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Post by tnr9 on Feb 4, 2022 14:47:56 GMT
Sometimes we need those…I know I do…..🙂 Sometimes bullet points can dispel the hope that an AP can find in anything else that is said, and I have a couple of bullet points that may or may not throw cold water on this. I think that a person in such a situation can actually be enabled by being given the information they seek, because they take information in and bargain with every point... "yeah I can handle that.... ok well then I can work with that.... he's a good guy so I don't think ThAT applies..." etc etc. Anyway, timely , blunt opinion (just an opinion) available here but I won't be responsible for how you feel about it once you've asked for it, I really won't. I mean no harm but these situations are messy and capable of great harm, better in the form of an opinion you don't like than an outcome you regret. I get it…I REALLY do…it was not that long ago that I was there….and I know the “I can be the exception” thought process…..but again….that story line required abandoning myself and my needs to hold onto a dream, a fantasy that someday he would wake up and realize how wonderful I was and we would have this amazing against all odds relationship. But it is really hard to let go of that….especially with a history of being focused on potential and fantasy because reality was just too sad and scary as a kid. |
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Post by krolle on Feb 4, 2022 15:29:43 GMT
I agree about the offering of blunt opinions as per @introvert tnr9 . My opinion was much more blunt than it would normally have been as it doesn't sound like OP is too emotionally invested yet. Or too vulnerable/triggered anxious. More so confused and asking for genuine direction. In other words a good time for the cold water to be applied. If she was here expressing a lot of emotional pain/ denial. I would be far more gentle about my advice. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2022 16:09:47 GMT
I agree about the offering of blunt opinions as per @introvert tnr9 . My opinion was much more blunt than it would normally have been as it doesn't sound like OP is too emotionally invested yet. Or too vulnerable/triggered anxious. More so confused and asking for genuine direction. In other words a good time for the cold water to be applied. If she was here expressing a lot of emotional pain/ denial. I would be far more gentle about my advice. I'll ask before I offer a bullet point opinion, in every case. I won't discriminate but I also won't be disrespectful or ill intentioned. If it's welcomed then I will offer it. When people come to a public forum they may or may not be open to the opinions offered, it's a risk. I know myself to be kind rather than cruel and I will communicate as fairly as I am able. An opinion may be dismissed as irrelevant if needed, that's a skill we all must learn at any stage of our personal development. Again, I won't impose, I'll ask in situations of a person pursuing a relationship with a clearly insecure person. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2022 16:24:51 GMT
An honest opinion delivered simply is just that, and it needn't be harsh. The pain resulting from a different perspective is not as damaging long term as illusions, denial, and insecure behavior. I'll leave it at that for now, and proceed thoughtfully and with integrity if I proceed at all.
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Post by timely on Feb 4, 2022 22:07:49 GMT
Thanks so much for comments alexandra tnr9 @introvert krolle anne12 @introvert and anyone else reading this - Please feel free to give me any advice or share any opinion/observation you think might help me. This is a good forum and I know you all mean well. I am trying to understand things and that is why I have come here. I am in fact very thankful for the thought and effort you all put into discussing my issue. I fully appreciate that. All I can say is THANK YOU and I will try my best to understand you. |
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Post by timely on Feb 4, 2022 22:28:16 GMT
What needs has the idea of him been meeting for you? It may be very useful on your end to introspect a bit about why someone being emotionally unavailable is attractive and difficult to leave. ... I have thought about this at length. But it is still a mystery to me as to why inspite of the fact that my conscious mind knows that this person isn't right for me, I am still finding it strangely tough to detach myself. And its exactly now, when I am trying to detach that I am beginning to realise how attached I have become. How did that happen! My parents have a very bad relationship. My mother is a covert narc and father a grandiose one, but I had many good role models growing up within the extended family, and the community to which I belong. At an early age I understood the importance of secure people and secure relationships. So what happened then? Why am I doing this? No clue! |
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Post by timely on Feb 4, 2022 22:38:06 GMT
He has no boundaries and it sounds like you don't either. Besotted with a married woman, still exes in the picture, and you're looking past all that with a hopeful outcome? You'll get exactly what you pay for, and then you will pay some more. I know all this, trust me I do, but here is the issue, I still am not feeling threatened or concerned enough to leave! You might say this is his charm working here. But to be honest he is not a charmer ... he never did anything too loud or dramatic to impress me, then why am I besotted? So strange! |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2022 23:06:14 GMT
What needs has the idea of him been meeting for you? It may be very useful on your end to introspect a bit about why someone being emotionally unavailable is attractive and difficult to leave. ... I have thought about this at length. But it is still a mystery to me as to why inspite of the fact that my conscious mind knows that this person isn't right for me, I am still finding it strangely tough to detach myself. And its exactly now, when I am trying to detach that I am beginning to realise how attached I have become. How did that happen! My parents have a very bad relationship. My mother is a covert narc and father a grandiose one, but I had many good role models growing up within the extended family, and the community to which I belong. At an early age I understood the importance of secure people and secure relationships. So what happened then? Why am I doing this? No clue! When we are infants, and children, with parents who are harmful, neglectful, unskillful, or otherwise unable to provide consistent nurturing care, we develop distorted ways of coping with that insufficiency. These coping mechanisms persist into adult relationships if not recognized abd addressed. It seems as though he has triggered some things in you that are related to engaging with unhealthy attachment figures. There are so many ways to describe it better than I have, and you can find a treasure trove of information here in the general forum, notably any thread by anne12 . You may begin to acquaint yourself with your own attachment style through tests that you can find on the web, as a start- but it would take a therapist evaluating with you to really dial that in. But you can gain a lot of insight just by looking into your own insecure style. Welcome, and I know others will be along to offer more information about this, in very articulate ways  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2022 23:16:31 GMT
The opinion I have is that it seems as though you are attracted by his attention and also his unavailability to you, and it's triggering your own anxious attachment, perhaps Fearful Avoidant, perhaps AP, a mix of both... and that you are in denial of significance of his behavior and what it means. Meanwhile, I think you are missing your own insecure behaviors, and you have mentioned above you are confused by it all. So my suggestion is, keep asking the same questions you are asking about YOURSELF, and be open to the possibility that your relational style is wounded enough to be potentially dangerous and certainly hurtful to yourself.
