Issues with affection and trust

[spiderowl]

Not sure where to post this but hoping for some insightful comments, please.

 

I'd like to meet a nice guy and have a happy relationship. However, my background isn't helping me here. I have real problems with showing affection and with trust. The trust problems are partly due to having been misused by a couple of guys. One seemed to get quite involved with me over a few weeks, told me he loved me (I didn't solicit this) and then a week later decided it wasn't for him and opted out. I was pretty shocked by this and felt I'd been misled. I think he was probably messed up and an idiot, but still it had a bad effect on me.

 

The other was a real player and only when he disappeared on me after kissing me goodbye when he went off for work one morning, did I realise that he'd been lying to me. I won't go into detail but he spun very clever stories and even I, wary as I am, was taken in.

 

On top of the above, I had an unusual background in that my mother was abused as a child. She was orphaned, passed around relatives and ended up with an abusive relative. In this day and age she would have been taken into care but it didn't happen then. The result of all this was that she had some very odd ideas about relationships, about other people's motives generally, and also showed little affection, certainly hardly any physical affection. My father was quite a strict puritanical character who got very upset if I even talked to a boy, giving me dire warnings about their motives and generally giving me the impression that if I showed any interest in a member of the opposite sex, I would be a loose woman and something dreadful would happen.

 

I suppose it's not surprising that I have some problems with showing affection with friends, for example. Also, I am afraid to flirt, I feel anxiety at the prospect even of smiling at a guy who I am attracted to. I usually avoid catching his eye and behave in a just friends manner if we do get talking. In short, I daren't show any sign of attraction. I'm also concerned that I have male friends who I've known for years and yet have hardly ever dared to hug them. I did once to thank them for birthday presents. I see people all around me hugging friends, being warm and showing how much they love them and I feel I'm short-changing my friends. But I just can't seem to shake off all these old feelings. Also, what would they think? Would guys think I'm flirting with them if I did? Is it fair to hug a guy who I'm not going to have sex with? Would I be leading him on?

 

I think my friends must realise by now that I'm very reserved. They don't push anything but I feel a tension there, as if they don't quite know how to take me. I do tend to get tense if I think a flirting situation might occur. I have been married so I'm not naive, but my ex husband was extremely patient and was a long-term friend before it ever turned into more. The only other guys who have got anywhere with me have been very confident and not easily put off by my defences, hence them turning out to be players!

 

Is there any hope for me? Can I change? If so, in what way and how? All advice welcome.

Edited February 6, 2011 by spiderowl

[30Years]

First of all I'd like to say that you are very well written.

 

Secondly, you are correct, your background is the root of your issues. I've been there - different problems. That being said, this forum is grossly inadequate for assisting in your situation, except to recommend counseling. Please seek counseling. It does work.

 

To start, however, I would also recommend that you research your specific anxieties and read authoritative sources to help guide yourself in further understanding your challenges and finding proper counseling. From what you have written, I would guess that CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) would help you immensely.

 

It took years to learn your present behaviors. It will take some time to put them in perspective and address them appropriately. Be patient. Do the work, and your life will be much, much more fulfilling.

 

I wish you the best of luck.

[spiderowl]

Thanks very much for your thoughts on this. I guess therapy is the way forward but it's expensive and out of my reach at the moment. I also thought others may have been there too have learned something I've missed. Sometimes a different perspective can really make a difference to how you see something.

 

I do wonder how others see me. I think they may think I'm puritanical but I'm not. I'm just very reserved until I trust someone and know for sure they like me. I think people may see me as cold and yet I don't know how to change without it being weird.

[30Years]

Well, you've already discovered the first difficulty: changing habits feels weird. You WILL feel weird as you try to overcome long-held behaviors. Getting past that is what makes the difference between success and failure. But you need to take it in steps, starting small at first and gradually increasing your "challenges."

 

You might want to start with this book. Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life. (McKay, Davis, Fanning)

 

If nothing else, it will show you how CBT works, and it will provide you with ideas for exercises you can create on your own and undertake through the course of your average day.

 

The fact that you recognize your state of mind is half the battle. Keep pushing. You'll beat this.

[spiderowl]

Thanks for book suggestion. I'm not keen on the idea of CBT and not confident it would work. My instinct is that feelings are at the root of this and that they are instinctive reactions, reflexes. It's very hard to alter a reflex, but you could be right in that examining this carefully using CBT might change my perception of it. I know for sure I can't do it by willpower, I've tried.

 

It's hard to show people affection when your instinct is telling you they will reject you or read it all wrong. I feel embarrassed, ashamed, guilty and confused. I see others hug their friends and I feel bad that I don't do that. I wonder if my friends want it and think I'm weird. Maybe I should ask about it in a subtle way? I feel ashamed to want any physical affection, that only a woman who had no self-control would seek that.

 

The consequence of this is that I end up having friends-only relationships most of the time with the occasional fling when I usually end up hurt because the guy who was daring enough to work his way round my extreme defences is often a player. I seem to have enough offers of interest from guys, some of whom I like, but I can't believe are interested in anything other than a fling. Somehow I put them off and end up with the wrong ones! I daren't show any interest in the ones I really like. As a result, I often feel very lonely. I know this must sound a bit warped, but I'm looking for comments on on all this to see if I can look at it another way too and maybe find a more natural and human way to be.

Edited February 10, 2011 by spiderowl