Why and When I come to Loveshack

[Simon Attwood]

I thought it was time I shared my current situation.

 

I've spoken of a previous traumatic relationship here before, and how that and other, previous, experiences stimulated my study in to relationship conflict, but now want to talk about my current relationship.

 

I met this woman in March 2006. She lived in Manchester, I lived in London (about 300 miles away for those that don't know the geography). She was down visiting cousins. We had 2 ½ wonderful months together. One day, in the kitchen of her flat in Manchester, while she had a small group of friends over, I'd made the effort to produce all the food for the small impromptu party. The evening was going well. We were both a little tipsy. She looked at me across the kitchen, with everyone there, and said "I love you". It was a bolt out of the blue and the effect it caused was that it was like everyone else disappeared for a few moments. The next day, I was due to return to London, she couldn't look at me, she wouldn't talk to me, she couldn't have been more distant, more shut off. I returned to London on the train, the following day I called her, a man answered, I asked to speak to her, he handed her the phone, and she said "I can't speak to you right now, i am on the toilet".

 

you can imagine my response.

 

The following day I received a text message saying "I am sorry but I can't see you any more". I immediately phone her, she is cold, distant and adamant.

 

I don't see her again for 4 months. And she refuses to speak to me when I try and call. I even travel to Manchester a few times to try and confront her, but she avoids me.

 

And then one day I receive a call, she's in trouble at work, facing accusations of abuse, and needs a shoulder and some advice. I get on the train again and go to Manchester. We talk about her problem, we talk about us and what happened, etc. I return to London.

 

The following weekend I return to Manchester at her request, yet on the Sunday I am due to return, she again pushes me away. I leave, quietly and unannounced, she calls my name as I walk out the door, I ignore her. She tries to phone me, I ignore her. 2 days later I get another phone call and I am busy on site at work and I am unable to answer, so a text message follows; "I cannot keep running away from the person I want to be with, will you marry me? I don't want to lose you".

 

To cut a long story short, I said yes.

 

more to follow

[Steadfast]

Can someone explain why love makes our brains go numb?

 

Simon, the part I liked best about your intro/story is you portrayed how you felt, what you saw. When I hear or people say 'We're soul mates' or 'We're perfect for each other' I right away think they're making a huge assumption.

 

Compounded with the reality that (if read here) the relationship is usually kaputz.

 

Looking forward to the next installment.

[You Go Girl]

The suspense is killing me, Simon...!

[LoveTruthChaos]

You Go Girl - I LOVE your signature

[Simon Attwood]

Can someone explain why love makes our brains go numb? .

 

Quite simply it doesn't, in fact quite the opposite. We live our lives with walls, barriers, boundaries, living in small spaces protected from the uncertain world, secure within our space. The safety of what Blake called "his cavern". The moment love enters the equation it means we have to step outside of that safety. Love means stepping out of that secure space, extending ourselves, opening up to an infinite world and terrifying world.

 

2 passages from M Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled" seem to sum it up nicely;

 

When we extend ourselves, our self enters a new and unfamiliar territory. Our self becomes a new and different self. we do things we are not accustomed to do. We change. The experience of change, of unaccustomed activity, of being on unfamiliar ground, of doing things differently, is frightening. It always was and always will be. People handle their fear of change in different ways, but the fear is inescapable if the changes are to take place. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the making a decision in spite of fear, the moving out and changing against the resistance engendered by fear in to the unknown and in to the future. On some level spiritual growth, and therefore love, always requires courage and involves risk.

 

If you move out to another human being, there is always the risk that that person will move away from you, leaving you more painfully alone than you were before. Love anything that lives - a person, a pet, a plant - and it will die. Trust anybody and you may be hurt, depend on anyone and that someone may let you down. The price of risking love, is pain. If someone is determined not to or fears the risk of pain, then that person must do without a great many things in life - Having Children, Getting Married, The ecstasy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship - all that makes life alive, meaningful and significant. Risk growing in any direction and pain as well as joy will be your reward. A full life will be full of pain and suffering, it is inevitable for risk brings with it failure as well as success. But the only alternative is not to live fully or not to live at all. To live in fear.

 

Love is like stepping out of a safe small dark room and seeing a cloudless sunny sky. It's going from a place of certainty where you knew where things begin and end. In to a world without beginning and end, where there is no certainty. Love opens up the senses to a world without walls, celings and sometimes floors. Don't we call it "falling in love"?

 

Vertigo; a fear of falling.

