Eye-opener

From True-U Magazine (highlights mine)--

"Research on fear of commitment suggests that there are at least four different types of people with fear of commitment issues:

• Some people tend to engage in relationships with people whom they are very incompatible with. These types of relationships always fail and serve to confirm the person's expectations that commitment is unattainable. In other words, these people sometimes select romantic partners who will reinforce their fear of becoming too close to them.
• Other people tend to go back and forth with the same partner. One month they're together, the next month they're apart, the next month, together, the next they're apart, etc. This can go on for a very long time and allows people to carry on in a relationship without feeling committed. It's their way of avoiding commitment.
• Other people are too idealistic. They're always in search of Mr. or Ms. Right. Unfortunately, "right" is equated with "perfect." Usually, people like this have exceedingly high standards for their partners. They have to be attractive, intelligent, physically fit, have a good sense of humor, be financially stable, have loving parents, a nice car, etc. etc. Anyone who fails to meet only one of those criteria is dropped.
• Finally, there are people who find partners who are good matches, but then they pick them apart. The person is not attractive enough, they are too tall, they like heavy metal music, etc. No matter what the potential mate 's strengths are, people like this are able to dissect them to the point that they are no longer desirable.

For each of these types of people, the purpose is always to avoid becoming committed or intimate."

***

Now I understand why he has been discrediting me, naming the very qualities that make me very specially me as something negative:

- my positive outlook (too much bubbliness)
- my sensitivity and imagination (makes mountains out of molehills);
- my emotional honesty and clarity, transparently expressing what I feel at any given time (scary emotional rollercoaster);
- my being heart-centered, following its dictates (scary unpredictability)

Do I really need or want a man who cannot accept and appreciate me for who I am, and blames most of his fears and insecurities on me?

'Funny, too, how all these criticisms of his only came out in the weeks preceding his journey to come here.

I have been hurting very much lately, feeling very attacked, and that whatever I say or do is wrong. I have even started feeling insecure about my value as a person and as a woman.

I told him he is the only person in my life who has problems with me; in the rest of my life, all my relationships are good and healthy and positive, so maybe he might try checking if the problem is with him, in him, too?

He got mad, and blamed me some more for making him feel worse.

And now he's saying he's quickly fallen in love with somebody he has just met for two weeks (not an equal match from his description, but someone whom he feels comfortable with as she gives him "no fuss"!), while we've grown a deep friendship and love for a year now. and he calls the two-week euphoria true love. so can we at least be friends, he asks?

I pity him now. 48 and blind as a bat about what true loving really means, still. no wonder he has remained single for so long.

And why would I even want to be friends with someone who cannot take all of who I am, as I am?

He is still one of my soul mates, as I have grown so much emotionally and spiritually, just from knowing him and being known by him.

But, soulmates, to remain together, have to pass the tests of the heart and soul, too, not run away from them to protect their egos. Or they would have been called ego-mates.

My first responsibility is to be true to my self. I lose that, I lose everything else in the end anyway. I might as well just lose him now.

Thank God we haven't even met in person!!! (He kept postponing it with all sorts of reasons, and now he wants to meet, but only as friends.)

He seems to have forgotten that I have keen insight into human nature too.

Of course, I said no. Why would I even want to meet a man who only makes me feel humiliated now?

If this is the price for authenticity, then I'm paying full fare. And keep the change.