shizzle_84 Posted March 25, 2017 Posted March 25, 2017 This is probably very common but just wondering if anyone out there had advice for people like me who sabotages opportunities for real/good intimate relationship? In my teenage years I moved schools a lot, so I didn't settle and form close friendships. And the first girlfriend I had was a girl I was not attracted to. I'm not proud of it but I felt I needed some kind of experience. Needless to say it turned bad, on account of me. Since then, though - I've noticed a pattern I had with girls. Women who I was really attracted to I tended to put them on a pedestal and therefore FEAR approaching them. Even some of the women who gave me many chances I eventually sabotaged myself. Anyways, anyone got any suggestions on how to overcome this type of sabotage behaviour?
TheBathWater Posted March 25, 2017 Posted March 25, 2017 This is probably very common but just wondering if anyone out there had advice for people like me who sabotages opportunities for real/good intimate relationship? In my teenage years I moved schools a lot, so I didn't settle and form close friendships. And the first girlfriend I had was a girl I was not attracted to. I'm not proud of it but I felt I needed some kind of experience. Needless to say it turned bad, on account of me. Since then, though - I've noticed a pattern I had with girls. Women who I was really attracted to I tended to put them on a pedestal and therefore FEAR approaching them. Even some of the women who gave me many chances I eventually sabotaged myself. Anyways, anyone got any suggestions on how to overcome this type of sabotage behaviour? Self-awareness. Learn. Get new experiences. Repeat. 2
smackie9 Posted March 25, 2017 Posted March 25, 2017 You know what you are doing wrong....when you get those thoughts, correct yourself, and stop it. It takes a lot of persistence and will power to remove this anxiety. Once you do it enough times, you retrain your brain to think positive....it will open doors for you like a cool breeze. 3
Gr8fuln2020 Posted March 25, 2017 Posted March 25, 2017 Women who I was really attracted to I tended to put them on a pedestal and therefore FEAR approaching them. Even some of the women who gave me many chances I eventually sabotaged myself. I don't understand this. You FEARED approaching women to date or approach them with issues, conversation AFTER you've started dating? Many chances to do what? To ask them out? Or to fix an on-going relationship?
spiderowl Posted March 26, 2017 Posted March 26, 2017 I can understand this. The certainty of knowing you are not in a relationship, that the person is not stringing you along or cheating, can feel better than being in a scary, uncertain position. Do you sabotage things when you start to feel insecure? Sabotaging things provides certainty. Insecurity can be unnerving and painful. Unless you feel very sure of the person you are with, then a relationship can be stressful as you are always on the edge wondering how it is really going.
Miss Spider Posted March 26, 2017 Posted March 26, 2017 I hear this phenomenon a lot.... knock them off the pedestal. No one is better than you. Just because you think she's too pretty doesn't mean she thinks she is. Just because she's different than you doesn't mean that she doesn't think your differences are attractive. Learn to deal with rejection. In dating, almost everyone gets rejected and they all live. It's just par for the course to find someone who is compatible and attractive to you and vice versa. Good luck!!!! 1
curiouslysearching Posted March 26, 2017 Posted March 26, 2017 You know what you are doing wrong....when you get those thoughts, correct yourself, and stop it. It takes a lot of persistence and will power to remove this anxiety. Once you do it enough times, you retrain your brain to think positive....it will open doors for you like a cool breeze. I personally am ready for the SUMMER BREEZE not the COOL BREEZE
Author shizzle_84 Posted March 26, 2017 Author Posted March 26, 2017 I can understand this. The certainty of knowing you are not in a relationship, that the person is not stringing you along or cheating, can feel better than being in a scary, uncertain position. Do you sabotage things when you start to feel insecure? Sabotaging things provides certainty. Insecurity can be unnerving and painful. Unless you feel very sure of the person you are with, then a relationship can be stressful as you are always on the edge wondering how it is really going. I sabotage before I feel insecure... So thanks to this wall I keep putting up, I got no one to sleep with. Is this a... I just need to GET OVER MYSELF problem you think? If I do have someone over that "wall" though - he certainty and uncertainty factor I get from my partner has to have some balance. Cause if it's too certain then - what's the point? Right?
Author shizzle_84 Posted March 26, 2017 Author Posted March 26, 2017 I hear this phenomenon a lot.... knock them off the pedestal. No one is better than you. Just because you think she's too pretty doesn't mean she thinks she is. Just because she's different than you doesn't mean that she doesn't think your differences are attractive. Learn to deal with rejection. In dating, almost everyone gets rejected and they all live. It's just par for the course to find someone who is compatible and attractive to you and vice versa. Good luck!!!! That song keeps running in my mind now when I think of what you said... "You got to give a little, take a little - and let your poor heart break a little..." 1
Author shizzle_84 Posted March 27, 2017 Author Posted March 27, 2017 How was family life growing up, OP? Sounds like you know what you're talking about. I was actually avoiding that point - which is the more pertinent question. For starters, my sisters were very passive aggressive with me. My brother gets along well with them but with me it was like I was an alien. Where I come from, my family - we generally don't talk things out. So I grew up with this persistent feeling that there's a hole in my life. I realise only at 27 years old, after seeing a psychiatrist - that that hole was my father's absence. I have siblings, and it seems to me he was there for them emotionally. But it was different for me - I don't know why. I had a happy childhood but his absence left me without an emotional compass. So that made going through school from 7 to 17 years old was extra difficult for me. I'm an adult now, and I know I'm responsible for my own growth from here on. But I still can't forgive my father for his absence, nor my older sisters who should have ****ing known better. 1
ExpatInItaly Posted March 27, 2017 Posted March 27, 2017 I asked about your family because it's in our childhood years when we usually develop healthy/unhealthy attachments and ways of relating with the world and other people. The habits and behaviour we learned then usually become patterns we repeat in adult relationships. It is often not something we're fully conscious of, until we see that pattern for ourselves or have someone else point it out. You might find it enlightening to read up on Attachment Theory, and more specifically, Avoidant Attachment. It's not unusual for people with abandonment or neglect in early childhood to be fearful and anxious in romantic relationships later in life. Avoidant attached individuals often run from intimacy because that level of vulnerability is just too scary; they tend to associate emotional vulnerability and closeness with pain and loss and rejection..and so they shut it down before a relationship can really blossom. In their minds, relationship = risk and pain. The above is of course a simplification, and a generalization. I can't begin to guess if that's what's happening for you, but it would be worth checking out, in my opinion.
Author shizzle_84 Posted March 27, 2017 Author Posted March 27, 2017 I asked about your family because it's in our childhood years when we usually develop healthy/unhealthy attachments and ways of relating with the world and other people. The habits and behaviour we learned then usually become patterns we repeat in adult relationships. It is often not something we're fully conscious of, until we see that pattern for ourselves or have someone else point it out. You might find it enlightening to read up on Attachment Theory, and more specifically, Avoidant Attachment. It's not unusual for people with abandonment or neglect in early childhood to be fearful and anxious in romantic relationships later in life. Avoidant attached individuals often run from intimacy because that level of vulnerability is just too scary; they tend to associate emotional vulnerability and closeness with pain and loss and rejection..and so they shut it down before a relationship can really blossom. In their minds, relationship = risk and pain. The above is of course a simplification, and a generalization. I can't begin to guess if that's what's happening for you, but it would be worth checking out, in my opinion. Thanks man, I'll check it out.
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