 

we go numb because we fear and not because we love. Love throws us in to a terrifying place and it is the terror that numbs us. There are 3 basic programmed reactions that an animal will go through when presented with fear, the 3 "F"s, the 2 we all know well are Fight or Flight, the third is Freeze, the deer in the headlights. It has been demonstrated that when an animal knows it's a gonna, it's body will flood with endorphines 100 times more powerful than morphine, it basically switches off feeling so that the animal doesn't have to experience the pain of it's death.

 

When we go numb in the face of love, we become the deer in the headlights, we switch off. A threat that the only escape from, is to switch off the thing that has caused the threat. We go back to the safety of our cavern.

 

I'll get back to my story in a bit.

Edited September 6, 2010 by Simon Attwood

[Simon Attwood]

OK back to the story.

 

I am going to go back a bit to the moments soon after she first pushed me a way.

 

I didn't initially handle it as well as I could have and did something, at one point, that I'm not very proud of.

 

I'd given her my mobile phone because hers was broken, I had an old one that I transfered my SIM to, so I tried to ask her to return it, but as trying to talk to her was impossible (she wasn't answering the phone to me) I went to the police station for advice on whether there was anyway to get her to return the phone. I wasn't really bothered about the phone, it was the whole situation that bothered me and I was just trying to get her attention. The police said there wasn't anything they could do to help, but the officer I spoke to and told the story to decided to call her and ask her whether she would return it. A few days later, the phone turned up in the post, slightly the worse for wear, my guess was that it had been thrown and my guess was later confirmed.

 

OK so back to her asking me to marry her. I went Hatton Garden (for anyone that doesn't know London, that is the Jewellery centre of London) and picked out a ring and the following weekend got on the train to Manchester. This was October 06.

 

If I was evil, i would stop it there with a "to be continued"

 

I presented the ring to her, did the getting down on one knee thing, etc. gave a little speech and returned to London on the Sunday, we both started making plans for the wedding, do we do it in Manchester or London, etc. we looked at venues for both, we set a date, she wanted 07/07/07. You can imagine that this was going to be quite a busy day for weddings, but we finally found a venue, booked it, paid for it. An island venue on the Thames, the moment she saw it, she said this is the one she wanted.

 

At this point I should say that my wife is originally from Angola, Africa. She came over to the UK when she was 19 as a refugee, her parents still live in Angola so no parents to pay for the wedding, and it's not the African way anyway.

 

Twice, in the 9 months leading up to the wedding we ended up in arguments where she told me that the wedding was off, but these were short lived. Come the wedding day and I am standing in a church awaiting the moment she walks down the aisle ..

 

.. and then reports come that virtually all of the people she had invited were not going to make it. We'd picked a day when the Henley Regatta was on, when the Tour de France came to London for the day, and the women's finals were on at Wimbledon. London was gridlocked and virtually all of her guests were coming down from Manchester on the day. I hear that she's in tears outside. The vicar goes out to talk to her. Scenarios of her running play through my mind and I steel myself to prepare for that possibility. The vicar comes back and says, she wants to go ahead despite her guests not being there for the ceremony, including the person she chose to give her away! An alternative is found from the guests of hers that had arrived. The ceremony goes ahead without any further hitches.

 

Scroll forward a bit to the end of the reception, I've booked a limo and a hotel near by. She has been drinking quite a bit, she's drunk but not totally incoherent. We get to the hotel, she wants a drink at the bar, she asks for a triple whisky and coke. It's late but there is a small group at the bar still and she makes a beeline for them, soon she has convinced them to start buying her drinks, all triples. After about an hour, and 5 triple whiskys I manage to get her up to the room where she passes out, still in her wedding dress.

 

I later came to the realisation that the drinking and passing out was an intentional act to avoid what should have been the most intimate night of our lives.

 

The next day she appears a little distracted and remote. A few days later we have a massive argument in the morning and she walks out, only returning in the evening.

 

We have since been having arguments/fights 3 or 4 times a year where she tells me it is over and she wants a divorce. When we are at home we both work and she does shift work so our contact is sometimes low. We've been on 5 holidays since we got married and on everyone we end up fighting. Some times we don't talk for days, some times weeks, she will leave for days and go and stay at her cousins. This current one is the longest, it's been over 6 weeks.

 

When we aren't fighting we discuss what causes the fights. Prior to this one, the last one was in December last year. Ironically, in early June this year, she proudly informed me "Have you noticed how I have stopped trying to drive you away?" as if she was trying to tell me she had overcome her demons. I figure this probably triggered the current episode.

