Loving Him Without Losing You (19 page)

1. C
   ASSANDRA
   : T
   HE
   C
   ASE OF THE
   M
   ISSING
   V
   ALUES
   

   Cassandra, age thirty-four, told me about her experience:
   

   When I met Otis I strongly believed that couples shouldn’t have children together unless they are married. I believed a child needs a mother and a father and that the commitment of marriage makes couples more likely to stay together. I came to these beliefs partly due to my religious upbring- ing and partly due to the fact that I was raised by a single mother in South-Central Los Angeles. It was very hard on me and my mother, and I was determined that my children wouldn’t have to go through what I did.
   

   But Otis didn’t think it was necessary for a couple to be married to be committed. He thought a marriage license was just a piece of paper.
   

   After being together for three years I wanted a baby very badly and so did Otis, but he wasn’t budging about getting married. He assured me that he was committed to me and that he’d always stay in our baby’s life no matter what happened with us.
   

   Eventually my desire for a baby overtook my better judgment, and I got pregnant. Otis was wonderful during my pregnancy, but as soon as she was born, he began to change. He became jealous of the time I was giving to the baby, and he complained constantly that our sexual rela- tionship had changed—that we’d lost the passion.
   

   I’d read enough to know that these are typical problems new parents face, but had we been married I believe we both would have felt more secure knowing we’d work it out eventually. Instead, we became more and more distant. He started spending more time at work, and while I knew he loved our daughter, he didn’t spend that much time with her. Before long I began to feel like I was raising her all alone, the very thing I hadn’t wanted to do.
   

   Then one day Otis went off to work and just didn’t come back. He left a letter for me saying he was sorry but he just wasn’t cut out for fam- ily life. My worst fear had come true. I was going to have to raise my daughter on my own. If Otis and I had been married, maybe it would have been more difficult for him to just walk away. I wish I’d have been strong enough to hold on to my beliefs and refused to have a child together. It’s not that I don’t love my daughter, but I really don’t like the fact that she doesn’t have a father.
   

   In this chapter you’ll learn which type of changes are appropriate and healthy to make in a relationship and which are not. You’ll also learn strate- gies that will help you stop the self-defeating behavior of changing yourself for each man you meet.
   

   Distinguishing between Good Changes and Bad
   

   It is particularly important that women don’t change themselves to catch or please a man in the beginning of a relationship. By changing your beliefs or your way of behaving, or by pretending to agree with something you are really
   

   opposed to as a way of impressing a man or keeping the peace, you give the man the message that you can be easily manipulated, dominated, or con- trolled.
   

   The only changes you should make in a relationship are those you feel will make you a better person, changes you decide to make on your own, not those that are foisted on you by your partner or those made to please a partner.
   

   Women are masters at the art of compromise and reaching consensus, and we have much to teach men in these areas. But there is a difference between compromising and giving in, a difference between attempting to reach con- sensus and constantly allowing oneself to be won over by another’s reasoning and arguments.
   

   There is no sin in standing firm to defend one’s values, beliefs, and pref- erences, no crime in refusing to allow oneself to be manipulated into becom- ing the kind of person someone else wants us to be.
   

1. G
   INA
   : D
   O
   Y
   OU
   T
   HINK
   I’
   M
   T
   OO
   R
   IGID
   ?
   

   My client Gina, age forty-two, recently began seeing a man after quite a long hiatus from dating. She’d stopped dating for several years because she felt she was “addicted” to men—that for years her life had revolved around whatever man she was dating at the time. She wanted to prove to herself she could be alone, to spend some time focusing on herself to work through some issues in her childhood, and to develop a satisfying life separate from men. By the time she’d started dating Ian she had done these things and felt she was now able to maintain her separateness within a relationship.
   

   One day, after several weeks of dating, she came into her session very confused. She said that Ian had told her she should change her hairstyle and the way she dressed. He said her hair and clothes made her look old and drab. Gina didn’t know what to do.
   

   “I’ve been on my own for so long now I’m afraid that maybe I’ve become rigid. I mean, I want to be open to suggestions.”
   

