Loving Him Without Losing You (11 page)

These steps should be taken slowly and carefully. You should take an emo- tional or sexual risk only when it is appropriate to how vulnerable it makes you feel at that stage in the relationship.

For some of you, proceeding this slowly and cautiously may seem ridicu- lous. Many Disappearing Women like to be spontaneous, and few like to con- strain themselves when it comes to feelings of attraction and passion.

But for many other people, including those who don’t have the problem of losing themselves in relationships that you do, it takes weeks or even months to work their way down the list to step 6—making a commitment— especially if they are honoring their feelings and if they are consciously working to curb their urge to merge. Unfortunately, many of you reading this book have been known to make it to step 4—sexual intercourse (minus the discussion)—on your first date and to reach step 6—making a commitment (without the trust or conscious thought)—within a few days.

Just because you have entered a sexual relationship with a man does not mean the relationship will end up being a permanent one. Not every sexual relationship has the capacity for intimacy. Ask yourself the following ques- tions concerning your sexual partner to help you determine whether it is wise to take the risk of true intimacy.

• Do I truly respect this person, and does he seem to respect me?
  

• Is he a person I can communicate openly with, and does he seem to be able to communicate openly with me?
  

• Am I able to be honest with him, or am I pretending, covering up, or putting up a facade?
  

• Do I believe he is able to be honest with me?
  

• Do I feel safe enough to show my real feelings with him?
  

• Are we able to compromise with one another?
  

• Do we work through conflicts well?
  

• Do we both take responsibility for the problems in the relationship, or does one of us continually blame the other?
  

• Can I talk to him about my childhood experiences, no matter how embarrassing they are?
  

• Can I talk to him about my former relationships?
  

• Am I willing to talk about how I feel my past is affecting our rela- tionship, and is he willing to do the same?
  

• Is it possible for me to be my authentic self in this relationship? Or am I more concerned with trying to become the person I think he wants me to be?
  

• Is there room for me to grow and change in this relationship?
  

If your relationship continues to develop and to deepen, you can then take greater risks that require still more vulnerability. By carefully and systemat- ically taking risks, one step at a time, and then sitting back to assess your level of trust and openness, you can create a healthy, conscious relationship instead of one driven by fear, compulsion, or unfulfilled childhood needs.

Allow a new relationship to unfold in its own time instead of pushing to make it happen. Instead of becoming invested in how a relationship will turn out, view it with a sense of curiosity. Ask yourself: What does this relationship hold for me? Is this person someone I might consider as a life mate, or is he merely in my life to show me what I
don’t
want in a relationship?

View each new person you date as a gift, a lesson. Be open to what he and this relationship can teach you about life, relationships, and yourself.

Remember that no matter how instantaneously you may have connected with another person, the fact is you are strangers, two separate people who

may or may not have much in common, who may or may not be compatible. Two separate people with separate histories—family histories, sexual histo- ries, relationship histories, career histories. Two separate people with separate belief systems, values, hopes, and fears.

A good relationship doesn’t simply materialize out of thin air. It must be nurtured, given time to develop. Sometimes our first impression is right, but more often it is inaccurate and we look back regretting that we didn’t let the relationship evolve over time. Your relationship should be built slowly and systematically, as you would a house, not quickly and haphazardly.

Your foundation will be constructed as you experience one another in var- ious situations and with different people, as you compare your belief systems and values, and eventually as you share your histories with one another.

The walls of your relationship will be created as you develop trust, deter- mine your boundaries, and develop the parameters of the relationship.

Finally, the roof of your relationship is created as you develop stronger bonds and stronger feelings and as you experience a history together.

Starting out slowly will not guarantee that you won’t make the mistakes some of the women discussed in this chapter made, nor will it guarantee that you will not lose yourself in the relationship later. It will, however, get your relationships off to a good start by reinforcing the idea that you can be the one to set the tone and the timeline for a relationship and by sending the message that you are not desperate but have a full life that is worth holding on to, help- ing you attract men who will respect your separateness.

Loving Him

One of the most loving things you can do for a man is to allow
him
to go slowly. By allowing a relationship to unfold naturally, not by pushing or prodding a man into a commitment, he will be more willing to open up and experience the joys of intimacy. By giving men the space they need they will be more likely to come forward, not at our insistence but of their own free will.

