Stop Running from Love: Three Steps to Overcoming Emotional Distancing and Fear of Intimacy (4 page)

At the far end of this spectrum is the unconscious process of dissociation. This form of distancing is so total that the person’s body may be literally present but his or her mind and emotions have checked out.

The Commitment-Phobic Distancer

This style of distance regulation requires at least the start-up of potentially intimate relationships. In this style, the defended distancer finds a potential partner who will engage, at least for a while, in the Distancer Tango. (Note that the partner often appears to be a typical pursuer or a love addict but is actually another distancer in disguise.)

In this scenario, the distancer may first entice the potential partner, and then create an endless cycle of dramatic rejections, only to return once again to lure the same “victim” all over again. Often, this well-disguised style of commitment phobia produces a well-choreographed combination of distancing and pursuing. Couples can spend a lifetime doing the distancer-pursuer dance.

To get a deeper understanding of this style of distancing, let’s watch a couple in action.

Jack and Diane’s Story

Jack and Diane, the couple you read about earlier in this chapter, taught me to really respect the dizzying potency of the pursuer-distancer roller-coaster relationship. I also learned from them that what may look like a simple situation of one person as the distancer and the other as the pursuer can turn out to be two distancers in action.

At first, Jack appeared to be the pursuer. He and Diane found each other irresistible when they met one summer at the weekend wedding party of mutual friends. Jack’s pursuit of Diane was very romantic; he felt a vibrancy that his life had been lacking for a while. They broke up and then made up many times before he was finally vanquished by Diane’s stamina in their approach/avoidance marathon.

First Jack and Diane would declare their undying passion for each other in a manner worthy of an opera. Then Diane would abruptly change her mind and briefly banish Jack, only to beg him to return a little later. Jack was hooked. Although he vowed never to return each time Diane shoved him out the door, when she invited him to come back, he flew to her. Whenever he got angry and refused to forgive and forget, she ardently pursued him with gifts, notes, and, always, copious apologies for her previous rejection.

Diane’s dramatic fluctuations exemplifyone style of the defended distancer. What fueled Diane’s role in this tango of approach and withdraw was Jack’s stateddesire for a deeper emotional and sexual closeness. Her fear of deeper intimacy and stronger commitment pushed Diane to dance backwards. As Jack pressed on with his desire by planning a future with Diane, the pace of their tango escalated. Diane was terrified by Jack’s desire for closeness and commitment and, predictably, responded by ordering him away. Her explanations for her rejections changed each time.

During this courtship from hell, Jack wasn’t conscious of his compliance in their relational dance. He saw himself as the victim, a helpless man with a doglike devotion to a capricious princess. He continued to offer himself to Diane, who, in turn, seemed determined to break his heart over and over again for the rest of his life.

Like many other couples who get stuck in the pursuit and distancing game, the person who is the “designated pursuer” usually has her or his own share of distancing tendencies. Jack, who turned out to be a closet distancer himself, was spared having to examine his own ambivalence because Diane so readily took full responsibility for the push-pull nature of their relationship. Nonetheless, Jack would have given up much sooner if he had not found something deeply satisfying in this operatic relationship.

Jack’s Story

Jack returned to therapy with me years after I’d failed in my efforts to help him and Diane. Once again, he was in pursuit of an unavailable woman, and the parallels were so striking that he’d decided to return to individual counseling with me. He was now more willing to see that he too was a distancer when in a couple relationship.

He told me that he’d run into Diane not long before he recontacted me. Diane had apologized to him for the turmoil of their on-again off-again affair, and confided that she’d finally become aware that she had been severely traumatized from the impact of childhood sexual abuse. “So,” Jack said to me, “I guess I finally have to stop blaming her and every other woman who’s jerked me around, and figure out what’s wrong with me.”

Jack’s style of distancing was to pursue women who were emotionally unavailable. To stay involved for as long as he had in these destructive relationships, he had had to maintain a very high level of denial. It had been very difficult for him to assert his right to receive better treatment because his self-esteem was so low.

The Ambivalence of the Defended Distancer

There are many variations in how the defended distancer operates. Although Diane typified the commitment-phobic defended distancer, other defended distancers, equally afraid of becoming emotionally or sexually vulnerable, act out more ambivalence in their attachments. While there are fewer makeup and breakup dramas, the distancer keeps holding back, never really capable of letting himself (or herself) get close to a partner.

The ambivalent distancer never seems to find the elusive perfect lover, yet he never gives up the quest. He may briefly partner with someone, then quickly move on to greener pastures. The ambivalent distancer can also stay within a relationship but strays repeatedly toward other objects of desire outside the committed relationship as a way of defending against a deeper connection with one person.

This form of distancing can be maddening for everyone involved. These distancers, just like the other types, are very vulnerable. They experience fear of closeness, chronic restlessness, and pervasive dissatisfaction. They usually feel frequent frustration, beaten down by lost opportunities, and an increasingly deep disappointment in themselves. They often long for the one who got away. Here’s a typical illustration of this ambivalent distancing style:

Ben’s Story

I glanced again at the page of new client information Ben had filled out in the waiting room. Ben was a self-employed carpenter and boat builder. He had been in psychotherapy before, although it appeared that he had never continued therapy for more than a few sessions. He was obviously anxious, his restless hands signaling his nervousness. He ran his fingers through his dark shaggy hair, buttoned and unbuttoned one shirt cuff, and periodically rubbed the arm of his chair. Then he settled in, crossing his arms across his chest, his hands locked under his armpits. His deep blue eyes held mine in a steady, challenging gaze.

