LOVE: THE WALLS WE HAVE

There’s a theme I see in a lot of these cases. Walls. Barriers. Rules. Contempt. Criticism. Complaints. They are all used to decrease intimacy across the board. It’s all used to push those who want to be close away. ED issues, major weight issues, hobbies that put distance, health and hygiene, physically pushing away, shifting the goal posts, blaming, not managing addictions, picking fights, physical ailments/pain, depression and other conditions they won’t treat, putting children in the marital bed, having affairs of the heart or mind, body dysmorphia, prioritizing children over the relationship that created them, passive aggression, manipulation, excessive use of **** – they all put up barriers and discourage or eliminate the possibility that someone will love them wholly and fully. They block intimacy all over the place. If you were to really look at their other relationships in life, I think you would see they block intimacy in friendships and family relationships as well. They might even love us as much as they possibly can but it does not begin to meet the needs for intimacy sexually or otherwise.

The hardest part of intimacy is the long term feeling safe enough and choosing to keep coming back to the same person and trusting yourself and them enough to just nestle in vulnerably, physically and emotionally being naked and real. It has to be mutual. When one is pushing away or setting up barriers or saying they are too busy, too tired or hurt too much or seeing you as too demanding, time consuming, having expectations that are too high sexually or otherwise… disconnect begins. When one partner starts to push back and try to regain control because the depth of intimacy is uncomfortable while the other one was happy with it or desired more, then the disconnect grows.

As the one who seems to more often than not be on the desiring end of that intimate expression or the waiting end, I know that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when the intimacy seems to feel different. Less real, less honest and less whole. I know when something feels wrong. The process after that if the other partner won’t re-engage is simply painful and sad. It’s almost predictable for me at this point though.

I’m not only going to have to end up with someone emotionally healthy and mature, but they are going to have to be VERY much so. Off the charts. Anything else results in this dance I never asked to learn. But I have seen the choreographed steps often enough now to know it’s not a rhythm I like. I’ve even been uncomfortably led around the dance floor to this dance a time or five. Some of the men doing the leading I really wanted to be dancing with and I tried to match them without losing my own style. In fact, I really wanted to dance with each of them so much that I probably matched them more than I should have. But the rhythm was just at some point no longer right, back and forth.