6

Commitment 2

B
E
Y
OURSELF AND
T
ELL THE

T
RUTH ABOUT
Y
OURSELF

When one is pretending the entire body revolts.

A
NAÏS
N
IN

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.

R
OBERT
L
OUIS
S
TEVENSON

As painful as it is to admit, I act like a bimbo around men. I just smile and go along with whatever they want to do, like I don’t have an opinion or an idea in my head. But I have a dialogue going on in my head all the time— all the things I wish I could say but can’t. And inside I’m seething, mostly at myself for not saying something, anything, about how I feel, about what I want, about what I need.”

R
HONDA
,
AGE TWENTY
-
FIVE

One of the most effective ways of ensuring that you will not lose yourself in a relationship is for you to be yourself. This may sound like an obvious solu- tion, but it is surprising to discover just how many women believe that not being themselves is the best way to capture and keep a man’s affections.

To find out if this applies to you, answer the following questions:

84

1. How many times in the beginning of a relationship have you pretended to be someone you are not?
   

2. How many times have you given the impression that you are more under- standing or accepting than you really are?
   

3. How many times have you pretended to like something you don’t really like just so you won’t hurt his feelings?
   

4. How many times have you sat through a date with a man smiling sweetly as he told one story after another about his life, feigning interest yet being bored out of your mind?
   

5. How many times have you nodded in agreement as a man passionately stated his opinion about a political or current issue, all the while dis- agreeing adamantly about what he is saying?
   

6. Most important, how many times have you pretended that what a man says he wants in a relationship is exactly what you want when it isn’t at all?
   

   What’s the harm in doing these things? you might ask. Everyone does it. It’s all a part of being polite, of being social. While it’s true that we all pre- tend to some extent,
   these acts of pretending to be someone you aren’t, of feigning agreement when you strongly disagree, can be among the first steps you take toward losing yourself in a relationship.
   Not only does it create a false impression so that a man doesn’t really know who you are, it also sets a precedent for you to put up with behavior you find boring or unacceptable in the future.
   

   Unfortunately, it is often women who do most of the pretending. Since women are innately more compassionate, they often pretend in order to pro- tect the feelings of others. In addition, girls are trained to be more “agreeable” and diplomatic than are boys.
   

   Even today women are being encouraged to pretend their way into a relationship. For example, in
   The Rules,
   the authors tell women
   not
   to be themselves for the first three dates but to instead present a facade of being sweet, illusive, and nonchalant. They even go as far as to encourage women to “pretend you’re an actress making a cameo appearance in a movie.”
   

   But pretending is just another way of lying, as Alice Koller, in her won- derful book
   An Unknown Woman: A Journey of Self-Discovery,
   so poignantly states:
   

   But think of the ways there are to lie, and I’ll have done every one of them. Pretending to like something because someone in authority does. Evad- ing a question. Saying only part of what I believe. Not saying anything
   

   at all. Shaping my words to fit what I know will be acceptable. Smiling when someone intends to be funny. Looking serious when my thoughts are elsewhere. Agreeing when I haven’t even thought over the matter. Drawing someone out just because I know he wants to talk. Trying to amuse in order to avoid talking about something I’m not sure of.
   

   Acting. For the dear love of God, how could I have not understood it before! Those are all pieces of acting. And I don’t know where it ends. I have to try to think of one thing I’ve done that was for free.
   

   Risk Exposing Your Real Self
   

   Men as well as women want to put their best foot forward when they first meet someone. And it is natural when you like or admire a man to want to impress him. You want him to like you, to be impressed with you in return. You want him to think you are kind, generous, loving, smart, beautiful, talented, ener- getic, or whatever qualities or values you feel are most important.
   

   Both men and women have a “public self ” that they present when they first meet someone. While men try to appear to be more competent and less insecure than they truly are, women tend to appear more agreeable, tolerant, and flexible than they really are. Men tend to present false impressions con- cerning their achievements, their wealth, and their experiences, while women tend to either portray themselves as sexier and more open to sexual experi- mentation than they really are, or the reverse—less experienced sexually than they really are.
   

   But if you are going to have a healthy relationship, one in which you are accepted for your true self, you will need to set aside your public self and risk exposing your real self. Instead of “putting your best foot forward,” you will need to show your partner your so-called negative qualities as well as your positive ones.
   