Many of us here have been on this journey a while and will help you understand to the extent that we are able, and to the extent you are open (it sounds like you're open, that's good!) But I believe you are experiencing a lot of illusion and denial about this man and his potential as a partner. You aren't in a relationship and there is a reason for that, a situationship is what you're in and it's not feeling good because it isn't good.
He can have good qualities and still be very bad news in terms of attachment and relationship. No one is all bad or all good, but what you are describing here is deeply dysfunctional and full of red flags that you minimize at your own emotional peril.
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Post by anne12 on Feb 4, 2022 23:33:32 GMT
You write: “But it is still a mystery to me as to why inspite of the fact that my conscious mind knows that this person isn't right for me, I am still finding it strangely tough to detach myself.…” Do you know about the 3 parted brain - the cognetive, the limbic, and the reptile brain ? Our attatchment and our love template sits in the primitive part of your brain - limbic and the reptile part of our brain. Dan Siegels hand model demonstration of the brain - youtu.be/gm9CIJ74OxwWe cant remember what happend to us before we were 3 years old. We also pick up things in uterous from our mother and her mother. Even from our fathers sperm. And we can inherent family trauma up to 3-7 generations back…. Babies are like little sponges- they pick up so many things around them. We also pick up things energeticly from other people, our parents, a school teacher ect., which doesn’t belong to us… Because we are heard animals we get affected by the heard…. You write : My parents have a very bad relationship. My mother is a covert narc and father a grandiose one…. I dont know who took Care of you as an infant, but we can Pick up things from our parents and their relationship as a couple. Why dont you think that you have picked something up from 2 narc parents ? You can pick something and get affected by their interaction with each other. Who took Care of you as a child ? Your primitive part of your brain can regonise something in the guy you are writing about, and think - “wow isent this just great - here comes mom and/or dad….!” Your love template sits in the old part of your brain. This part of the brain is extremely primitive in relation to neocortex, where reason and conscious thoughts emerge! The old part of the brain does not operate with chronological time, but sees everything as being/happening right now. Therefore, if you meet a person who reminds you of someone you know or have known, then it will confuse the person with this one. You will then feel safe or unsafe, comfortable or uncomfortable You can get attracted/attached because there is something about this guy that seems familiar to you… You can also have shock trauma - jebkinnisonforum.com/post/12359/ and - Or you can have maybe only 5% (situational ) desorganised attachment style, so that you are in some kind of survival mode - maybe even freeze - so that you don’t notice danger signals. Having Narc parents, narc exes ect. often creates some kind of desorganised attachment style… ”Dysregulated people who are in a kind of freeze state and low on energy/who are nummed out are more prone to attract people with dysregulated prepretator energy. People with prepretator energy say that they can spot people in freeze/they can feel their low energy miles away. For examble at a bar. If you are low on energy, in freeze/shut down and not well regulated be carefull because you can attract these type of people without being aware of it. You are in risk of being hunted like wounded/weak animals in the wild. You are also not able to detect danger the same way as if you were wellregulated.” (Peter Levine) Did you have sex with this guy yet ? (Oxytocin can make you bond faster as a woman than you want to, while mens testosterone blocks their intake of oxytocin)- jebkinnisonforum.com/post/26245/What about your other relationships before this guy ? You could or could not have had dysfunctional relationships before this guy ? Maybe not, but suddenly boom - something from the past can hit you …. Our love template sits in the old part of our brain It only takes a fifth of a second to activate the 12 brain areas that make you fall in love Some posts and different explanations about why we “fall in love” / why we get a crush on other people: - jebkinnisonforum.com/post/26196/- jebkinnisonforum.com/post/31003/- jebkinnisonforum.com/post/29255/- jebkinnisonforum.com/thread/2224/never-fall-love-wrong-personIm happy for you that you at least have/have had some secure role models in your life… |
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Post by alexandra on Feb 4, 2022 23:54:25 GMT