   I asked Gina how she felt about Ian’s comments and suggestions. “Something inside me bristled, and I got very upset. I don’t know why
   

   exactly. I’m sure he has my best interests in mind, and he told me that other women he’s dated have welcomed his suggestions.”
   

   I asked her if
   she
   liked the way she wore her hair.
   

   “Yes, I do. I think it complements my face. And I get lots of positive com- ments on it. In fact, it’s one of my best assets.”
   

   “And how about your clothes—are you pleased with them?” I asked.
   

   “I am. I think I have very good taste in clothes. And other people tell me they think I do, too.”
   

   “Then why would you even consider listening to a man you’ve only been dating for such a short time?” I asked.
   

   “I don’t know. I don’t want a man telling me how I should dress or wear my hair. I guess I just didn’t want to give the impression that I was too rigid and set in my ways.”
   

   Like most women, Gina felt that unless she was flexible and open to change, she would become rigid. But there is a big difference between rigid- ity and having healthy boundaries. While a healthy relationship involves some compromise on the part of both partners, compromise should never involve changing important aspects of yourself solely on the basis of a part- ner’s preferences.
   

   Areas That Are Out of Bounds
   

   There are certain areas of a person’s life that are out of bounds when it comes to making suggestions for change. No man has the right to find fault or sug- gest you change any of the following, especially at the beginning of a rela- tionship:
   

   • the way you dress;
     

   • the way you style your hair;
     

   • the way you speak;
     

   • the way you eat or what you eat;
     

   • the way you spend your free time;
     

   • the way you express your emotions, even if he feels you are “too emotional”;
     

   • the way your body is shaped, including whether he considers you too fat, or too thin, or whether he feels you should exercise more;
     

   • your choice of friends;
     

   • your job or choice of career;
     

   • your education.
     

Refusing to change to satisfy the desires of the man you love may seem like an unloving thing to do, but it is not. Men know this, and that is why they are so reluctant to bend to the whims of women. Often accused of being self- ish and inconsiderate, men intuitively know that they are defending their identity when they refuse to become what their partner asks them to become. They know that their true self is all they have and that to sacrifice it, even for love, is courting emotional annihilation.

Change needs to come from within, based on your desire to become a bet-

ter person, not simply in an attempt to please or placate a partner’s desires or demands. In this way you don’t lose yourself in a relationship but rather become a more fully actualized version of yourself.

Thirty-one-year-old Deborah told me how she lost herself over the course of a relationship by making changes solely motivated by her desire to please her husband, John. From the time they were first married, John set out on a course to change Deborah. He didn’t like the fact that she “wasted” money on a hair- stylist, so he told her she should let her hair grow long and wear it in a braid. Since she knew John preferred her hair longer anyway, she gave in to his demands because of her desire to please him.

Then he started in on Deborah’s job. She wasn’t making enough money, so he insisted she ask for a raise. When her boss refused, John felt she should quit and find a better-paying job. Even though she loved her job and had many friends within the company, Deborah once again gave in to her husband’s sug- gestions and found a job that paid more.

Several years later, when Deborah told John she wanted to have a child, he refused to even talk to her about it. It wasn’t the right time. They needed her salary to have enough money for a down payment on a house.

Deborah once again gave into her husband, but six months later her bio- logical clock was ticking so loudly she couldn’t ignore it. She brought up the subject of having a child again, reasoning with John that they already had enough money saved to buy a house and that she would work right up to deliv- ery and miss only a month of work. But John wouldn’t hear of it. The fact was, he had decided they shouldn’t have children at all. He thought having a child would ruin their marriage. Deborah would become preoccupied with the children and not have any time for him.

This is what brought Deborah into therapy. “I’ve always tried hard to please John, but having a child is important to me, and he doesn’t seem to be flexible at all. I’ve always told myself that John had my best interests at heart, even if he seemed a little overprotective. But now I’m not so sure. I think it’s time I stop trying to please him so much and start pleasing myself.”