 

As some have noted, I've assembled a fair bit of understanding on the psychological and neurological basis of conflict in relationships. The motives have been past relationships as well as this one.

 

My wife was never one to talk openly about her past in Africa but small pieces come out; She was born in a country in the midst of a bloody civil war, born in Huambo. Huambo was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting, there were what was called "amputation squads" Unita sodiers that would cut off arms and legs with machete. Abandoned at only a few months old by her mother, left with her father who could not handle her or look after her at first so her father passed her on to an aunt who looked after her for her first years. Through out her early years she was either passed to or run away from one branch of the family to another branch. She was branded troublsome at the very least, and even, I am told, sent to a witch doctor to purge her of demon possession.

 

It is my experiences with my wife that has focused my study on early life trauma and how it affects the emotional, chemical and structural development of a child's brain and on the kind of emotional adult that results.

 

We discuss these things when we aren't fighting. When we are fighting, I am told; "your psychology doesn't work on me", "is that what your books tell you?", "Africans don't work that way, you don't know Africa, as long as there is food in your mouth you are happy", etc. to which I point out that the research is not just based upon white people, but they have done these tests on monkeys, squirrels and mice as well, so Africans must be special then. When we aren't fighting she readily admits it is her that causes all the fights. When we are fighting, it's always something I have or haven't done. Usually the reasons for the fights are, to anyone else, insignificant slights or errors, she builds them in to so much more.

 

Her biggest problem is a fear of ever having to face her fear of the pain of abandonment. This is a deeply unconscious programmed fear/response from the stress she experienced as a baby.

 

When this fear takes control of her she becomes highly irrational, impulsive and destructive

 

So I come here when we are fighting. It's for selfish reasons really; by reading and responding to other's troubles I am able to assemble thoughts and perspectives on my own.

 

While these fights are happening I just have to be patient, knowing she has come through these episodes many times before. I need to keep my distance but not enough to appear to completely go away, I need to be there but not appear threatening in any way. I am sure you can imagine that is not always easy and I am subject to considerable provocations. Each time she has come back to me, she has come back a little more loving. But while these fights are happening, i settle for living in an uncertain world, taking each day as it comes, and looking for inspiration on here. Finding my own answers by answering others.

 

Edited September 6, 2010 by Simon Attwood

[PegNosePete]

Jeeze dude. Here's a brick. Try banging your head against it, it's probably less painful!

 

This has to be one of the least functional relationships I've ever heard. She married you for completely the wrong reasons, and the same for you. As I was reading through I was thinking "oh no he didn't!!" over and over again. The relationship should have ended when some other guy picked up the phone, and she said she was on the toilet! She's either lying to you or else she's using the toilet with another dude in the room...!!! Either way it should be over!

 

You have to get away from this woman. I know it is difficult because she is so broken, for you to leave her will be very hard, you will feel like a complete b**tard for deserting her. My previous relationship was similar, my ex had severe OCD and was in and out of mental hospital, she needed me for her sanity, I could never leave her so we just carried on. Eventually she found someone else and whilst I was hurt badly at the time, eventually I was relieved to be free of her. I just wish I hadn't wasted 9 years of my life. Hopefully you can get away with less.

[Steadfast]

 

Jeeze dude. Here's a brick. Try banging your head against it, it's probably less painful!

 

This has to be one of the least functional relationships I've ever heard. She married you for completely the wrong reasons, and the same for you. As I was reading through I was thinking "oh no he didn't!!" over and over again. The relationship should have ended when...

 

 

Yeah, but the heart loves who it loves.

 

I'd like to puff out my chest and say 'I'd never' because that's the way I always said it would be. But even after knowing my ex wife slept with (at least) two other guys, I told her I didn't care and just wanted our family back together. I meant it too, broken as I was. Of course, like any cheater who has you by the balls, she once again wiped her feet on my face.

 

Sometime right after that, I started to really hate the taste of dirt.

 

So, good story Simon; very romantic in some ways, sad in others. The parts that hurt most is her bringing up the 'cultural' differences (what a load) and proudly admitting that she pushed you away.

 

Time to finish what you started when she was calling out for you, but you didn't listen. Love her or not, she needs to see that door close for good.

[Simon Attwood]

So, good story Simon; very romantic in some ways, sad in others. The parts that hurt most is her bringing up the 'cultural' differences (what a load) and proudly admitting that she pushed you away. .

 

what she was proudly admitting was that she thought she had defeated the demon that caused the fights.