“What brings you to see me?” I asked.

His steady gaze dropped. He rubbed his jaw, fashionably dark with just a shadow of stubble. He fiddled with his shoe, adjusted it, and peered at it as if he had just discovered his toes. Finally, he looked back at me, his eyes bright with tears. “It’s what happens to me every time I get into a relationship,” he said. “I can’t seem to stay with anyone. Women end up hating me.” He paused, then looked back down at his shoe. “I feel like a monster,” he said, his deep voice so soft I could barely hear him.

“What kind of monster, Ben?” I asked.

He sighed, a big whoosh like a whale exhaling. “I don’t really know. It always starts out fine, but then I realize it isn’t right for me. I end up feeling bad about it, but I just have to leave once I realize that she’s not the woman I’ve been looking for.” He stopped and there was a long pause. Once again, his eyes met mine. He suddenly looked like a guilty little boy. “I feel like a monster,” he continued, “because I hurt one woman after another. I know it isn’t their fault. There’s something wrong with me, but I don’t know what to do.”

Ben was a defended distancer whose ambivalence issues had created a smoke screen of perfectionism. Rather than understanding that he was a frightened distancer, he saw himself as a perfectionist; that is, he saw himself as someone whose need for perfection had made it impossible for him to find the partner he longed for.

While he told me about his series of failed relationships, he described himself as his own worst enemy. He wasn’t happy as a single man, but at the age of forty-one he was about to give up. Ben was like many of the other men and women I’d met in my practice whose relationship histories were characterized by a deep ambivalence. Most of these people would have genuinely preferred being in lasting relationships, if only they had known how to achieve that state.

When the defended distancer is a perfectionist, he or she usually sets extreme standards for himself as well as for others. This type of distancer is tyrannized by self-doubt and a critical inner voice that never allows a partner to be “good enough.” These types of distancers have a hard time making a firm decision to stay with anyone because they are driven by self-doubt and anxiety about making a mistake, or they become paralyzed with a strong rush of judgmental thinking.

Ben, like most distancers, was longing for the gifts that only intimate relationships can bring. He wanted a close relationship in which he could give and receive comfort.

During all of our subsequent therapy sessions, I learned that Ben repeatedly found himself in a cycle of initial delight about the new beloved, only to be followed by crushing disappointment. He never stayed single for long, craving the hopeful period of the courtship stage. As each promising new relationship deepened, Ben became skittish, and eventually he backed out under a cloud of apologetic guilt. Like other distancers, Ben was afraid of emotional commitment and the vulnerability that comes with that territory, but he dealt with his fear by turning it into an intensely critical inner voice that found fault with each new partner.

The Joker, Another Type of Defended Distancer

Another style of distancing is to use sarcasm and dark, bitter humor to defend against vulnerability in an intimate relationship.

Colin’s Story

Colin was a middle-aged lawyer who drove women away because of his compulsive sarcasm and frequent bouts of anger, although one woman after another fell for his wit and compelling sexual energy. He crashed and burned through three marriages and many other relationships in between. Although each romance had its sparkling moments, inevitably, the women would leave him. Despite their early declarations of great love and affection, each one of Colin’s ex-wives and girlfriends told him that they couldn’t go on living in a state of defensive anxiety, forced to arm themselves against his constant irritability and harsh verbal attacks.

In the company of his fellow lawyers and grateful defendants, Colin was a different man, generous and fiercely protective in his defense of the vulnerable. Even though his anger and sarcasm would still surface, he never attacked his colleagues or clients in the same vicious way he went after his intimate partners.

Although Colin knew that he couldn’t hold on to a relationship, for a long time he claimed not to care.

Distancing and Sexual Defensiveness

Both women and men also use various forms of sexual defensiveness to distance themselves from emotional intimacy. This can take the form of avoiding sexual interactions entirely, or shutting down while engaged in love-making.

Yvonne, the young woman you met very briefly at the beginning of this chapter, loves her boyfriend, but she can’t stay present during sex. She shuts down her feelings, thoughts, and her physical responses, forcing herself to go through a sexual performance that she watches from a distance.

Danny, the young science-fiction writer, distances himself both sexually and emotionally from his girlfriend. He doesn’t spend much time with her, and when they are together, he avoids feeling really close to her while they make love by fantasizing about being a sexual superhero. In this way, he can enjoy sex but he’s completely detached from the physical reality of the two human beings who are actually connecting.

Exercise

Are You a Defended Distancer?

Use this scale to score your answers:

1 = This doesn’t describe me at all.

2 = This describes my behavior a little bit.

3 = This describes my behavior in some ways.

4 = This describes quite a lot of my behavior.

5 = This is definitely me.

Rate yourself from 1 to 5 to answer the following statements:

Total score:
___________

If your score was between 45 and 50,
then you fit the profile of the defended distancer.

If you scored somewhere between 35 and 45,
there are significant aspects of being very armored or defended that fit your relational style.

Now, just as you did in the last exercise, use the information you obtained from answering this questionnaire to make a few notes about yourself in your journal. Notice which aspects of being so defended seem to resonate most strongly with your experience of yourself. See if there are some aspects about yourself that you feel okay about and don’t plan to change. Notice what upsets you the most. Which things would you most like to change?

The Distracted Distancer