Self Sabotage

Ok. I remembered something recently about myself.... I'll try to make some sense out of it.... ugh, here goes. This is going to be long.

I have a terrible memory. I don't remember my childhood, except for photos I've seen over and over since then and some painted in memories of random things. The few memories I do have are more like extremely old polaroids or very vague imprints of emotions and events that have no visuals attached. I usually only retain less than 5 of these snapshots and some separate imprints for each YEAR of my life before high school. Since I realized this was happening to me in middle school I started sort of telling myself a story of my life - creating my narrative if you will. (I actually sort of want to write a book of my life because it would be fictional even with a basis in truth.) It's helped to improve my memory of my life, but it's extremely difficult to remember lots of little things with this method and there is so much bias in remembering this way. I feel like it's contributed to making it so much harder to get to know myself as well as with learning life lessons... I feel like I have to relearn certain things 5 or 6 times before it sticks per se. What a pain in the ass.

Since I've started reading so much on training and memory retention and learning... I've actually begun to suspect that all of this is attached to what is likely a REM disorder (my sleep issue). Research is showing that without REM sleep things you learn and experiences very rarely make it into long term memory, and that without that REM sleep we retain very little and what we do retain doesn't always get properly connected so that we can retrieve the information later. Awesome huh? So maybe it's less a pain in the ass and more of a freeing way to live? I wish it felt that way.

Alright so now that you know this important issue I have.... it hit me recently that I had forgotten an important pattern in my first relationship. I was constantly creating escape hatches in the first 4 years of that relationship, out of words, constructed issues that I decided should break us up, by talking up all the negatives, convincing myself not to love him, etc.

Hmmm, sound familiar?

I remember one day in particular (vaguely) where A got exasperated with me (something he rarely did) and asked me angrily/tearfully: "Why are you always trying to run away from us?" or something similiar. What I remember clearly is that the sentiment slammed into me. I was always - ALWAYS - less in it than he was and maintained that vigilantly. Always looking for the out, making sure it was there. I didn't use it until he forced me to, but I had it.

This was.... poisonous in a lot of ways. In order to construct an out when the relationship is primarily good meant I had to do it with words - because he rarely gave me much ammunition. So I would go to my mother (my best friend at the time) and my sister and talk all about what I was concerned about and I would constantly sound on the brink of a break up with him. By the time we broke up they both hated him, with lots of good reasons. We were together 7 years. I think I did this almost the entire time. Poor A. He managed to fight me off on a regular basis and by the end of our relationship it was a running joke between us. He could say something about it, I would realize that's what I was doing, and I would stop. That's part of why breaking up with him sucked so hard - I had finally gotten IN after years of fighting it and then I was forced to leave.

So. I vowed not to do that with K. And I didn't, though I had built in the escape hatch of graduate school. I did give him the option of going with me to it though - which in light of our problems we decided not to go with (haha, I make it all sound like it was done rationally and painlessly.... it wasn't rational or painless at all - he wasn't mature enough for that and I was dying in agony from feeling forced to abandon his daughter). Lesson here: Didn't build in appropriate escapes and I devastated myself.

Add these two experiences to a lifetime of inability to trust and my history of being abandoned....
and I sincerely doubt my ability to be the least bit honest with myself in a relationship situation. I don't think I know how. And I have to admit that terrifies me.

I think this is part of why I like E so much and always keep him in the wings. He tells me what I feel - and that works for me on a lot of levels. I'm fine with believing him and it's much easier than trying to figure it out for myself. Still - I stay away from getting involved with him because he's not stable and that seems to be the #1 thing I crave in my secret heart.

