It’s About Making Babies!

NML writes about the terms and conditions of a relationship. That even if you get through the fine print at the start and don’t find any red flags, be aware that your partner’s agenda might change – and if you stay, you will be “accepting” the changes. She focuses on reading the signs and what they mean, and writes well and convincingly.

I think a long term relationship is bigger than a personal choice.

If you meet someone, and get closer because of feelings, this has the makings of a decent, to great, episode of social recreation.

If you want something more, a shared life, a life partner – a mate, then you are looking at building a couple. And couples interact with their community. You will each, as a couple, be making choices and efforts outside the coupledom, because of being part of the couple – at work, shopping, at play, with friends, with family. You need to be sure that your prospect shows good character with you and with others.

Selecting a mate has to take more into account. For one thing, you don’t just have to trust and respect him when he is with you – you have to be sure that he is competent, respectful – trustworthy, trusted, and respected – with those you know and those you meet.

One really big red flag is how he treats you with his friends and family – are you a visitor or a cherished guest? Are there indications he often has “dates” tagging along (! Might be a Perpetual Dater!), or does he have no friends or contact with family (! Might be *unable* to connect emotionally!) or pets? Is he proud of you, like a trophy of some kind (!), is he possessive that you don’t talk or contact anyone (! Isolation issue!), or is he genuinely making you and his relationship to you a part of his private and social life?

Do your friends find him substantial as a member of the community, does he have a life (do you?) socially and personally, outside the dating scene?

How he behaves with others doesn’t matter much between the sheets (or it gets really kinky really quick). But if you want someone for the long haul, then you need to know where you stand with friends, family, and community – few people can sham and manipulate everyone, everywhere, and still seem genuine. That is the place, socially and within the community, to look for more red flags. Do you matter to him only skin to skin, or out in public, too?

Brad K Advice, Goals, Selection baggage reclaim, Dating, NML

NML writes on Baggage Reclaim that ending a bad relationship often takes a lot of time for women – often because they hold on to the illusion they have made about their partner.

We’re either wanting him to be the man we thought he was or trying to get him to be the man we thought he could be, if only a number of factors happened to help it along.

Dreams die hard

I guess an illusion is a distortion of reality, a dream is something imagined outside of reality. Is it that dreams die hard, or that once we construct our illusion, once we buy into our illusion, we fear losing the value we have invested?

The premise of NML’s article, that much of the lingering denial that things are, and should properly be, over, targets selecting a partner known to be unsuitable.

It’s very easy to say that you love someone and that you’re trying your best to make things work when you’ve chosen to be with someone who you know isn’t capable of reciprocating.

The doll

We give girls, often times, a “baby doll”. As an infant, a toddler, a young girl, parents use the doll to teach and reinforce basic parenting skills, care for an infant (without risking an infant to mistakes and unlearned skills!), and to instill an assumption that parenting is her destiny.

Not all girls stick with the baby doll lessons. Tom boys grow up and become excellent parents, too.

One thing I do know about dolls. All of their emotions, their needs, and their aptitudes are projected. And in this modern world we often leave girls to the mercy of their imaginations, their exposure to adult behavior – and a companion that doesn’t relate to them. We teach many girls to project needs and assume emotions, instead of learning to discover the needs and desires of their companion.

Is this related to those that pick unsuitable companions? Do the girls with dolls and missing quality parental role models choose guys that don’t have or show emotions, because that is what was learned was “appropriate” back before the women learned to question what they were taught? A punished child might project badness onto her doll, so that she will have to punish the doll. By administering punishment to the doll, the child can feel important and in control of the chaos in her life. But, does punishment to the doll set the stage, later in life, as expecting their companion to also act badly? Does the role of “mommy” to the doll set the girl to feel she can punish – change – her later partner, and achieve the happy family that comes to the girl and (chastised) doll?

The partner

Is it any wonder that some women grow to relate to guys that have the emotional response and maturity level projected onto those long-ago dolls?

What to do, now that all is lost?

So, now she finds that the relationship harms her, costs her self esteem, costs her the ability to live an honest and honorable life, to live fully without fear of her home and loved one. She wants the hurt to end, and knows he has to go.

