“Is it clingy to always be the one waiting for someone who doesn’t seem that excited to see you?”
Balance Desire
When you are the one waiting for the other person to call you or come home, your desire for that person increases. It’s important, therefore, to find some balance. Otherwise, the Pursuer/Distancer dynamic will become amplified. Continue reading
Effective communication is not enough to have fulfilling relationships. If you want to enjoy healthy, vibrant relationships, romantic or otherwise, three essential steps need to occur prior to communicating.
“Light” by Mimi Stuart©
Live the Life you Desire
While I am all for the right person, happiness, and love, it’s more likely that you will experience all three if you live your life knowing that No one can fulfill your unfulfilled deepest needs and desires but you. If you are generally unhappy, no one can or will make you happy.
You may imagine that a particular person’s love and care will make you feel whole. But eventually such burdensome dependency on someone else for your feeling of wholeness will lead to disappointment and resentment.
When you fulfill your deepest needs and desires the best you can and engage the world from a sense of wholeness (not that anyone is perfectly whole) rather than from a sense of emptiness and need, then you are more likely to dance in and out of the realm of happiness and fulfillment.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
“Marilyn Silver Screen” by Mimi Stuart©
Live the Life you Desire
Some people claim they want more intimacy, but what they seem to really want is total agreement and constant validation, which are antithetical to intimacy. Long-term, passionate intimacy requires that two people have a strong enough sense of self that they can have differing opinions without expecting all-encompassing closeness and validation from each other.
Intimacy based on accommodation
People often find it uncomfortable to deal with their partner’s insecurities. It is easier to simply appease them, agree with them, and validate them. So they often validate their partner simply to accommodate the partner’s fears and insecurities. It is often really their own anxiety that they cannot tolerate when their partner is under stress.
For example, you may choose to respond by nodding agreeably when you don’t agree rather than saying, “I think you could have handled this differently.” As a result of hiding your true thoughts, the result is a deadening of the soul, resentment, and a loss of passion within the relationship.
Codependence
Validating your partner can temporarily improve your partner’s mood and functioning. However, it often creates long-term problems, such as increased codependency. Each partner feels increasingly burdened by an obligation to ease the other person’s anxiety. When couples become codependent, they are increasingly vulnerable to the other partner’s manipulation. They also become anxious about saying and doing the right thing in order to get a positive reaction.
Intimacy based on candor
True intimacy evolves when you don’t manipulate your partner to validate you. When you don’t need your partner to accommodate your insecurities, it’s easier to show parts of yourself to your partner that he or she may not agree with or validate. The benefit is that your partner then truly sees you without feeling an obligation to shore up your insecurities.
This requires a certain discipline, confidence, and courage to look at yourself objectively and to accept your partner’s authentic response.
While it’s nice to be validated by others, you are more likely to get true validation when you are not trying to attain it. When you’re willing to accept a person’s honest response, then you can meet that person on a deeper, truly intimate level. Ironically, less push for validation means greater intimacy and the possibility of a long-term passionate relationship.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
Read “Intimacy vs. Agreement: ‘I better not disagree with his point of view, or he’ll get upset.’”
“Pressure Control” by Mimi Stuart ©
You are right. You will scare your fiancé away by smothering him. Give him the distance he needs. Love means having the self-discipline to respect the other person’s wishes and needs despite your own desires.
Desiring someone is a wonderful thing. But when the feeling becomes one of overwhelming or urgent need, then it’s time to find more fulfillment in your own life. You must try to reduce the psychological burden you are putting on to your fiancé.
Self-sabotaging Behavior
Sometimes people sabotage their relationships because they unconsciously conclude from painful past experiences that they are not worthy of reciprocal love. In such cases it’s important to resist the temptation to act in ways that tend to push others away. For example, by
• smothering a person
• giving too much advice
• using guilt trips, or
• playing games.
Balance Desire
The pursuer/distancer dynamic you are experiencing will only become more exaggerated once you are married if you don’t find some balance now.
As you know, when you are waiting for someone, your desire for that person increases. It would be more balanced if he were sometimes waiting for you while you were working, at a class, at a friend’s, on a walk or at the gym. You will see a shift in your one-sided dynamic if you were busier with some of your own interests, friends, sports, or work. If you pursued some interesting activities, you would feel more whole yourself, smother him less, and become more interesting – and more desirable.
Love out of fullness
Loving someone out of fullness is more sustainable than loving someone out of need. Fullness comes from leading a more full, balanced life with ongoing growth. Your relationship will be more mutually satisfying if you balance your desire for your fiancé with your own independent pursuits.
by Dr. Alison Poulsen
Healthy Relationships and
Effective Communication
@alisonpoulsen
Read “Pursuit and Distancing: Intimacy vs. Needing Space.”
Read “Pursuing passions or partnership? ‘You should spend time with me instead of going fishing!’”