The 'Perfect' Relationship

 Adventure Girl searches for her perfect match

‘I have to keep telling myself that while this relationship seems perfect, it’s an illusion.’

Like most people, when I first meet someone, I try present my best. I hide my fears and insecurities, my frustrations, my limitations. I present the fun-loving sexy side of me: the person I want to be. This phase can last days, weeks, months, depending on the situation.

While I’m not ‘in love’ with the person I’m dating, or when I don’t want anything more, I like the person I am. I’m fairly relaxed, I enjoy my own space, I don’t make too many demands, and I keep things fun.

The moment I start wanting more, seeing this person as a potential primary partner, I become needy, demanding and picky – or worse, if I’m ‘in love’, I become insecure.

Insecure Me is every lover’s nightmare. I turn into HER, that jealous, psychotic bitch. Suspicious and questioning, I’m the girl who wants you to tell her over and over that you love her, that she’s sexy, that no one can replace her. But no matter what you tell her, it’s never enough. Never enough, because she had to ask first, because you used the wrong words, because the need in her is too great for you to fill.

I become someone I don’t like and don’t care to be.

On the other hand, if I’m with someone who makes me feel secure – either because I am not ‘in love’, and therefore not invested, or because they have managed to tame the jealous, psychotic bitch ME – I can not be needy or clingy. I can give my lover all the space in the world, but just as importantly, take the space that I need.

When I’m with someone who makes me feel comfortable, I don’t need to adopt euphemisms. I can be direct and articulate. I can have the difficult conversations without fear. But if I don’t feel comfortable, I struggle to hear my lover’s needs and to voice my own.

It’s the same with sex. I love being crazy, losing myself completely, but if I’m with someone inhibited, or someone whose opinion matters too much, I close up, and suddenly it’s all vanilla, or worse, there is no action at all.

These past six months or so, I have been exploring a more casual type of relationship, one where I don’t invest too much, where I actively choose to keep things fun and sexy, where I can offer friendship and support, where I can build my lover up, and only bring issues into the bedroom when I absolutely have to. I have been able to keep my jealousies and insecurities in check; I don’t allow negative emotions to activate; I have trained my brain to shy away. I have no right to feel this emotion; this is not my place. If I even start to feel jealous in a casual relationship, my internal dialogue turns the emotion away, rationalises it, and keeps it in check.

If my lover needs me, I am there, but in a casual situation, they will not demand too much. Similarly, I will ask the minimum from them, but take comfort knowing they are there when I do. While in this situation I have sought friends to support me, rather than demanding all my support from a single primary partner, and I have found strength within myself simply because I have had to.

This is the ‘perfect relationship’ my F-Buddy described: ideal, perhaps, but also, an illusion.

For some reason, when I am in a primary relationship, the same check-and-balance mechanisms seem to fail. They are bypassed by the part of my brain that says, ‘this is my partner; this is the other half of me, they must share and share all; I am entitled to more.’ I need them to love the other sides of me – see me at my worst and still want to be with me, love me unconditionally.

But why should a partner have to see me at my worst? Why should they have to pick me up again and again? I am not their responsibility. They are not a parent-figure who can put the band-aid on and kiss it all better. They are not my ‘other half’; they are their own person to whom I happen to have chosen to commit. Don’t they deserve to see the best in me, not only the worst?

I start to wonder if it is possible in a ‘full’ relationship to make the same choices I have made in casual ones, to keep the insecurity checks and balances in place, to make a commitment to bringing the best of myself to the relationship, to keep the space fun and sexy, and only bring the serious when it is needed. I wonder if it is possible to be less co-dependent, to maintain the strong friendships, self-reliance and strength I’ve established while being single. Because don’t I deserve to see the best in me, too?

Some people write lists and have images in their minds of their ‘perfect’ relationship, their ‘perfect’ partner. I’m not one of those people, but lately I’ve been wondering if perhaps I should be, mentally noting the types of people who bring out the best in me and the kind who bring out the worst.