 

Time to finish what you started when she was calling out for you, but you didn't listen. Love her or not, she needs to see that door close for good.

 

Yes, that would affirm the core belief. But what I am more interested in is dismantling that core belief and building a new one in it's place. I don't know if that is possible, from what I have read there are mixed opinions.

 

I am not setting my sites on either future success or failure. As I stated above; I have settled for the uncertainty of it all. It's not that painful, it's not intolerable, I am able to accept this because I am able to see through the crap. I'm living in the moment, I'm living now and taking each moment as it comes. And I can accept what ever outcome.

 

I was fully prepared, when I decided to write this, for responses like Pete's. I expected them. We always judge how we expect others to react, on how we ourselves would respond to a situation. We don't all need to follow the same rule book.

 

I've taken worse and come out a better person for it. And no matter the outcome, or even if we never reach the outcome, every day I am a better, fuller person for it.

[Veronica K]

...Her biggest problem is a fear of ever having to face her fear of the pain of abandonment. This is a deeply unconscious programmed fear/response from the stress she experienced as a baby.

 

When this fear takes control of her she becomes highly irrational, impulsive and destructive

 

So I come here when we are fighting. It's for selfish reasons really; by reading and responding to other's troubles I am able to assemble thoughts and perspectives on my own.

 

While these fights are happening I just have to be patient, knowing she has come through these episodes many times before. I need to keep my distance but not enough to appear to completely go away, I need to be there but not appear threatening in any way. I am sure you can imagine that is not always easy and I am subject to considerable provocations. Each time she has come back to me, she has come back a little more loving. But while these fights are happening, i settle for living in an uncertain world, taking each day as it comes, and looking for inspiration on here. Finding my own answers by answering others.

 

 

I've seen some posts by you before - I know you've read Berne, for example.

 

Do the provocations get worse, better, or are they more or less the same?

 

I hope you are taking good care of yourself.

[hopesndreams]

the following day I called her, a man answered, I asked to speak to her, he handed her the phone, and she said "I can't speak to you right now, i am on the toilet".

 

Who was the dude on the phone?

 

You have yourself quite the little game player. Challenging huh?

[Simon Attwood]

I've seen some posts by you before - I know you've read Berne, for example.

 

Do the provocations get worse, better, or are they more or less the same?

 

I hope you are taking good care of yourself.

 

 

Hi Veronica

 

I've read lots. I wasn't too convinced by Berne, I find these "games" he describes might be useful metaphors, but not much else. He comes across to strict with his taxonomies for my liking.

 

The provocations are constant in terms of each episode. In terms of the duration of each episode they fizzle out as she comes to terms with the fact she has once again failed to push me away.

 

I believe I am taking good care of myself. My previous experience was a lot more traumatic because I wasn't prepared for the level of narcissistic projection and I took on some of that projection. a few months after that I had some very productive sessions with a therapist. I was able to understand that I took on the projections and I was then able to do a comparison between me and the me that was projected.

 

This time the provocations may catch me out occasionally, but generally I am able to deal constructively with the projections. If you understand the nature of countertransference as used in therapy, you can see where I can use these projections constructively.

[Simon Attwood]

 

Who was the dude on the phone??

 

The "dude" on the phone was her ex boyfriend, the one she had initially filled me with stories about how they had always fought. She briefly went back to him, later admitting she did it only so that she could try and put someone between us and it didn't last more than a few weeks.

 

You have yourself quite the little game player. Challenging huh?

 

Very challenging but I take heart in the fact that every episode is followed by a greater connection.

[Steadfast]

 

Yes, that would affirm the core belief. But what I am more interested in is dismantling that core belief and building a new one in it's place. I don't know if that is possible, from what I have read there are mixed opinions.

 

 

Well, good luck with that Simon. And though I know realize I'm not saying anything you don't already know, the fact is, all of us choose for ourselves. Short of inventing some sort of behavior-modification machine, no amount of psychoanalyzing or study is going to make someone do the right thing.

 

No matter how edifying. Not matter how intelligently approached.

 

Right is doing what you agreed to do. Commitment either exists or it doesn't. Otherwise, we'll all just sleep with a different person every night.

 

Here's hoping you find what you need in your search for understanding-

[Veronica K]

Hi Veronica

 

I've read lots. I wasn't too convinced by Berne, I find these "games" he describes might be useful metaphors, but not much else. He comes across to strict with his taxonomies for my liking.

 

Hiya SA!

 

Fair point, imho. I read it not too long ago. While I personally find it useful, it has its limitations.

 

The provocations are constant in terms of each episode. In terms of the duration of each episode they fizzle out as she comes to terms with the fact she has once again failed to push me away.

 

I believe I am taking good care of myself. My previous experience was a lot more traumatic because I wasn't prepared for the level of narcissistic projection and I took on some of that projection. a few months after that I had some very productive sessions with a therapist. I was able to understand that I took on the projections and I was then able to do a comparison between me and the me that was projected.

 

This time the provocations may catch me out occasionally, but generally I am able to deal constructively with the projections. If you understand the nature of countertransference as used in therapy, you can see where I can use these projections constructively.

 

I had to look it up, so I only understand it very loosely atm. I might read more about it sometime.

 

Just know I'm pulling for you, and hope you will be okay.

[Simon Attwood]

Just know I'm pulling for you, and hope you will be okay.

 

 

Thanks, I think I will

[bonpaw2008]

Hey Simon - I have seen your posts to others and this thread is a real eye-opener about your situation and what you have gone through. I am sorry for what you have endured, I myself had a "serial commitmaphobic" that would be completely there and with me....until he wasn't.

 

I think what those who have been wallowing in this forum are trying to say is that, even though you may think you are staying for love, commitment, etc. (which are all very valid reasons) we think there is something else going on. Why do you let her treat you like this? Where is the self-worth that you need for yourself to be happy and healthy?

 

From the outside it looks like an addictive, toxic relationship and you really need to take a step back to see what keeps you with this woman. She keeps quitting you and you keep letting her. Not trying to offend you at all, just showing you what we see from out here. We are all in the same boat. You get into a pattern of abuse that seems even tolerable because it has gone on for so long. Sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective (which I think is what you were looking for) to see what you need to do to get yourself back.

 

NC is terribly hard, but remember it is for you. She makes her decision known as she continues to walk away from you, you need to let her live with her decision.

 

Thanks for listening and I wish you well.

[Simon Attwood]

Bonpaw, that's an interesting quote you have in your signature, you should consider it again

 

I have more sense of my self worth now, than I have ever had in my life. I have no problem with a sense of my self worth.

 

This woman isn't quitting me, she is quitting herself, time and again, and with each step we have ended up a little closer and she has believed in herself and us a little more.

 

If I really believed this woman was making her decisions with malicious intent, I'd have been gone long ago.

[bonpaw2008]

Bonpaw, that's an interesting quote you have in your signature, you should consider it again

 

I have more sense of my self worth now, than I have ever had in my life. I have no problem with a sense of my self worth.

 

This woman isn't quitting me, she is quitting herself, time and again, and with each step we have ended up a little closer and she has believed in herself and us a little more.

 

If I really believed this woman was making her decisions with malicious intent, I'd have been gone long ago.

 

Don't worry about me and my happiness Simon, I am happy because of me, not because I am trying to save someone that doesn't want to be saved. I know that I can only control my actions, I have no wish to control anyone else. I broke the pattern of abuse I was in. I said "no" to being mistreated, and to whatever personal reasons he thought he had to treat me that way.

[Simon Attwood]

Don't worry about me and my happiness Simon,

 

That wasn't my point I was making the point about my happiness. I am happy enough, I could be happier not having to deal with my wife's abandonment issues that cause these conflicts and stem from her early life experiences, but we can't have everything.

[Lost Fish]

Simon,

 

You are indeed a rare breed. More power to you if you can endure your wife's episodes.

 

I think the rest of us are trying to empathize and don't know how we could endure as long as you have.

 

But perhaps with the research and perspective you have, you are able to "see through her crap" as you said and still love the scared, traumatized girl behind it all.

 

I just hope that she doesn't try to escape from you forever - in order to avoid her fear of abandonment from you. Kind of a paradox isn't it?

 

I don't know how you do it.

[Simon Attwood]

Thanks for your comments, Lost Fish

 

I just hope that she doesn't try to escape from you forever - in order to avoid her fear of abandonment from you.

 

That's just one of the truths that I deal with.

 

Kind of a paradox isn't it?

 

It may appear so, but memories aren't just stored in the hippocampus, they are also stored in the amygdala based upon how much fear, stress or anxiety they have caused. These memories, these programs, cause autonomous responses. When met with the possibility of having to re live an early trauma the amygdala will hijack the organism and try and steer it away so that it never has to face the pain it experienced the first time. This is the pain my wife faced when she was only a few months old and abandoned by her mother. The amygdala is the first part of the brain to develop, it is already developing in the foetus, it's already storing memories while still in the womb. The hippocampus is where we store retrievable memories and this doesn't fully develop until the age of 3 or 4. Hence our first retrievable memories begin at this time.

