Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    "Emotional Unavailability" takes place in both parties. I don't know
    the circumstances surrounding your breakup, nor am I here to judge "who
    did what to whom," but I found that the person who initiated the
    divorce, my ex, went through stages of guilt, uneasiness, and a period
    of estrangement from his son. In my case, I ran the gamut:
    humilation, bitterness, depression, and finally anger. It took several
    years to get over all of that - and I did. Emotional healing takes a
    little longer than six months. But trust me, it does get better. If you
    need feedback or reassurance, join a support group in your area. 
    
    All my best,
    
    Barb

    I would like to respond here but with a twist.  I can certainly
    understand the pain of going through a breakup as I went through that
    very thing about a year ago.  I cried and I cried but I knew that
    ending that relationship was the best thing for me.  The twist is
    this: I became involved with a man that was in divorce proceedings and
    although I loved this man (and still do), he couldn't give away any 
    love for me except physically.  He was very angry at his situation
    (which is normal), but he was looking for a new relationship to help
    him forget the pain of his marriage.  
    
    All his energy went into being someone's soon-to-be ex. and it was very
    difficult for me to get what I needed.  I needed love, attention and
    tenderness and although a very good listener, we weren't really
    partners working toward common goals.  The love he gave me had certain
    conditions on it and the tenderness only occurred in the bedroom, not
    around our friends or in public.  
    
    One-sided love can sure stink sometime.
    
    I will not get into feeling sorry for myself.  I only know that anyone
    going through death, separation or divorce (amicable or otherwise),
    should give themselves time to heal so that the next person that they
    become involved with doesn't get the end result of un-resolved
    emotions.  Therapy always helps, too, if the pain is prolonged and
    creates unmanageability in your life.
    
    I hope this helps.  Give yourself time and remember that you are a good
    person and are doing the best you can.  Give yourself credit for
    reaching out. :-)
                           

    Emotional Unavailability is a part of the grieving process.  Basically
    you have just gone through the "death" of a relationship, so grieving
    is a natural response.  At one point during the grieving process,
    there is a period of time when emotional "numbness" takes over your
    feelings.  This numbness gives your emotions a chance to heal--rather
    like wearing a cast over a broken bone to protect it while it mends.
     What you have been, are possibly still are experiencing is this
    emotional "cast."  As mentioned earlier, a support group, and/or
    therapy can really help get the feelings out and help you to get
    through this period in your life.  There is also a book, "How to
    Survive the Loss of a Love," that I recommend as being especially
    helpful during this time.  It is short and to the point, written
    by a therapist and a poet.  If you want to talk more about this
    please send mail.
    
    Warm Thoughts for a complete healing,
    Barb

    I wish I'd been smart enough to ask the same question you asked, 
    when a particular relationship I was in crashed hard.  That was 
    in '83.  And I didn't have the least idea what to do; so I went silent,
    and went on with my life, unhappy, bitter, hurt inside; too hurt to
    even begin to be ready for another relationship.  Only years later
    did I realize I'd done that to myself, and start to pull my head
    out, and figure out what was important to me again, and get my life
    in shape, and make myself happy...and then realize that I was ready,
    finally, to risk sharing myself again.  But it took me 6 years.  Dumb.
    
    It takes time to heal, but it shouldn't take 6 years.  You're already
    on the right track; asking the question means you're starting to figure
    that there are things *you* can do to get on with your healing process.
    Barb's note sounds like a good place to start (.3).  Get to it; and
    good luck.
    
    DougO

    RE: .4

    Doug, I disagree with the statement it shouldn't take 6 years...  I
    think it should take as long as it takes, and if it 6+ years, than that's
    okay...

    Re: .0

    George, I agree with the emotionally unavailable statement. Heck - its
    been almost 3 years since my divorce, and *I'm* not available yet...
    However, that doesn't stop me from going out, enjoying other people in
    my life, that just limits me on how far I develop with them... The only
    people I have really let into my life have only been ones that I know
    are no threat to my "availability".... those men that have pushed too
    hard, and asked for an emotional commitment so far have sent me running
    in the opposite directions so fast, they don't know what hit them...

    I think it takes a lot of time...  I think you have have to experience
    what you really need in your life, and that includes dating, but I also
    think you need a lot of time and space to develop for yourself, and
    dating right afterwards to me anyway is the "OH my gosh, I can't sleep
    all by myself syndrome"...  sure you can, you just have to try it
    :-)... and you may find out you like it...

    Just my 4 cents worth on a too-early Saturday morning...

    	Great responses to my question!  Sometimes I kind of laugh at my
    own motivations for entering notes.  I usually have a "hidden agenda"
    to my entering some of my notes.  In this instant I am very interested
    in other peoples expieriences with wearing the emotional 'cast' but I
    am also looking for the comfort of knowing others have survived and in
    some cases flurished after this condition.
    	
    	I still have needs or voids I need to resolve.  Sleeping alone
    may be a good example.  I think all I am really saying is I am not
    available for 'committment'.  But I still want companionship, intimacy
    (sexual and emotional) and love.  Is it possible?  Do I have to put
    myself into a cacoon, without these things, and emerge an emotionally
    available butterfly.  Can I have my cake and eat it too?
    
    				Sound "screwy"??.......George 

    George... how can you have companionship, love, intimacy, without
    commitment on your part? Is that easy to find? I must be a very, very
    old-fashioned human being because I cannot imagine to live with
    somebody, share everything in life, (including your bed) and still
    don't have a commitment to that person? what happens if you REALLY fall
    in love with somebody else? just say... sorry, I found someone else
    better than you, so you'd better take your things and leave? Without
    commitmeent there is no HEART sharing, only body or physical sharing,
    and that cannot give a full lifetime of happiness (at least, I have not
    found one example yet... but of course, that is my experience) I
    know thousands of very happy couples, but all of them have COMMITMENT
    in front of everything how else could they go thu life withstanding the
    daily pressures of children, education, budget, car payments, doctors'
    bills, etc, etc, etc? and stay TOGETHER? for all that, one needs a lot
    of love, understanding, sacrifice and commitment. Love is the most
    difficult thing to get because unhappilly, we cannot programm ourselves
    to fall in love when we need it, but it comes when we least expect it
    so when we are REALLY in love...we do anything to keep it that way and
    is then when we do any sacrifice to keep it going...
    but of course, this is my own interpretation, everybody else will have
    theirs. Good luck, and I truly hope you get to know a very special
    person who will make you feel totally fulfilled...soon.
    Best wishes!  Ana

    Reading your replies (all of them), brings a lot back to me, I can
    of course only speak for myself of course, but for so long I carried
    on in silence, thinking that I must be the only one who felt that
    way etc.
                     
    It took me a long time to pull through, and yes I went through all
    the stages, shock, resentment, feeling sorry for myself etc.
    
    What I will say, though is that often actually getting over a
    relationship (and for me it was an unhappy one), often takes longer
    and causes more grief that the relationship itself did, and that's
    the really painful and wasted part, but we all have a right to be
    happy and to be at peace with the World and no matter how hard it
    is, you must never give up, and you just have to keep fighting.
    
    The factor of all I found most dangerous though was to keep it bottled
    up inside of you, and to try to carry on as normal, for I can
    guarrantee if you do that it will haunt you for the rest of you
    days.
    
    One other subject I would like to touch on, is the importance of
    remembering what emotional unavaliability is all about when you
    meet someone new, often others can innocently pay the price and
    suffer the frustration for something they were not involved in.
    
    Similarily when you meet someone new, you also have to be prepared
    for the fact that they themselves may also be emotionally unavaliable,
    that doesn't mean that there may not be something between you, but
    you have to apprach/nurture it differantly.
    
    In many ways, I feel that especially as we get older we are all
    emotionally unavaliable in one way or another, maybe that's why
    young love and first love is so much sweeter because it probubaly
    the only time you were ever totally emotionally avaliable.
    
    Well, those are my thoughts anyway,
    
    Guy.

    	Why was reply .9 deleted?.....George   

    Gale-
    
    > Doug, I disagree with the statement it shouldn't take 6 years...  I
    > think it should take as long as it takes, and if it 6+ years, than 
    > that's okay...
    
    Permit me to rephrase- my best estimation right now is that I wasted a
    lot of that 6 years drifting instead of taking responsibility for my
    own emotional recovery.  Yes, its "okay", but only in the sense that 
    I don't feel guilty about it, nor do I find it adding to my emotional 
    burdens to recognize my past mistake.  What I feel about it is stupid.  
    I've learned the lesson that *I* own my life and my emotional health 
    and waiting around for someone to make me happy is abdicating that
    responsibility, and only ends up disappointing me.  So when I say that
    6 years was too long, I only mean, it'll never take that long again.
    