Make Sure He Wants to Be with You

One of the best ways to prevent yourself from getting into a situation where your partner pressures you to change is to be sure your partner wants to be with
you,
not a fantasy of who he wants you to be, not someone he can mold into someone else. If he wants to make you over like Eliza Doolittle in
My

Fair Lady,
he isn’t loving you for who you are. For example, if you are basically an entrepreneur who loves the excitement of being around people and new ideas and he wants a stay-at-home homemaker and mother, you are not what he wants. It would be foolish of you to try to make yourself into someone you aren’t just to please him or keep him.

Stay Away from Modern-Day Svengalis

Some men have a Svengali complex and want to “make over” or re-create the women they are involved with. This is especially damaging to a woman’s sense of self. If she goes along with this she will eventually lose all sense of who she really is in her attempt to become someone else. Annette, thirty-nine, told me her Svengali story:

When I met Al I was an insecure kid and he was confident and outgoing and I admired him. From the very beginning he was determined to improve me. I’ll never forget the first time we went out to eat in an expensive restaurant. When my appetizer came I started to eat the way I usually did. Al just sat and watched me for a few minutes and then he said, “If you’re going to eat with me you’ll have to learn the correct way to hold your knife and fork.”

At first I welcomed his help. I never knew my own father, and my mother had been too busy to teach me things like correct etiquette. Al taught me not only how to hold my knife and fork but how to hold my own in conversations with people and how to dress like a lady.

But after a while his need to make me over began to feel stifling. He showered me with books and grilled me about what I’d learned. I found I liked to read, but I wasn’t always interested in the subjects he wanted me to be interested in. He wanted to make me into an intellectual, and that’s just not who I am.

Eventually he began to lose interest in me. I guess I just wasn’t per- forming to his expectations. It felt devastating at first not to have his undivided attention, but soon it began to feel like freedom. I began read- ing the kinds of books
I
wanted to read and to discover who I really am. Of course, as soon as this happened, Al didn’t want anything to do with me. If he couldn’t mold me into the kind of woman he wanted me to be, he didn’t want me at all.

As was the situation with both Annette and Al and Deborah and John, the need to change a partner is generally more an issue of control than anything else. If a man doesn’t love a woman for who she is, no amount of change by her will create that love. What it will create, however, is a growing lack of respect and even loathing within the man at the realization that you are will- ing to make such changes in the first place.

In general, the more a woman is willing to change for a man, the less of a sense of self she has. Those with strong identities are seldom willing to give them up just to keep a man. They recognize that their identity is all they have and they cannot risk losing it, not for anyone or anything.

In most cases, the more you give in to a man’s expectations that you change, the less he will respect you. Because men value emotional strength and power so much, because they feel they must hold on to their beliefs and values to be respected, many men perceive “giving in” as a sign of weakness and an indication that you are a “loser,” which, in their mind, gives them per- mission to walk all over you.

E
X E R C I S E
:
How Much Have You Been Willing to Change?

• Make a list of the things about yourself that your current partner would like you to change.
  

• If you are not currently in a relationship, list those things about your- self that your previous partner wanted you to change.
  

• Now list the ways in which you did change to please either your cur- rent or previous partner.
  

  Whether you are happy with your changes or not, looking at them in this way can bring the point home about how much you tend to lose your- self in relationships and whether you tend to choose partners who are bent on changing you.
  

  

  Just as the popular Billy Joel song advises, “don’t go changing” to try to please your man.
  

  Love shouldn’t involve having to change yourself to please a partner. Nei- ther should loving mean you must give up all that makes you who you are. As you’ve no doubt heard many times, to truly love someone you must first love yourself. If you continually give up yourself to the men you love, you will soon have no self to love.
  

  If you have to give up yourself, the way you truly are inside, to please a man, then you shouldn’t be with that man. When someone truly loves you he loves you for who you are—not who he wants you to become or who he thinks you can become. True love involves total acceptance of you as a person, your so-called negative qualities as well as your so-called positive ones.
  

