Why men fear feeling trapped and women fear being abandoned.

Continued from the last post

Some years ago, I was in a relationship with a beautiful single mother. Our connection was fantastic. It was juicy and erotic, engaging and intellectual. We spent considerable time together, and I was practically living at her apartment half the week. We explored each other’s internal worlds, and we explored the city together.

We navigated the highs and lows of our intense connection. We rode the wave when things were good, roaring up and down on fire and water. We negotatiated the sticky side of inevitable conflict, creating space for solutions and compromise. For several months, it worked beautifully.

Except for one particular area.

I remember walking back to the car after a night out, on a still, chilly night. The cold bit into my ears. Her heels went clop clop clop on the pavement. Our hands parted as we approached opposite doors. I suddenly stopped, short of the driver’s side. She noticed, and turned towards me. Our eyes met over the roof of the car.

“I don’t want to go back home,” I said.
She knew immediately.
“There’s nothing I can do about it right now.”
“Is it going to get better?”
“…not tonight.”

Even after we got in, I did not start the engine. We both sat there watching our breath cloud the windows. Looking at one another and looking away. Speaking little or nothing at all. 10 minutes felt like an hour.

Eventually, I drove her home. The car warmed up a little to thaw the mood. The allure of a bedwarmer overcame our resistance. We fell asleep upset, but with a touch of relief.

After all, the terror was already asleep.

Kelly’s* teenage daughter inherited all of her mother’s best features.

She had her mother’s olive skin and dazzling blue eyes.
She had her mother’s gift of song and dance.
She had her mother’s appetite for life, sound and colour.

She also brought out her mother’s worst.

Kelly’s ex-husband was abusive and had left the family. He had, in Kelly’s words, a profound affect on the both of them. Her daughter had tremendous difficulty managing her emotions: when her spirits were high, the whole house glistened with wonderful, creative energy; when her daughter hit her lows, she brought a shadow over the entire apartment. Her weapon of choice was emotional sabotage.

Kelly’s own father, whilst loving, had abruptly left the family in a similar manner. A grown woman, she had learnt to manage her emotions; except it seemed, in her daughter’s presence. They were perfect mirrors of one another, more like sisters, and they would constantly amplify each other’s emotional state. Twin flames, twin shadows.

At this point in time, I was working on being present, riding the wave of the feminine. It was a bedrock of our connection. But, we grew closer, something else was emerging.

The fear that I would inevitably abandon them.
The panic.
The terror.

I wasn’t ready.

“Where are you going?”, Kelly would ask, “For what? How long?”. I would hear this every time I walked out the door.

“Why were you talking with that woman? Were you flirting with her?” I would hear after every conversation with a stranger.

“If you would like to leave me for her, you can, I will understand.” I would often hear this a session with a paying female client.

These scenarios became more frequent whenever Kelly spent time with her daughter. We worked the problem, and made little progress. I did not freeze, as I had done before, but I was aware of a familiar dread. Like a hole in the pit of my stomach.

You’re getting trapped, it spoke. Get out alive.

Things got more volatile by the day. Emotional sabotage by mother and daughter grew more frequent. Time away started to feel like relief. Our connection ended a month later.

In his books Mothers, Sons and Lovers, Michael Gurian explains that the human psyche sits between two relational fears. On the one extreme, is suffocation, emotional claustrophobia, becoming overwhelmed. The other extreme is abandonment.

These fears are polarised, equal and opposite, and they are forged in our consciousness during childhood. They are entwined with our physical and emotional survival. They are projected onto our parents as we bond with them.

As Gurian explains, in the modern family, fathers are going been missing.
Historically, they were absent as they become breadwinners.
Even if they are physically present, they are often emotionally absent.
Sometimes, fathers will leave the family. After divorce, mothers are awarded custody.

Thus, for the last few generations, our suvival fears are dividing along gendered lines

Men grow up oversmothered by their mothers, and dread the power of the feminine.
Women will grow up without their fathers, and are terrified of being abandoned by the masculine.
Intimacy will trigger each other’s suffering.

As a son of a veteran, this was what happened to me. It is a repeating theme in my relationships. Before Kelly, I was working on finding my identity away from my father’s shadow. I was working on releasing myself from the dread of the feminine.

But the sense of feeling trapped, helplessly watching my lover drown in her own fear, that’s something I wasn’t prepared for. I think about it often. It’s difficult writing about it even now.

Is there a solution. Yes, I believe so. It will take considerable work on a generational level. I’ve made progress. Last I heard, Kelly has as well; her daughter needs more time.