Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2018 23:26:03 GMT
I just wrote something from my own perspective and blew my mind. I am an AP in romantic relationships but really quite FA socially (not at first, but after my persona feels wearing)... it's getting easier as I go through therapy. I am a childfree woman which gets me a lot of flack socially, since a lot of people can't relate to that sort of life choice, and can even feel a moral outrage to it. Because of this, I frequent message boards to spend time with others who have chosen not to have children either. I realised through therapy that my choice stemmed from my own crippling FA/DA, terrified of my independence being eclipsed by someone who would need me this much. I believe this is also why I tend to feel most attracted to avoidants — because I subconsciously know they will never become close enough to engulf me.
I just wrote this on a childfree forum:
"It seems that every man I've previously been involved with who knows I'm CF does this... thing. This pillow-talk thing, where they're like, with head resting on hands, "so why is it that you don't want kids?" But it's as if the motivation behind it isn't curiosity, but a topic for debate, or a game to find the pathology behind my decision. There's a kind of gooey sympathy to it that I just abhor — like as if they feel bad for me that I became the kind of woman who doesn't want to experience motherhood. This isn't 'the sad tale of the achingly lonely and wounded childless woman', this is my tale about a woman who owns her body with dignity, and who shuts the door on social norms, and who has a sense of agency to live a life she imagined on the inside.
I wish people would stop seeing us as their "poor little projects", where they believe we are some challenge and that if we love them enough, they would become the one exception to our rule, and we just desperately will want to carry their child as a grand expression of their worth. I would like to see these people go and find their own worth in themselves, and stop seeing successful control over other's choices as a measure of their worth in the world."
Then something in me twinged ... I realised that this might be my closest insight to how an avoidant would feel in relationship to me as an anxious person — with my intense preoccupation in trying to "fix" everything, and in my choosing them knowing they are avoidant and still thinking I could be the exception to the rule ... measuring my worth against my own success in being able to control their emotions and actions towards me. The thing it made me realise was that this is my "pathology", that I am so terrified of engulfment that I chose to be childless, however, I really don't actually experience it as a pathology — I experience it as a cornerstone of my identity, and I celebrate that about myself!
It has been really enlightening for me today to actually realise that this thing I have been pouting at, trying to control ... this "project" I have been making of the avoidants in my life ... it is probably hurting them in the way it hurts me, because in some ways, it is a kind of rejection to project my needs onto them when their identity does not reflect that as a priority. I learned today that I need to accept reality, and love people as they are, and love them for their limitations without trying to control them into being what I "need" them to be.
I just wrote this on a childfree forum:
"It seems that every man I've previously been involved with who knows I'm CF does this... thing. This pillow-talk thing, where they're like, with head resting on hands, "so why is it that you don't want kids?" But it's as if the motivation behind it isn't curiosity, but a topic for debate, or a game to find the pathology behind my decision. There's a kind of gooey sympathy to it that I just abhor — like as if they feel bad for me that I became the kind of woman who doesn't want to experience motherhood. This isn't 'the sad tale of the achingly lonely and wounded childless woman', this is my tale about a woman who owns her body with dignity, and who shuts the door on social norms, and who has a sense of agency to live a life she imagined on the inside.
I wish people would stop seeing us as their "poor little projects", where they believe we are some challenge and that if we love them enough, they would become the one exception to our rule, and we just desperately will want to carry their child as a grand expression of their worth. I would like to see these people go and find their own worth in themselves, and stop seeing successful control over other's choices as a measure of their worth in the world."
Then something in me twinged ... I realised that this might be my closest insight to how an avoidant would feel in relationship to me as an anxious person — with my intense preoccupation in trying to "fix" everything, and in my choosing them knowing they are avoidant and still thinking I could be the exception to the rule ... measuring my worth against my own success in being able to control their emotions and actions towards me. The thing it made me realise was that this is my "pathology", that I am so terrified of engulfment that I chose to be childless, however, I really don't actually experience it as a pathology — I experience it as a cornerstone of my identity, and I celebrate that about myself!
It has been really enlightening for me today to actually realise that this thing I have been pouting at, trying to control ... this "project" I have been making of the avoidants in my life ... it is probably hurting them in the way it hurts me, because in some ways, it is a kind of rejection to project my needs onto them when their identity does not reflect that as a priority. I learned today that I need to accept reality, and love people as they are, and love them for their limitations without trying to control them into being what I "need" them to be.