   Our public self is created very early on when we learn as children that there is “acceptable” and “unacceptable” behavior. Our parents and other authority figures socialize us by rewarding acceptable behavior and punish- ing unacceptable behavior. Unfortunately, this can lead us to believe that oth- ers will not like us if we are ourselves and that we must suppress (ignore) or even repress (deny or “forget”) the unacceptable parts of ourselves. Those who were raised in families where they were severely criticized, expected to be perfect, or physically abused are particularly susceptible to believing that they must be perfect to be acceptable.
   

   My Good Girl Act
   

   This was my situation. Raised by an extremely critical, disapproving mother, I grew up believing I was acceptable only if I was a “good girl”—which meant always obeying my mother, never questioning authority, and always being polite and kind to others. When I was “bad” my mother would verbally humil- iate me and often stop speaking to me for days at a time. In addition, my mother’s public image was extremely important to her, and since I was an extension of her, so was mine. That meant that no matter how I felt about people I was supposed to be cordial to them and at least
   pretend
   that I liked them.
   

   When I started dating I continued my good girl act. I assumed the only way I could get men to like me was to passively and compliantly go along with whatever they wanted. I smiled sweetly, listened attentively, was kind, caring, and generous. The men who fell in love with me thought they were getting an angel. Unfortunately, they weren’t seeing the entire Beverly, just a facade.
   

   Although there certainly was a side of me that was all those things, there was another side that men never got to know—that is, until we were in the midst of an intense relationship. Then they got to see the entire me, the side that was fearful and jealous and needed constant reassurance of their love, the side that felt so needy for love that I became selfishly demanding and unable to see their point of view or recognize their needs.
   

   Looking for Daddy’s Love
   

   In addition to believing that men will not accept us unless we are perfect, many girls and women develop a pattern of pretending they are someone they are not from their experience of trying to capture their father’s attention. This is especially prevalent among daughters who had neglectful or absent fathers. Carmen, age twenty-four, told me about her experience:
   

   My father was very distant and preoccupied. I remember anxiously wait- ing on the front porch for him to return from work each night only to be terribly disappointed with his cool greeting. At dinner I tried to get his attention by telling funny stories about school, but he would listen patiently for a few minutes and then turn to talk to my mother. The rest of the evening I would try desperately to get his attention by singing lit- tle songs or by dancing around the room while he read his newspaper.
   

   This belief that she must entertain her father or earn her father’s attention often carries forward into a girl’s adult life, causing her to work too hard to gain and keep the attention of men, setting her up to lose herself in relation- ships.
   

   In Carmen’s case, she tries so hard to impress men that they seldom ever get to know the real Carmen. As she explained to me:
   

   I always feel like I have to entertain a man to keep his attention. I put on a real show, acting silly and trying to get him to laugh at my jokes. But the real me is a fairly quiet person who loves to read and be close to nature. Most men never get a chance to see this side of me. I’m too afraid to show it, since I’ve already convinced them I’m this happy-go-lucky person and it seems to be the only way I can continue getting their attention.
   

   Many women whose fathers have left the home due to a divorce also feel they must be perfect or they must work extra hard to achieve or maintain their father’s love. Many divorced fathers try to remain close to their children; unfortunately, once a marriage ends, many drift away, seeing less and less of their children and eventually not seeing them at all. According to published findings in a nationwide study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania—which from 1976 to 1987 tracked more than one thousand children of divorced parents from all socioeconomic levels—nearly half of these children had not seen their fathers in the previous year.
   

   It is often those fathers who were closest to and the most involved with their children who disengage from their children. After being with their chil- dren every day it is just too painful for these men to see their children at des- ignated times—in essence, to become a “visitor” to their children.
   

   The problem of getting and keeping their absent father’s attention when they do see him is overwhelming to many girls. For many, each visit with her father can feel like a first date in which she feels she must put her best foot forward each time. This was the situation with Amy, age forty-one:
   

   I saw my father sporadically, all through my childhood, but he never seemed to be all that happy to see me. I assumed it was because he was disappointed in how I’d turned out. After only about an hour together he’d say he had to go and I always thought it was because of something I’d done or said. So I was always on my best behavior with him, afraid
   

   that if I was ever my real self with him he’d go away and never come back.
   

   These experiences with her father left Amy hungry for male attention. When she began dating she continued the same pattern of behavior, always being on her best behavior with men, doing whatever they wanted so they wouldn’t leave her.
   

