If you've ever been in love with someone who deceived or hurt you, it's hard not to carry that into the next relationship ... and the next ... and the next. It's like it becomes woven into the fabric of who you are.
Does it have to be that way?
Kristin stopped by this weekend to borrow a book, and we ended up sitting a few hours curled up all cozy on my couch, sipping a glass of wine and talking about — what else? — men.
She's been seeing someone for a few weeks, someone she really, really likes.
It seems as if he likes her, too — he calls her often just to see how she's doing and to ask her out. But there was something about the way she was talking ... a hesitation. I was curious.
"And ...?" I asked.
"And, well, I just don't know. Ever since Tony ..."
Ah, yes, spoken like a woman who'd been deceived.
"But he's not Tony!" I reminded her.
I could tell she wasn't hearing that though.
It's hard to put our trust in people again after we've been hurt. It seems natural that we'd want to be cautious when we first meet someone. I'm certainly not against taking it slow in the beginning; that's smart because it helps separate lust from love and puts the brakes on a desire to make a "relationship" out of someone who may be marginally fling material, let alone partner material. But I don't think it helps us to dump a former lover's — or lovers' — bad behavior onto whomever we're digging.
I mean, give the poor new guy a break!
And I don't think there's a way to get close to someone without understanding this: I may get hurt. If we carry fear of past hurts repeating themselves with new loves, we will always be on guard, and we won't be able to experience the person as our authentic self. We will only experience him through the filter of She Who Has Been Hurt/Wronged/Deceived.
Getting to know someone, sharing who and what we are — warts and all — and having someone share that with us, makes us incredibly vulnerable. But that's what intimacy does. I'm still going to choose that.
Do you open yourself up to all that a new relationship offers, or do you live in the shadow of those who have hurt you?
And if you feel that someone you're interested in is dumping former relationships' bad mojo on you, what do you do?
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What do you do? I tend to speak my mind, and if they don't stop unloading their bad mojo on me, I generally ask them directly to stop, and if they don't stop, I typically let contact slide. Which explains a lot of slidden contacts.
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