    DougO

    re .10 Hindsight is always 20/20
    
    It takes a while to go from 's/he hurt me' to 'I wanted to be there'
    to 'I convinced myself I wanted to be there - what a fool.' And
    we don't all figure it out at the same speed. (Took me a long while
    to get over a two-month 'love' affair. At least I think I have :-))
    
    

Hi,

Everytime I read about someone going through a divorce - I feel so badly.
It was REAL TOUGH for me.  When I went through it, I was devistated.  
(read note 856 I think) - anyway, eventually you heal, eventually you go
on and start living a normal or somewhat normal life.  The hard part is being 
alone.  I was so lonely - at night alone in bed, I just wanted someone to
be there with.  Share things with me.  But, I knew it wasn't possible because 
emotionally, I couldn't really have a "real" realtionship.  As time goes on, 
you do have some relationships and they make you feel better but most at 
first, are usually not the real macoy so to speak.  It does get better and
become normal.  My suggestion is to date but keep that heart on the shelf 
until the healing process really sets in - then you will be ready to have a 
real relationship.  Time will take care of it.  Life will go on and eventually 
you'll be ok.  Every so often, you'll get a tug at your heart from your old 
relationship but almost all of the time, you feel better.  It's only the 
occaisonal song or memory that can make you feel hurt again and when that 
happens (to me at least) it's only for a few minutes.  I have to say that I'm 
glad what happened to me because I was able to grow, learn and love myself.  
I"m happy to report to you that after time healed me, and I was ready, I fell 
in love - more love for anyone I've ever felt in my life and just got married 
again this month.  So, just keep on living and eventually things will be ok.  
It sometimes takes more time for some people than others.  I'd say though that 
6 months isn't enough time to have a real relationship.  Hope this helps

/Colleen

Oops - it's not note 856 I was referring to, it was note 567.  Sorry for the 
confusion...

/Colleen

    After reading the replys and looking at my own past experiences
    I have to say this.  Catharsis is a process each one of us has to
    handle there own way.  There are no established rules anywhere that
    can tell us what is the best way to handle it.  We can experiment
    while going through it and see what works best for us.  But to say
    that this is the right way or the wrong way to deal with it, or
    to say this is the best way to handle it... is a mistake... I work
    through Catharsis by considering all aspects of the past relationship,
    looking at the things that I hadn't noticed before and trying to
    determine if they would have been a problem later on if the
    relationship had continued.  The ones I can honestly say yes about
    I remind myself of whenever I feel that pull on my heart or hole
    in my chest.  I have a friend who writes when he breaks up with
    a girl.... he writes volumns about the entire relationship from
    the very first second he first saw the girl... through every detail
    of every moment he'd been with her, thought of her, to the expression
    on her face the very last time he saw her.... details... and he
    writes them all down and re writes them adding more to the details
    until he has written as accurate an account of her as he can....
    This process takes him months to do.  He revisits past haunts and
    writes about what they did....creates as much a vivid and detailed
    picture as he can....then he takes the whole thing every piece of
    paper he wrote on and burns them.  Then he is fine to try again.
    
    As far as the amount of time it takes to heal and get on with it...
    I've taken as little as 3 eternal months and as long as 3 very fast
    years... it all depends on the person who was envolved, where they
    fit in my life, how long I'd been with them... and my own varied
    wisdom of the world.  The last time I had to go through the process...
    It took 3 and a half months before I could walk down certain side
    streets... I am now currently involved with someone... and I hope
    things will work out for us... but I didn't wake one day and say...
    today I am healed and will go find someone new.  It was something
    that I wasn't aware of and it happened in it's own time.  You won't
    consciously know when you are healed... you will be sitting in a
    bar one night (or some other equivalent)  thinking about the girl
    who walked through the door and suddenly see someone who reminds
    you of your lost love and you will think... I hadn't thought about
    her for a month or more... then the girl who caught your eye will
    give you a smile or a grin and you won't think about her for some
    time again.  That's how it works for me... and I'm sure if other
    guys look hard at it they will admit it works the same way for them....
    In otherwords, there are no set answers... other then time and possibly
    space.  Each of us finds our own methods for dealing with it and
    each of us manage to survive through it.  There is no defined proper
    amount of time either... so your answers do not lay within us...
    we can offer you suggestions to try, tell you what worked for us
    but ultimatly the answers are within you and you will have to find
    them for yourself.
    
    Skip

    I have experienced many of the same thoughts and emotions in these 
    replies.  I have yet to be open with others about the breakup of 
    my marriage.  I have spent these past months trying to heal and it
    does take time.  We all are diferent and go about our healing and
    dealing with our problems diferently.  I wish there was a magic
    formula for getting over the pain, we all have to find the solution
    from within ourselves.  Due to financial dificulties I find it
    impossible to date anyone, yet I'm not really sure that I'm ready 
    to do it either.
    I often look at my past experiences and try to determine what went
    wrong.  I am finding the time alone has help me deal with some of the
    pain.  Better times are ahead for all of us if we work for them. 
    Happiness can only be found from within.  If we live our lives in the
    best way we know our ultimate dreams will come true.
    
    Bob