 

The organism is avoiding any chance of letting itself fall in to a position that risks experiencing that pain again.

[florence of suburbia]

I'm reading this with great interest, Simon. I want to respond at more depth but now it is close to *my* bedtime.

 

I don't agree with those who are saying you should leave her. I think she needs someone exactly like you, and, in some way, you must need someone like her.

 

I don't know how you keep from getting hurt though. And feeling like a fool for putting up with some of it. Because aren't there moments when you think she doesn't particularly need you or even like you, that she doesn't appear to be in distress, she's being an arsehole?

 

And how do you keep a grip on who you are in the relationship? How do you know you're not just a doormat, but that rather, you have the particular sort of strength needed to love her?

 

How do you know she doesn't lose respect for you, each time you forgive her outrageous behavior?

 

Also, how do you know, when she pushes you away, how far away to go? For example, if she kicked you out, would you go?

[PegNosePete]

Sorry didn't mean to offend. And I don't mean to offend again with this post. I'm just commenting on what I see, like Bonpaw said, giving external insight.

 

It seems to me, from what you've written, that she is a project to you. You want to fix her problems, to fix her, to reveal the inner diamond that is covered by layers of dirt. Like buying an old car and making it new by replacing all its parts, to make it shine and perform well. You're definitely a fixer, I guess that's why you've been helping people on this forum for a long time, without really explaining your own situation. You love to help people, and fix their problems. Nothing wrong with that at all, I am the same! Unfortunately, "fixer-uppers" very rarely work out in relationships. I've had 2, and neither worked well. I fixed them both up, gave them confidence, self-worth, physical makeovers, personality upgrades, and set their minds free. And you know what... after everything I'd given them, they both took that freedom, kicked me to the kerb, and found someone else.

 

Of course I don't expect you to dump her based on what I'm saying. That would make me a hypocrite of the highest order. Like I said in my previous post, I stayed with a mentally ill woman for 9 years, going to all her doctors appointments, putting up with her bad moods and behaviour, checking her in and out of hospitals. She needed me for her sanity. How could I dump her, knowing that it would have ruined her? I stayed with her because I loved her, and I was blind to how dysfunctional the relationship really was. So, I am not telling you to dump her. I'm just saying... it's not a healthy relationship and it probably won't end well.

 

Being with someone who needs you is bad, bad, BAD. You should be with someone who wants you. Someone who is capable of living on their own without you, or of finding someone else, but chooses to stay with you. That is the only type of woman I am going to accept from now on. No more fixer-uppers.

[Simon Attwood]

I don't know how you keep from getting hurt though. And feeling like a fool for putting up with some of it. Because aren't there moments when you think she doesn't particularly need you or even like you, that she doesn't appear to be in distress, she's being an arsehole?

 

I am human, not a machine, so obviously I have my moments of doubt, fear, etc. I stand back from myself, me ego and then they are fleeting.

,

And how do you keep a grip on who you are in the relationship? How do you know you're not just a doormat, but that rather, you have the particular sort of strength needed to love her?

 

I have developed a firm image of myself based upon reality, and not illusion. I accept my failings, weaknesses, etc. and this provides an armour towards the failings and weaknesses that are projected. We are only susceptible to projections because we hide our negative qualities from our own awareness, so when a negative quality is projected we have nothing to compare it to so we take on the projection. If we first acknowledge our failings we can compare the projection and see where it might have some truth to it, and see where deception is. The theory of transference and countertransference as used in therapy is based upon taking on the projections, the projections are undesirable feelings or self perceptions, so in taking on these projections the motivating factors are revealed; you are able to perceive what is happening inside the projector's mind.

 

How do you know she doesn't lose respect for you, each time you forgive her outrageous behavior?

 

Experience of the time following the episodes; after every conflict she has been able to be a little more intimate, loving and respectful.

 

Also, how do you know, when she pushes you away, how far away to go? For example, if she kicked you out, would you go?

 

I don't know how far to go, all I can do is trust my instincts, I will soon know if I haven't gone far enough, but it is better to not go far enough, than to go too far. I don't think she could kick me out, but if she tried to, then I could only respond to the situation if it presents itself, I cannot answer that based upon conjecture, I can only respond to the moment.