And now he is gone. And she still hurts.

Now what? Get out that long-ago doll, or a reasonable replacement, and project her sorrow, her bitterness, her sense of loss? Hardly. Now it is time to do what she should have done before meeting the bozo.

Get real.

Sacrifice

Most good parents, care takers, and many that work or get involved with groups and communities encounter a situation that requires them, requires their presence and participation, without regard to one’s feelings or physical state. Requires sacrifice. To give when there may not be enough left to give. We learn to sacrifice in small things, later to sacrifice in larger things. We put our own needs and affairs on hold, until we have done our best for someone.

But we seldom think of doing that for ourselves.

Breaking up from a bad relationship, we need to put our feelings and yearnings and “I wish it hadn’t gone wrongs”s aside, look at why we would have let a snake like that come near us, let alone take them to our heart.

If we watched a friend overlook drugs, gambling, violent behavior, a wife and three mistresses and a cute boy on the side, we might shake our heads and tell them, “He wasn’t worth your time, dry your eyes and learn to respect yourself, so you don’t trust the next snake that comes down the road.” But we seldom tell ourselves that. We might say, “Your love died because he soured it, didn’t respect you, and never returned your love.” But we won’t see that for ourselves, not in a way that makes the knowledge real in our lives.

Because we are still thinking of the practice doll. The one that we accuse of bad behavior, that we punish, that never repeats bad behavior (unless we are still learning about that behavior). The practice doll that is everything we expect it to be in our lives.

Role models

Many of us were blessed with parents. But when we find ourselves repeating bad relationships, when we answer “Why do you want a girlfriend or boyfriend” with an explanation like “have someone to date”, “not be alone”, or “share expenses” – I think we need additional role models.

A role model, a good role model, should demonstrate the skills, aptitudes, attitudes, and processes that make them outstanding in that role, and should demonstrate their virtues in a way that is available for us to learn.

For relationships, I would look for a couple that gets along well, interacts with their community as a couple, raised more than one content and well behaved child, and few major changes in their lives in the last ten years. Someone you can look to for examples of respect, honor, discipline, self control, and courtesy.

And then strive to be a person your chosen role models would esteem and respect. And that includes selecting companions and partner-prospects of character and honor.

Grief

Grief is a powerful agent of change in our lives. Hormone driven, an emotional storm that signals the end or passing of a way of life. Recovering from grief is a burden, and preparation to make whatever changes or adaptations are needed to survive. When we bond with someone, we often acknowledge how we take them to our heart. Our body also reacts to their presence. Their body heat, the pheromones and hormones released in their breath and their skin interact with us, so that we know them as someone that belongs with us – family. We trigger the grief separation because the person is no longer part of our lives.

The single most important part of grieving, is knowing, for dead-certain sure, that the departed one is gone for good.

We might pretend, we might hold a seance to talk the the spirit of the departed one. But we know that we can never recapture the sharing and relationship of before.

A chosen ending

But when we leave a relationship, or our partner leaves, we grieve without the assurance of a physical ending. In addition to the loss, the grief, the doubts about what might have been – we are often tempted to consider . . . going back. We connect our hurt for the loss, with the doubts about what might have been, and the fantasy that we might make it work, this time.

If we are careful, and come to the conclusion to leave logically, for good and sufficient reason, then we may reconstruct our thinking any number of times – and usually hope we come to the same answer each time, to leave. But if we are unsure, if we dwell on our feelings of hurt, on our doubts – we might be tempted to try again. We might be tempted to try again even when we know nothing has changed since it failed the last time. We think that maybe we will be more determined, more creative and resourceful, more loving. And our virtue will impress and amaze our former partner so that he becomes the guy we always hoped he would be, and meet all of our expectations.

Just like with the pretend house we played with our practice doll, back before we went to school. And we haven’t learned much at all about home, family, community, love, and ourselves, since we tagged along with Daddy and Mommy when we were six.

Brad K Children, Dating, Goals, Learning, Selection baggage reclaim, br, NML