Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcrdcf.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!sue From: sue@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Susan Haseltine) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: A love and war story (long) Message-ID: <1372@sdcrdcf.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Oct-84 14:19:26 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1372 Posted: Tue Oct 9 14:19:26 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Oct-84 07:09:26 EDT References: <16@politik.UUCP> Reply-To: sue@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Susan Haseltine) Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica Lines: 64 Summary: Paul - Please accept my condolences. It is extremely hard to face a need for someone which has been repressed by a need for autonomy and very sad to realize the full extent of this attachment only after the one to whom you are attached is no longer willing to continue a relationship with you. You have become aware that you also required emotional commitment both from yourself and your lover, and that in answering her needs you would really have been answering your own. How unfortunate that such realizations must come too late. And they always do come "too late". I will explain that, but first I would like you and others to understand that what I say comes from my own experiences and that I do not pretend to understand your heart or that of your lover, only that I have felt as you describe her as feeling and as you have described yourself as feeling, and that I am trying to express some of my understanding about the emotional gap you have described. Your letter caused me to consider some things in a slightly different light, and I would like to share some of these thoughts. So, why do such realizations always come too late? Of course, if you were already aware and accepting of your emotional needs you would not need the revelation. Beyond that, there is the conflict, why you have suppressed these needs for other needs. When you have been in a relationship for a long time without admitting how attached you are to the other person, it is because there is a stronger, conflicting, need and it too frequently happens that only when the other person has terminated the relationship can these other needs be satisfied that it is safe for you to face your attachment. But there is another side to the coin. Just as you realized your emotional needs after the relationship had been broken, your lover seems to have become able to deal with you autonomously only after she had found another possible outlet for her emotions. How she feels or thinks I don't know really, but what I have experienced is this. That the need for emotional support and approval can just as easily suppress a need for independence, a need which is then satisfied by having emotional relationships with those who do not respond fully on an emotional level. And it is possible that should the SO begin to respond on the emotional level that the need for independence would work to destroy the relationship. There is so often a symmetry in relationships, such that whatever happens in your heart or head is reflected through a strange, and sadly frequently distorted, mirror into the heart and head of your lover. It is too possible that your moving toward commitment while she was moving away from it was not a tragic accident, but a conservation of momentum. It is important to know that just as you cannot suppress your emotional needs for total control of your own life, you cannot give up the need for control just for emotional fulfillment. Both needs, and many others must be balanced according to an algorithm which must be entirely your own. Thank you for sharing your story, Susan Haseltine ...{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdccsu3,trw-unix,ucla-cs}!sdcrdcf!sue