  Loving Him
  

  It goes both ways. You shouldn’t expect a man to change for you either. Unfortunately, as we discussed earlier, many Disappearing Women hold to the fantasy that they can change the man they love or that if a man would only make certain changes, they know their relationship would work out. But no matter how much “potential” you think a man has, no matter how much happier you think he’d be if only he’d change certain aspects of his life or his personality, you don’t have the right to expect these changes from him.
  

  True love isn’t about changing the other person into someone else. It’s about
  accepting
  the person you love the way he is. An important aspect of rec- ognizing that you and your partner are separate individuals is accepting that you have your differences and that there will always be aspects of your part- ner’s personality or way of life that you don’t like or don’t agree with.
  

  This is not to say that individuals within a relationship can’t change or never change. Ideally, within a healthy relationship, both people are trans- formed by the love of the other and make tremendous changes. But these changes are the kind that come from within and as by-products of the love and acceptance each feels from the other, as opposed to the kinds of changes that one partner may feel the other should make.
  

  10
  

  Commitment 6
  

  C
  U LTI VAT E
  E
  QU A L
  R
  EL ATIONSHIPS
  

  For some reason I’m always attracted to men I feel are better than I am. They’re almost always smarter and more confident, and they usually have more life experience. I guess I want to learn from them. But it always turns ugly somehow. I guess being in that one down position encourages men to become controlling.
  

  J
  ADE
  ,
  AGE TWENTY
  -
  NINE
  

  Another way to ensure that you won’t lose yourself in your attempts to please your partner is to make sure you have
  equal relationships.
  An equal rela- tionship is one in which both parties contribute to the relationship in an equi- table way and in which each is seen as an equal in the other’s eyes.
  

  Unfortunately, Disappearing Women tend to become involved in rela- tionships in which they have
  less
  power, money, or accomplishments than their partner, relationships where they have
  more
  needs, more of a tendency to give, or more willingness to commit. This is especially true of women who become involved with older or more experienced men. This scenario, plus the fact that many women feel “less than” men in the first place, creates rela- tionships that are unequal.
  

  When I was in my twenties I immediately felt diminished whenever I was in the presence of most men, especially men in authority. I felt as if someone had let the air out of me. Whatever feelings of personal power I had seemed to disappear, and I even felt physically smaller (I’m five-eight). Although I was no shrinking violet in any other setting, around these men I became a dif-
  

  151
  

  ferent person. I was no longer gregarious and outspoken, and a quieter, less confident version of myself took over.
  

  Whenever a boyfriend would take me to a party or to another couple’s home I became a silent appendage, quietly listening while others talked. It didn’t help that I tended to date older men who were far more established in their careers.
  

  Many young women feel this way around successful men, older men, and men in authority. But hopefully, by the time they mature and gain more self- confidence and experience, they begin to feel more equal to men. They grow to trust that their opinions, their knowledge, and the details of their lives are just as interesting as those of others. When this happens it is a sign that they are becoming a Woman of Substance.
  

  A Woman of Substance is a woman who can hold her own while in the presence of men, even men of power and accomplishment. And because she has gained a sense of her own personal power and her ability to achieve her own goals, she doesn’t need to attach herself to those who are substantially older or more accomplished to find completion. She can do it on her own.
  

  Unfortunately, many women don’t mature in this way. Instead, they continue to look to men to provide them with the approval they cannot give themselves.
  

  E
  X E R C I S E
  :
  Are You in an Equal Relationship?
  

  When a woman enters a relationship with a man feeling as if she is “less than” he is, she essentially gives away her power to him, and this sets the tone for the entire relationship.
  

  The following questions will help you decide whether the relationship you are now in is an equal one and/or whether your past relationships have been based on equality or an imbalance of power.
  

  1. Who has more personal power in the relationship, you or your part- ner? By “personal power” I mean who do you feel is the stronger of the two in terms of being able to ask for what you want and being able to take care of yourself emotionally?
     

  2. Which of you has a stronger need to be in control? Who usually gets his or her way in terms of choosing what you will do at any given time?
     

