Subscribe by Email
(continued from part 6.1)
And what had changed? I’m no psychologist or psychiatrist, but, looking at my past actions dispassionately, I can theorize. What happened was this: the last couple of years in my “big” relationship were pretty bad for me; a side of me knew that I wasn’t really loved anymore, but I refused to admit it to myself (that wishful thinking thing again, mixed with a good old dose of sunk cost fallacy); even the sex itself (which is a very important thing to me) had gone down, both in quality and quantity. And yet, despite all odds, I was always faithful to her.
And it ended up pretty badly, as you know (from reading the previous part).
My guess, with the advantage of hindsight, is that all of the above unconsciously “taught” me something: that it’s not worth it to dedicate all of yourself to just one woman, to be faithful in every way to her, to love her above all things… that “romantic love” doesn’t really work. Note, I never thought this consciously; it was, I guess, simply an unconscious thing. I didn’t begin to think, say, that cheating on a girlfriend was perfectly acceptable, or that relationships are a waste of time, or that I should just look out for number one. Consciously, none of that happened.
Unconsciously, however… and this is a recent realization, which was one of the hardest things in my life to accept… I began to sabotage my relationships.
Looking at it now, there were many times when I was in great, healthy relationships with someone I loved, relationships that made me happy and fulfilled… and, yet, as time passed, I always met someone I was “curious” about. That someone might have been less interesting and less attractive than my current girlfriend, might not even be available or interested in me… but the curiosity was there.
And, since cheating on a relationship was basically anathema to me (though I can’t claim to having never done it…), apparently my unconscious self found a “solution”: ruin the current relationship. Sabotage it. Make problems up, invent causes of stress, create arguments, increasingly worse, until the inevitable “let’s give it some time/space” or “this isn’t working” or “we’re much better off as just good friends”.
Only now do I realize that I’ve done this for the past ten years. There wasn’t a single relationship I didn’t unconsciously “destroy”, just because I was curious about someone else… or perhaps, in some cases, because of a simple, calculating (though unconscious) “what if I can do better?” The worst time, usually, was when I met her (female) friends; that always gave me a feeling of “whoa! there’s all of this out there?”
And not only is this the reason I’m alone now, but it also makes me feel like a really horrible, despicable person, worthy of contempt. A part of me wonders if I deserve to be alone.
(to be continued in part 6.3)
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