But how does that translate into a list? And should it really be up to a partner to provide this?

That’s when I realise I am not looking for the perfect partner, the ideal relationship. I am not making a checklist of who I want them to be, but of who I am when I am with them. In a long-term relationship, a partnership, it's impossible to keep your worst at bay. It's part of who you are. But if I can make a commitment to being a person I want to be, and find someone who encourages me to be that, surely I am most of the way there?

Because it’s not just about choosing a partner, a relationship; it’s about choosing who I want to be, regardless of who I am with.

--AG

‘Of all the girls, I choose you.’

Adventure Girl puts the pieces together

A while back I wrote a post on being THAT girl. Recently, and to my horror, I discovered I can be another kind of girl, too. The girl you see on trains with a black eye, looking defeated, the one who won’t look you in the eye, the one who loses herself, her values, her family and her friends, in trying to be whatever she needs to be to earn her partner’s approval, to keep his attention, to be that special person to him. The girl who lets herself be beaten down and abused and then begs for forgiveness.

‘Of all the girls, I choose you.’

When I heard these words I was on top of the world. Finally. This is what I’d been waiting for. These were the words I craved, what I’d put up with everything to hear. Words that blinded out every lie, every betrayal, every hurt, and the complete disrespect shown to me.

I had become the Battered Woman.

Self-esteem is something both tangible and intangible. It manifests in all kinds of ways. The way we try to earn good grades, or seek praise, the way we grasp for the attentions of prospective mates. It can also make us yearn for things that are bad for us. Self-sabotage, if you like. It can mean we don’t trust when people are good to us, and seek out those who mistreat us instead, because this is all we think we deserve. It is what feels real to us, safe, and familiar.

Over the past year I have let someone close to me hurt me, lie to me and manipulate me, over and over. Every time I was ready to walk away he drew me back in. Somehow the memories of the hurt and the betrayal blurred and I was blinded by hope. This time it will be better. This time it will be fixed. This time I can heal. It never was and I never did.

In fact, each time I went back the situation got worse, because I was a little weaker than before, hating myself that much more for giving in, for being wilfully blind. Shame ate away at me until there was nothing left but a blinding, desperate need turning me into a person I despised.

A wonderful friend described it as like being addicted to playing the pokies. You insert coin after coin, blow hundreds, thousands of dollars, waiting for the rare times you put your money in and get a few dollars back. Even if you hit the jackpot, it doesn’t last, and how much money have you thrown away to get there? The coins come out eventually, just enough to keep you trying, to see each win as so much more significant than it actually is. Then the machine ticks over. No more flashing lights. No more returns. And so you insert more coins, starting over, hoping against hope for another return, another jackpot.

This has been me. Waiting for the rare times when things are good, when I’m getting the attention, the love, the security I crave. Never the respect I deserve.

Each time seems like a breakthrough. ‘He did THIS’, or, ‘He said THAT’, I tell my friends, bursting at the seams.

They look at me, uncertain, sometimes with awful pity. ‘Isn’t that how it should be all the time?’

To me, now beaten down, throwing good time, effort, love, and even money, after bad, I say, ‘But he sees me, knows me, flawed as I am, and still loves me. The others, they never saw me. Not really.’ Those others being any guy who has ever shown me love and respect, who has cherished me, who I have tested and tested and finally pushed away. Because I haven’t trusted that what they were showing me was real. How could it be? It must be cracked and flawed, or else aimed at a false image of me.

This is my trampolining love and also my leaky boat.

Finally I have some perspective. My trip gave me enough distance, enough time, to break the cycle. Working on my underlying needs, I was able to begin to recognise the situation and also see how I got into this mess in the first place.

It has meant that when I came back and it happened again, worse than before, I was able to see the situation for what it was. Recognise in myself the Battered Woman. This time I was able to walk away and stay there.

Still, I know it will take time. To not want to go back, to grieve and to heal. Time and space and reason.