   Making Him Fall in Love
   

   Many women learn early in their dating careers how to make a man fall in love with them by playing down who they really are and playing up who they think the man wants them to be.
   

   By presenting a false picture of who you are you may “catch” a man and make him fall in love with you. But the sad thing about it is that he will not be in love with the real you. He’ll be in love with an illusion, and you’ll need to keep up the illusion if you are to keep him. That means you will have to continue to pretend to be someone you are not.
   

   Unfortunately, you hurt both yourself and others whenever you attempt to become what you think others want you to be instead of who you really are.
   By attempting to be someone else, you run the risk of losing yourself.
   

   Sooner or later, when what is left of the real you begins to emerge, your partner will feel tricked and angry, as well he should. This only adds to men’s fears of being manipulated by women and the impression some men already have about women being dishonest.
   

   Clear Up False Impressions
   

   In addition to putting up a false front, some Disappearing Women don’t clear up false impressions, or set a man straight who has created an illusion about them. This was the case with Janette:
   

   When I first met Paul he somehow got the idea that I was practically a virgin—that I had only had sex with a few men. I am kind of shy and I do tend to dress a bit conservatively so I guess that might have been what gave him that impression. But I also think he had some kind of fantasy going on about me. He started calling me his “little princess” right away and he’d say things like, “Of course, you’re not anything like
   that,
   ” referring to women who’d been around. He seemed to pride himself on
   

   treating me like a lady and protecting me from what he called “the ways of the world.” If we went to a movie where there was overt sexuality he’d always apologize and tell me he didn’t know the movie was going to have scenes like that.
   

   I have to admit that in a way, I liked being treated like that, but in another way it made me feel strange, like he wasn’t seeing the real me. He waited a long time before trying to have sex with me, and I liked that, too. It was so different from other men. But by the time we finally did have sex I was afraid to respond very much. I didn’t want to disappoint him by letting him know I’d been around.
   

   He wasn’t a very good lover and there were lots of things I could have shown him that would have made our sexual relationship a lot bet- ter, but by then I was stuck playing the part of the innocent, naive woman.
   

   Had she cleared up the misunderstanding right away, she and Paul might have been able to enjoy a wonderful sex life. As it was, Janette merely toler- ated their sex life and grew more unhappy year after year.
   

   By clearing up false impressions you not only present yourself more honestly to the other person but also set a precedent for honesty in the rela- tionship.
   

   The Chameleon Syndrome
   

   The biggest price you pay for pretending is that w
   hen you pretend you are someone you are not, you begin to disappear.
   The real you begins to fade away behind the shadow of your facade. To make matters even worse, you may begin to lose track of who you really are. This is especially true of those women who have thin boundaries.
   

   Thin-boundaried people are much more likely to take on the values, beliefs, and interests of others. Unlike those with thicker boundaries, their val- ues and beliefs are not set but are flexible and malleable depending on who they are with, partly because they want to please others and partly because they are so easily influenced.
   

   This is why some Disappearing Women are compared to chameleons, the reptiles that take on the colors and patterns of their environment. These women can be gregarious or shy, conservative or radical, depending on who they are around. They are so bent on fitting in and being accepted that they
   

   simply take on the actions, opinions, beliefs, and values of those around them.
   

   Some women are such emotional chameleons that they unconsciously end up changing themselves to be more like their partners without realizing it. They take on their mannerisms, their way of speaking, their attitudes, ideas, and behavior. This was the experience with my client Lexi:
   

   Several years ago a good friend of mine told me that I take on the per- sonality of whatever man I’m dating, but for the longest time I just couldn’t see it. But lately, since I’ve been working with you, I’ve begun to notice how I do it. It’s subtle at first. I start talking like them, you know, using their expressions, that kind of thing. I noticed that with one guy I started laughing the way he does. It’s like I’m some kind of mime or something. But the scariest part is that I take on their ideas. I mean, I heard myself spouting off at a party the other day, saying things my boyfriend had just told me the night before, as if they were my ideas. My boyfriend just stared at me in disbelief. He probably thinks I’m really weird.
   

   If you are like many Disappearing Women you’ve been trying to be someone else all your life and it hasn’t been working very well. You’ve lost your true self in the process and have probably continually felt like a fraud and a phony, just waiting for someone to expose you.