  3. Who has control over the finances?
     

  4. Who is more in control of your sexual relationship?
     

  5. Which of you has more self-confidence? Which one feels better about himself/herself?
     

  6. Which of you is more successful in your career?
     

  7. Who makes more money?
     

  8. Would you say one of you feels superior to the other? If so, who?
     

  9. Who would you say loves the other more?
     

  10. Who is more emotionally dependent on the other? Which of you would have a harder time going on without the other?
      

  If you answered “my partner” to most of questions 1 to 8, and “me” to questions 9 and 10, your partner has more power in the relationship.
  

  

  When you get involved with someone
  you
  perceive as being more pow- erful or “better” than you are in some way—because he seems more intelli- gent, successful, or attractive—you will tend to give in to him far more than if you feel his equal. You’ll tend to keep quiet when you should speak up, to tolerate unacceptable behavior, and to generally allow him to control the relationship.
  

  When you become involved with a man who perceives
  himself
  as being more powerful or “better” than you are, he will tend to take advantage by pushing limits, taking you for granted, or trying to dominate you.
  

  Therefore it is vital that you aim for equal relationships—ones in which both you and your partner view one another as equals. This doesn’t mean you are equal in all respects, but that overall, your qualities balance each other out. For example, perhaps your partner has a better job, makes more money, and has more life experience than you do. This could certainly tip the scales to the point where the relationship is unequal. But let’s suppose that you have far more people skills than he has and consequently have more friends. He doesn’t do as well relating to others and misses having the kind of social life he’d like to have, so he values what you bring to the relationship. This situa- tion can balance out the relationship to the point where you are equal in each other’s eyes.
  

  How Unequal Relationships Can Lead to Abuse
  

  Unequal relationships set women up for abuse. Men who have more power in a relationship tend to expect and demand more from their partner, and women who feel “less than” not only tend to bend over backward to please but also tend to put up with abusive behavior.
  

  As much as men feel threatened by a woman’s requests for change and believe they must protect
  themselves
  from being taken over by a woman, many do not hesitate to make demands of their own. This is especially true of men who tend to be controlling and domineering. Since women genuinely believe in creating harmony and consensus, most women attempt to make the changes their partners request, within reason. The difference between Disap- pearing Women and those who have a stronger sense of self is that Disap- pearing Women, under the right amount of pressure, will cave in to almost any request from their partners, whether it is reasonable or not. In many cases this scenario turns into emotional and physical abuse. Often, as in the case of emo- tional abuse, women are completely unaware that what they are putting up with is actually abuse.
  

  Emotional Abuse
  

  There are many ways of being abused without anyone laying a hand on you. Emotional abuse cuts to the very core of a person, creating scars that may be far deeper and more lasting than physical ones.
  

  Emotional abuse is like brainwashing in that it systematically wears away at your self-confidence, sense of self-worth, even in your trust in your own perceptions. Whether it is done by constant berating and belittling, by intim- idation, by manipulation, or under the guise of “guidance” or “teaching,” the results are similar. Eventually you lose all sense of self and all remnants of personal value.
  

  In the following sections I will briefly describe several types of emotional abuse that some men are prone to exert, and continue exerting if a woman allows it, along with some case examples to illustrate various forms of emo- tional abuse.
  

  Domination
  

  Those who have a need to dominate have to have their own way—insisting on making all the decisions, not allowing the other person to have an opinion or to speak her mind. They often get their way by threatening rejection or even physical violence if the other person does not comply. Men who dominate also need to be in charge, and because of this they often try to control their partner’s every action.
  

  Unreasonable Expectations
  

  It is difficult enough, even in a healthy relationship, to meet your partner’s needs and remain true to yourself. But when your partner’s needs and expec-
  

  tations are unreasonable, you can never win. It is unreasonable for a man to expect that you will put everything aside to satisfy his every whim. It is unreasonable for someone to expect you to anticipate his needs unless he communicates them to you. And it is extremely unreasonable for someone to expect that you will put up with selfishness, constant demands, and ingrati- tude indefinitely. When you are with someone who is never pleased, it is time to stop trying to please him.