Alright - so what does this have to do with now? SP. Smart, an active listener (now anyway), a good foil for my neurotic and dramatic moments, sexy, and someone I was very excited about dating before we put a title on things. As soon as that happened... not as much excitement, because I needed an escape hatch. So I built a GOOD one: well he thinks he wants his own children, I don't - so for sure we won't last. Then when he seemed a little malleable on that issue I grabbed another one: Well, when he's done with grad school he'll leave and that'll be that.
During this time I've also built lots of little ones: We're both too selfish so we must not be right because if we were then we'd immediately just be perfect and put the other first every minute of every day (even though we're both rabidly opposed to codependence) and it would be a fairy tale (but I hate clear shoes, they're ugly, and he'd know that so he'd have been sure to buy me the perfect knee high black leather boot instead) and we'd never ever get the least bit annoyed with the other person (even though we're both critical and smart and speak our minds) or be too tired to have sex (even though we both have medical level sleep issues and I'm constantly on medications that fuck with my libido and so is he). Right.

I took it steps further this time. I just kept parts of myself, large ones, put away into little boxes and over on one side of my mind, the side marked with: not pertinent to SP. Doing this ensured I would never feel like he really knew me or that he was close enough to me to devastate me. I told myself it was to make sure we weren't one of THOSE couples I hate who can't breathe without talking about it together. I told myself I did it to retain my sense of self. I shared enough that he would think I was open, and in it, etc. I'm VERY good at that, but in reality I kept the deep stuff, the important stuff, to myself. On purpose.

Laid out like that... well. I am the partner I would never want. How sad is that?? My mother is beginning to dislike him. My best friend is too good to do that, but she's so cautious about us now too because she holds my ammunition for a break up. I constantly make her new arrows to hold for me, just in case I need them.

What I'm having a really rough time with right now is deciding if those arrows are justified, or if all of them are shit because I haven't allowed myself to really participate in this relationship as one. I've made it a fauxtionship - almost entirely by myself too. I'm leaning towards the shit option. (And Sasha - when you read this - isn't it funny how you asked me questions about all of this right before I got slammed with a revelation about it from within that basically answered what you were asking?! We're mental twins.) If nothing else I feel that this relationship has more to teach me - if I will but let it.

I came home from my conference and had a 3 hour conversation with SP. I laid it all out there how I've felt - and asked what his plans were when he graduated. He said his plans have been for a long time to take me into account in whatever his decisions are at that time, but that he never talks about because he has no idea what the options will be and it seems silly to think ahead when you can't plan anything. He's so practical sometimes, he doesn't want to waste energy thinking about an uncertain future. But he wasn't the least bit uncertain about me. He loves our relationship, and he loves me, a lot. It really hurt him and made him very sad to hear how I had been handling things. He has never pressured for more because your future is inherently uncertain at the completion of graduate school, and because he was afraid I would bolt. To me it says a lot that he chose not to even get angry, but instead asked me what else he could do to make me feel more secure in the relationship.... He asked a lot of questions, made sure he really understood what I meant and where my little unhappinesses are occurring - then he told me what he thinks is great about us and suggested some ways we could make it even better for both of us based on this and other previous conversations. He also told me how vulnerable this made him feel because he had no idea and asked for some reassurances from me that I believed in things over the course of the next few weeks... if I did.

Then he went and has been doing these things we talked about since then (not to mention his past track record of changing his listening style, methods of dealing with annoyance, etc.). He isn't the guy who says he will change something to shut me up. He only says it if he means it, and then he does. I'm pretty impressed and I only hope I can do the same - because the changes we want are only the type that make you a better person - not the kind I hate where someone wants you to change to suit THEM better.

It makes me cautious now that my best friend is cautious. When he's with me though - and I'm not overanalyzing everything - maybe that's the place I can find the truth of my feelings? (I have to say there on the couch with my head in his lap looking into his eyes while we talked about all of this stuff I felt so calm and secure but even here I hesitate to say I love him - though I know I do and I tell him so regularly without qualms). I don't know what to do. I don't want to only notice the positive, that's dangerous. I don't want to keep building my hatches, I'm already sad and angry with myself for realizing how I do this and am dying to figure out how to stop.... but I don't know if I have the capacity to look at my relationship clearly. Fuck.

I guess a little part of me always hoped it would be like a fairy tale. Someone would show up and manage to get past all my barriers and I would just FALL and that would be it forever. I think my walls are much too strong for that. I told him all of this in order to force myself to make a decision, and I decided to stay in. So now what do I do? I wish I knew.