Growing up I had this idea that someday I would meet a man who would love me no matter what and I did. However, unconditional love is not unconditional desire-I'm not sure unconditional desire exists. Although he continued to love me, we broke up several times. Every time we got back together he would comment on how good I looked compared to the last time we had been an item. At first I thought that maybe I was just healthier without him, but realized later that I was healthier because I needed to be. I was single and desiring a partner-I had to be the best me I could in order to maximize my likelihood of finding someone.
So, I threw a lot of energy into being fit, confident, and interesting-into developing the idea that I had a lot to offer. It worked and I had several males who were interested in becoming involved with me. This included the previously mentioned man. Inevitably we would get back together and things would be great for a little while; we both would enjoy my healthier body and attitude. Then, a few weeks into new us, I would start to shut down. The energy I had used to maintain myself was going to him and I started to slowly fall apart. I would become mindless; my only goal the preservation of our relationship through the only means I knew possible-feeding him more energy. Sustaining this pattern lead me to put on weight, withdraw from my friends, and lose interest in the world around me. Meanwhile, the more I gave, the more he pulled away from me creating a vortex for me to pour unending amounts of energy into. Eventually, I would lose it. I would accuse him of everything I could think of; I would start fights just to force interaction with him and I would forcibly take energy from him to support myself. After these fights, I would feel better and deeply repentant, but nothing about the experience was positive for him.
For him it was as if I had become someone else. I was not the person he wanted, not the person he was interested having a relationship with. After this went on for years, I finally started to realize that the idea that relationships weren't work had become deeply ingrained in my head. The idea that he should love me and be with me no matter who I became was so strong and familiar that I didn't realize it was there controlling my actions in my relationships. I couldn't see that what I was doing, what I had done in all my past relationships, was to secure the man and then give up. I put forth the effort necessary to attract him, but once we were together I simply quit trying. I relied on the verbal ties that we had created through asking each other out to maintain our relationship-they couldn't and they never would be able to unless we were both ruled by strong enough guilt to keep us from breaking-up. Neither one of us had ever been ruled by that kind of guilt.
In the past, I had dumped every man I met for the same reason he kept dumping me. Not one of them could hold up the promises he had made to get me; not one of them could remain the man that had first caught my eye. They would crumble, become increasingly insecure, I would eventually have had enough, and then I would walk. The same has now happened to me. I crumbled, I became insecure, and he walked.
After years of blaming him, I am finally coming to the understanding that I can't quit. I have to keep being the best me that I can be. I have to keep supporting myself and getting strength from the sources that supported me before I met him. I have to stay interesting, I have to stay healthy, I have to give him my best instead of my worst. If I can do that, then not only will he continue to love me, but the chance that he will continue to want me is also increased as much as it is in my power to increase it. I also become entitled to lean on him when I really need to. Because I have not become a constant drain on him, I can come to him with things that are actually bothering me and I will have a lot fewer of those because I will no longer need to create problems in order to support myself. That is the space that I am hoping to get to. The hardest part is the idea of redirecting my own energy to support me-I am so used to spending it all doing unnecessary things for him.
Finally, what got me thinking about this problem was those around me. I know a man who can't even control himself around attractive cartoon characters and I am quite sure it is because his fiance has no interest whatsoever in maintaining her physical or emotional health. I have a friend who can't stay in a relationship because she thinks that men should not be able to ask anything of her, but that she may freely demand things of them. On the flip side, another couple I know it experiencing strife because the man has given up and has become weak, soft, and prone to addiction. Anyway, this is what I have seen and it has lead me believe that too many people think that relationships are about the words. Without desire, the words mean very little.