My parents have a very bad relationship. My mother is a covert narc and father a grandiose one, but I had many good role models growing up within the extended family, and the community to which I belong. At an early age I understood the importance of secure people and secure relationships. So what happened then? Why am I doing this? No clue! This is a great place to start. I had narcs in my family and also had not-narcs. I knew what good, long-term friendships looked like, but I also had this sort of "extension" of what the scope of acceptable / tolerable behavior of others was like because I had so much dysfunctional behavior normalized by family earlier in life. This broke my romantic picker. I was only attracted to avoidant men. Emotionally unavailable men who needed to be chased in a way and still would never fully commit. Part of why I think this happens for people is 1. you have emotionally unavailable people who modeled your core relationship framework, so if you haven't really stepped back and looked at all your early experiences and familial relationships (the good and bad together), you still have some normalized dysfunction embedded in there that may be on auto-pilot. You're used to trying to get love from emotionally unavailable people, and there's tolerance and familiarity in it that can feel like attraction when it activates your attachment system. 2. A child with emotionally unavailable caregivers doesn't get their needs met but still needs to stay attached for their physical survival. That means figuring out how to accept and internalize unforgivable behavior, because there's no other option. But as a kid, you don't have the emotional sophistication and tools to be aware that you're doing this, and it all gets pushed down and carried into adulthood. Not consciously, until as an adult you begin to unpack and heal it. It's not intuitive, but I have no doubt that this is all tied in to what you're feeling with him. |
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Post by alexandra on Feb 5, 2022 0:17:08 GMT
Wanted to add:
There are sometimes also aspects of subconsciously trying to "correct the past" by winning the love of someone who reminds you of unavailable people and prior wounds, of not feeling you deserve more because you felt that way as a kid and look for the familiar as a sub-conscious self-fulfilling prophecy, and / or of feeling like winning over someone difficult will be the biggest validation ever -- validation you struggle with providing for yourself. That last one is related to not learning from caregivers how to emotionally regulate yourself well, because they always wanted to make you responsible for them instead of them being responsible for you.
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Post by anne12 on Feb 5, 2022 12:57:16 GMT
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Post by timely on Feb 5, 2022 22:43:03 GMT
Thanks anne12 alexandra @introvert and all anne12 thanks for writing comments and sharing those articles, I will read them all. You asked - Why dont you think that you have picked something up from 2 narc parents ? You can pick something and get affected by their interaction with each other. Who took Care of you as a child ? My grandmother often tookcare of me in my early years (1 to 3), she had her own mental health problems, so maybe that has impacted. Absolutely, I totally think that I must have been impacted by my narc parents, but exactly what is that impact I dont know. Have I developed narcissistic traits myself? Or is this psychopathy? (Fearlessness is indicator of psychopathy. I am not afraid of falling for a bad partner) I read A LOT about mental health problems. I am aware of these issues to a great extent, then why do I do this? @introvert thanks for all points you made. You said ... "what you are describing here is deeply dysfunctional and full of red flags that you minimize at your own emotional peril." My problem is, I don't know why! I can recognise the red flags, I know the harm, then why do I not feel scared of the flags. Why do I minimise the red flags - is what I am unable to understand? Am I being masochistic? No, I am not sure thats it! I just find that hard to believe. But this is self-harm surely, and I know it, but still I am sticking to this person A failure of intelligence? What is this?  alexandra thanks for answers. You wrote... "I have no doubt that this is all tied in to what you're feeling with him." You are right. But what is with this particular guy? In my day to day life I come across hundreds if not thousand hetro single men, then why is this particular guy managed to raise my interest so much. BTW he is not like my dad at all. Just want to say once again ALL, I really appreciate your responses. I have read all your comments twice and you have made great points, and given me a lot to think about. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2022 22:49:52 GMT
timely, being out of touch with your intuition, and being out of touch with your body sense of danger happens frequently with insecure attachment. As a dismissive I have had a huge problem with this in the past. My body didn't register fear about red flags either. Cues are not received well by insecure attachers, it's not at indication of psychopathy here but of overcoupling and undercoupling, terms alexandra has referenced in a thread that is on the general forum. Go check it out, it's pretty enlightening If you had harmful parents as a kid you might have needed to over ride danger signals to maintain a bond with caregivers. I'm glad you had raising by someone other than the narcissists! That's a huge benefit to you, but there may be other lingering impacts since your parents were pathological.
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