I am very lucky. I have incredible friends to support me, an awesome psych to help me work through my underlying issues, and I’m not afraid to ask for help.

My biggest enemy at this point is myself. I have to stop from weakening and continue to build my self esteem.

Because not going back is only the start of the battle. I have to address the underlying need, the child in me who seeks out a partner who will treat her badly, who in her messed up way equates this to being loved, to re-train my childhood brain to seek love in better ways and to offer her the support and protection she badly needs.

Then one day when I meet someone who treats me with respect, who loves and cherishes me, I won’t cringe away, feeling unworthy. I won’t test their love to breaking point. I will be able to accept that it is real, solid, dependable, and that it is actually intended for me.

-AG

'Six months in a leaky boat'

Adventure Girl learns how to swim

So you’re in this relationship, and it’s had a bit of a rocky start, travelled some rough seas, but finally you’ve reached calmer waters, and you can see land up ahead.

In real terms, this is the point where you know you love them, and they love you back. They say it and they show it and you feel it. You’re floating, and it’s thrilling, and it’s peaceful. Then BAM.

The storm.

Out of nowhere you’re throwing a 15-year-old tantrum, all the while aching for them to hold you, to reassure you, to carry you to shore.

Of course they don’t. You’re behaving like a child.

It gets worse. You panic. You’re grasping. You don’t just want to be rescued; you’re drowning and feel like you can’t get to the shore without them.

But they pull away. If you’re lucky they offer you a life-raft, but most times they’re reaching for one for themselves.

‘See?’ you tell yourself. They don’t love you, not really.

The storm might come in the form of that nagging thing they once told you that still doesn’t quite add up, or yet another text message from the Ghost of Shaggers’ Past. You ask AGAIN for an explanation, you want to know AGAIN why she is texting him. Not, as he supposes, to find the worst in him, to prove that he’s lying, cheating, but to be reassured that he’s not.

It’s a test not of him, but of his love for you. You’re looking for cracks and testing if the boat is watertight.

Because can he really love you? I mean, REALLY? Love YOU? Doesn’t he know who you are underneath it all? Won’t he run screaming when he finally discovers the truth, when he finally sees who YOU are?

So you push and you squeeze and you test, but it’s not about not trusting him, it’s about not believing in you.

If you think of the relationship as like being on a leaky boat, you see yourself running around trying to plug and test every last hole. But when you test the holes, you put more pressure on them, and most times make them bigger. Do it too often and chances are there will be so many holes the ship will sink.

The other part of you, the secret part, doesn’t just test the holes that are already there. This part wants to be sure that the boat can withstand an attack. This part steers the ship into the storm instead of away from it, to see if you can weather it, and punches new holes to see if together you can plug them up and keep afloat. Eventually, if you punch enough holes, or steer into enough storms, you’ll both be grasping for life rafts.

Deep down, you know where the fear comes from, a history of sunken boats as long as the Shipwreck Coast. Too many people have been in love with you, but not loved you. Because they didn’t know you, didn’t see you. They saw an idea of you. You felt like a fraud and it never worked out. Because the more they tried to love you, the more you were convinced that they didn’t. Or rather, couldn’t. Because they never saw who you really were. Never saw the rocks beneath the surface until you rammed your boat into them.

But now you’ve found someone different. Someone who sees, who knows. Who has seen your flaws, and still loves, just as you have seen his. He can even tease you about them and make you laugh at yourself. This time you want it to be different. You want to BE different.

You’ve learned your lesson.

Instead of trying to plug and test every possible gap, instead of punching new holes, you will try to accept that nothing is watertight, that the ship can have a few cracks in it, and still stay afloat.

Because even if you do manage to seal the boat completely, there’s no guarantee it won’t one day break down. The motor could simply run out of steam.

And if it does? You might be battered by the sea and swallow water until you choke, but you will make it onto shore. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. And again. And again. You have a life raft, and a vest, and you know how to swim.

-AG