump it in your partner's space, as an unconscious con, and they will thereafter worry about telling you the truth for fear of setting off your depression.
Re: “…and think I may be in love with her.” Whatever it is it’s not love. With love there is no doubt whatsoever. P.S. It works to begin from love, rather than working towards it. Practice creating the experience of love with everyone in preparation for your #10.
Re: “I would never do to my kids what was done to me.” This self-righteous position makes you ripe for being your parents. Children who resist being like one or both parents spend so much energy not being like them that they don’t know who they are except not like them. Most often one gets/becomes what they resist. Who you are is everyone. Notice that there was deception and lying in your parent's relationship; in other words, you have become them.
While it’s possible that you can accelerate the healing process my experience tells me that it will take years longer if you do it from within a relationship. As mentioned above, anyone who would marry you reveals that they need as much therapy. Most people honestly believe that what they call love will heal their partner. Instead of supporting someone in getting therapy they try to do what it takes trained mental health professionals years to accomplish. This not only not love, it’s arrogance.
Bottom line: It is unethical of you to be in a relationship until you’ve mastered telling the truth. To experience having a relationship one must be totally willing to not have it.
With love Gabby