CHi Esther,
I’m V., a 32 year old woman and my turn to write to you has also come: I really appreciate your pragmatic answers and your vision of relationships without filters and preconceptions. In many cases, reading you was a help and an inspiration for me, even if the stories you spoke about were (not that much) different from mine and I believed I had already reached a certain level of awareness. And instead, this is not enough now, yet another story in which I repeat the mistake of struggling to understand the reasons for the behavior of a man who doesn’t give me what I need, of ending up in the arms of the one for whom “I am not enough” even if I already have something different that should satisfy me.
Because for some years I have had a relationship with A. an ordinary trustworthy boyfriend, for whom I feel a lot of respect and affection but unfortunately, I have never felt very strong emotions for him; he’s my man: he always takes steps towards me even when I have repelling attitudes, he’s never confronted me with the wound of abandonment that I’ve been carrying with me since I don’t know when. Yet it wasn’t enough… Is it perhaps because of the unsatisfying sex that I looked for something else? Or because I was used to abusive men…? Or is it because I’m not good enough at not giving in to the flattery of a suitor who for a few minutes makes me feel like the most desirable thing in the world?
I don’t know what it is inside me that leads me to to be cuckolded and victimized by my own feelingsi (because, do we really want to believe that we are victims only of the men who mistreat us? and not of the one who pushes us to look for them again and again). Because, in fact, I have a cheating relationship with F. despite the fact that I have a stable relationship with A. And before that, for years I chased M. who had no problem insulting me and at 20 I was the lover of a 40-year-old of a narcissist who he did what he wanted with me… while cute boys who really loved me bored me, I didn’t like them.
I thought I was exhausted from the emotional swing I had ended up in, and I got together with A., now 6 years ago, finding tranquility and inner stability; instead I took a crush on F., whom I met three years ago, who with his flattery made me believe that she was the best woman he had ever met and (in his words) felt feelings for me that he had never felt for anyone else. Here, sensations. I am not enough, neither for him nor for me. Then he disappears for months, ago ghosting thanks to the fact that he lives too far away for me to physically go and look for him and, besides, I’m the type to demand something.
At a certain point, he starts answering me again, one word leads to another (I’m good at being available) and he ends up confiding in me. He met a woman and fell in love with her like never before (I had already heard this) but she has too many problems and a family to think about, even if she loves him she can’t be together, so after some beautiful moments that pass together they decide that they cannot be together.
They also understand (finally) that love (if that’s what it is) is not enough to make a relationship work. But so far no consideration of the effect this story may have on me, no excuses, it doesn’t have me in mind as a person. After all, I didn’t express my feelings to him either, I am his accomplice, it is as if I told him “ok neglect me, come to me whenever you want without asking my permission, there is no possibility that you will hurt me”. Finally F., once this great love is over, comes back to tell me how much he wants me and I, partly out of boredom and partly out of necessity (which one?) go back to doing big acts in bed with him but with the awareness that for him I am just a fallback. It’s a shame that in that same bed he spoke to me about the love he felt for the other woman, the only one he had fallen in love with, forgetting that he had started seeing her while he was seeing me, even if at a distance, but that’s something I don’t know. worthy of consideration in his opinion. I wasn’t chosen the first time, he never treated me taking my needs and feelings into consideration and, finally, as was to be expected, he indirectly remarked again that I am second class. Why this selfishness Ester? I can’t stop wondering. I know it’s not the right question, I’m the one who made the mistake of agreeing to keep it like this even if it hurts me (a little still).
I’ve noticed that I’m used to feeling this way, the excluded, the second best, the unworthy of esteem and affection etc…I would almost dare to say that I don’t feel good being close to someone who, on the contrary, doesn’t treat me like this and has better to offer me, than someone who would choose me and no one else. Why do I still feel bad for someone who doesn’t see me as a possibility (even though I thought I accepted it)? Why am I going back? Why isn’t the beautiful thing I’ve worked so hard to build enough for me? Why do I run the risk of ruining everything for someone who doesn’t even deserve my listening?
I’m used to worse… but I still feel bad about a NO.
In this whole affair, at least, I don’t feel guilty for having betrayed my faithful and deserving companion, I feel “just” the usual, enormous, gigantic nothingness.
I thank you in advance for anything you can tell me,
P.
Ester Viola’s response
Dear P.,
Let’s start this year with the primer. No one is a scientist of matters of love, but there are a dozen fixed patterns, recursive illogicalities, questions with easy answers, exact and proven data that are repeated identically for everyone, every time, and therefore if one just doesn’t know where to turn the boss, can start there.
There, in eleven quick points.
1) It’s not a question of merit, of good approaches, of quantities of brilliant chats, shared interests, beauty, unicorns, perhaps affinities don’t even exist, or if they exist, they aren’t enough. Circumstances. Circumstances are needed.
2) Circumstances yes, but you certainly can’t sit back and wait for them. Even those alone can’t do it. With a little skill you can attract love. You need the short sleeve font, the sea view font. Mood is contagious, and who do we want to be with?
3) Nobody cares about you. No one will want to take on the burden of flaws, unresolved child-parent relationships, childhoods that are too happy, too unhappy, too desperate. Fathers and mothers are always the same for everyone: too absent, too present, too anxious, careless, very caring. And the whole world has one characteristic in common: it doesn’t want to know about other people’s troubles.
4) What is the main difficulty of being loved in return? Whoever you like understands this immediately and becomes disheartened: he has nothing to do with you, so he is destined not to reciprocate because desire moves towards what is most contrary to him. Which is why the bastard’s now worn-out tactic continues to score points. “It’s the erotic misunderstanding that continues. The wicked one gives those
sexual guarantees that respectable people do not give,” wrote Flaiano. “He who does not arouse sympathy or compassion is the average man, honest and without great inclinations towards evil”
Relationships to be handled with care
5) The indifference of others must be handled with caution. Because it has a prolonging effect. “I can wait!” it is the biggest of love misunderstandings.
6) The miracle: reciprocated love. Yes, it happens, but it is important to prepare for changing conditions. Even then there is no rest, one cannot ignore the obvious on the horizon: love changes. Every feeling by its nature collapses. There are two ways to look at the whole thing: “It’s normal” or “tragedy!”.
7) Only those who avoid melodramas remain sane. Sometimes it will be necessary to stay away even once a day.
8) The Sarratore treatment cannot be avoided. It’s important to make it happen during your twenties, to properly soak in the oppression to later recognize the same cheap tricks and call the narcissist by his name, a chichiello, eliminating any offensive potential.
One-sided relationships?
9) Love by reflection exists and only imbeciles call it deminutio. The only thing that has diminished is the stupidity of the acting subject, homo sentimentalis is a little less sentimentalis, finally, it’s about time.
10) Do you remember those unrequited loves wonderful things on which bottomless wells of happiness had to depend? Taken by surprise by a mature disinterest, those who did not love will eventually love. Anyone who loved would take a beating. How can you be such an idiot? It’s done, it’s done.
11) One thing, in the end – very in the end – will win over everything. Anyone’s desire to spend their life with a good person.
iO Donna © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED