Thanks for the words. It's an interesting read.
I'll give you some more breakdown on this chick without getting into a ton of specifics. She was really special to me because she was European from a country I really love, I know some of the language...it was so unique finding her here because it's pretty much unheard of, as this is not a huge metropolitan area. She really was one in a million in that regard.
I've went over this with friends and girl friends up and down...they've sort of told me the same thing. It's usually men who fear commitment and getting close to someone, but she's a female and had all the tell-tale signs.
She's 40 years old...she has an ex-pat family who has moved all around the world her entire life. Her parents, who used to work for the government of said country, moved every few years (her dad was a diplomat.) She's lived in the U.S. most of her life. She's never been married, has no kids, but she's been engaged twice, and was once in a 7 year relationship, her longest. In the past 10 years, she's been with me and one other dude...the last dude only lasted 9 months, long distance, she said they were only together like a month in reality.
She's really quite nice looking...looks way younger than her age...and has only had two boyfriends in the past 10 years. That's sort of a red flag in itself.
Here's another huuuuuuuuuuge thing. She's up her parent's ASS. Like mad. She lost her last good job...she's been living with them again. They're quite reasonably wealthy and her dad's grandfather is a reasonably famous impressionist artist. Someone told me she's codependent...so I looked up the symptoms of codependency...holy FUCK if she didn't match every single last one.
There were some WTF moments I had with her, and I realized after reading some of this shit, it all jived.
Symptoms of Codependency | Psych Central
Low self esteem...she would think the WORST of anything I said to her sometimes. Like, even if it was good, she'd take it the wrong way. I can't think of a ton of examples, but it happened more than once, and here's one. After she first met my parents (who loved her,) I said to her one day "So, my mom said something about you last night." Her response instantly was "Oh, she thinks I'm too old for you, doesn't she?" I was like "Um, no, she'd never say that...she said you were really sweet and she enjoyed dinner with you."
People pleasing...out the ass as well. I saw her do where she worked...won't get into more details, but it was there.
Reactivity...goes along a lot with things I'd say and she'd give weird responses to.
Caretaking...with her parents? Jesus christ. She cooked, cleaned, took care of the cars, washed their cars, watered the hundred plants a day in the big ass house they had, cleaned all the dishes at night after the big ass dinners they always had, etcetera. I could go on and on.
Control...some details like time ALWAYS had to be her way. I frequently picked activities we did, but time? Fucking forget it. She hardly had any, despite working part time after losing her full time job. This was a big thing when I know I made her sad once...because I said I needed a bit more time a week than she was giving.
Get this shit...we live 20 minutes away. I work a full time job, I go to the gym, the park, I have shit to do. She lost her career...she's working part time as a WAITRESS. She was working 16 goddamn hours a week. Some weeks I saw her 0 to 3 hours a week...OCCASIONALLY she would spend time at my house, and occasionally we went on a weekend getaway, and RARELY I slept at her house...our "date nights" were strictly Wednesday and Saturday...NO DEVIATION. That was the days. She played tennis like 30 fucking hours a week...and some Saturdays I couldn't see her...WHY? Because her dad is involved in the golf and country club they live in...and, by her terminology, she would actually say this to me: "Dad is making me go to (insert event here) to take pictures." This is a fucking 40 year old woman, mind you. Who says her dad is MAKING her go somewhere. Oh...and she has a 4 year degree from a respected university. As stated, she's 40 years old...guess what the longest job she's ever had is? FOUR YEARS. She doesn't commit to shit.
And about her dad...he was nice to me...but holy hell is emotionally abusive to his wife. He would snap and yell at her WHILE I WAS THERE at their house eating dinner...and she did nothing to provoke it. They did this very early on in my knowing them, he had no shame in yelling at her. Mind you this was in another language most of the time, so I didn't catch most of it...sometimes I didn't even realize they were at each other so much, then my girlfriend would tell me later "I know you didn't understand everything, but my parents were arguing the entire night."
Back to that list of codependency...
Dysfunctional communication...holy mother of god this might be #1. She was impossible to talk to in person. She'd clam up...she actually told me once that she better communicates feelings and deep things in text rather than in person. This all ties into her breaking up with me via e-mail. I actually told her on...THREE? occasions I no longer wanted to talk to her via text or e-mail because it's hard to really show emotion, and they can ruin a relationship. It never panned out.
A couple of the other ones don't fit. She had no problem with intimacy...on a physical level. She was very touchy in a romantic sense, loved holding hands, loved to kiss, had a very high sex drive, and I had no complaints there. BUT...there's a second part to intimacy, emotional and psychological intimacy.
There's a really great line in that article.
You might deny your need for closeness and feel that your partner wants too much of your time; your partner complains that you?re unavailable, but he or she is denying his or her need for separateness.I barely fucking saw her some weeks, asked for slightly more, and I got a response where she got all weepy and barely talked to me for two days. It was not a healthy response.
I have another female friend who said she was afraid of getting too close to anyone...perhaps jaded from past relationships. Her mom LOVED me...she made jokes about us getting married some day...she cooked food just for me...I bought her mom (and dad) gifts on occasion, frequently brought wine to drink, etcetera.
There's so many things at play here. I don't doubt she really loved me...but she's got a really fucked up, abusive, co-dependent family. She's simply not healthy psychologically.
If I sit and think about it, there were other weird tinges of shit she said that didn't sit with me well. We frequently talked about moving in together some day, moving somewhere else (she was slated for getting a job overseas at one point, as mentioned in the old thread,) and we talked about going together. Then, after all the talk about living together...she made a comment once "we could be in a long distance relationship."
Which - - surprise surprise - - is what her last boyfriend of almost a year was, as mentioned above. I think she LIKES long distance relationships because, to her, they're stress free. She can do whatever the fuck she wants, she's not forced to do anything off her schedule, and you can just fucking text every night in lieu of getting close to someone.
Which at the same time is odd, because when we WERE together, she was all over me...she would kiss me in public places, we'd hold hands, we'd have sex nearly more than I could handle some days...like twice at night, once in the morning, then twice again the next night...then we'd go 3 weeks without fucking because I could barely see her sometimes.
What a fucking mess. Anyway...she's got issues. The sad part is, all I wish I could do is chain her and her entire family up and drag them to a psychiatrist and make them know they're fucked up and get them help. I say that benevolently. As fucked up as that breakup was, I want her to be healthy...but I don't think she knows how fucked up she is, and she doesn't even probably know what codependency is. She's gonna spend the rest of her life all out of whack and never being able to forge real relationships, and it makes me sad to think about.
For everything bad I said about her, she was really sweet and did do nice things for me, and she was a really good person to all those around her.
