Hi and a happy new year.

I´m in my late forties, divorced with two daughters. I´m single, but I don´t seem to have enough self-confidence to build up and maintain a good love relationship.

It´s a strange dilemma. On the other hand, career-wise, I have reached very high levels, money-wise as well. I´m proud of myself because I was a drug addict and a juvenile delinquent, but have been clean and sober with the help of AA and other self-help organization for 17 years. Although I come from a wealthy family, I almost ruined my life, but after I became clean I got myself through University and built up my career from then on. I work in the academic and cultural field, organizing cultural events on a big scale and publish books. I travel once or twice a year to exotic countries.

I wish my personal life was in such a good order. Although I do have a good social life and many close friends, I cannot seem to get over my commitment phobia when it comes to men. I seem to have an emotional life of a thirteen-year-old.

This is incredibly difficult to write, but here goes: When I meet new men I´m attractive to, I feel shy, I bite my nails, giggle and avoid them. I cannot face them. Next time I see them, I try to project the image of the successful and professional woman, because that´s all I feel I have. When they show interest, I withdraw. Then I try to seduce them with make-up and clothes. I was a model in my twenties, but couldn´t stand that world and thankfully left it. I learned however lots of beauty tricks and when I´m socializing with men, I feel I´m still stuck in that world. What I´m trying to say is that I feel empty and I think I have nothing to offer but the physical side of me, my mask.

Men get confused around me. That is to be expected. I have lately realized that men who are attracted to me block out my professional accomplishments. They just concentrate on my physical side, although they don´t seem to want to connect to me, not even on a sexual basis. I tend to attract men who have similar problems, so my love life has been going nowhere for years.

I´m completely lost. Years of therapy, more self-help groups than I can count, and I´m still stuck!

I really do hope some one can help or offer some insight. It means a lot to me.

Thanks,

Lily

Lilywhite

Ordinaryguy, thanks.

Well, I asked for help, input and feedback, and you´re right, this must be dealt with. I have a lot on my plate right now, and need help in another department, so I will answer few of the questions now, the rest tomorrow.

I must say I really appreciate your feedback and interest in this problem. It´s very valuable to me.

"I can't imagine that this experience is anything less than hugely important in laying down subconscious and probably largely unconscious patterns in your psyche."

For sure. The influence of this will be with me all my life. This man robbed me of my innocence and made me sexually active much too soon. He damaged me more than I would have thought, but I was also raped many times in my teens. I managed to fight some of the rapists off and I learned self-defense, which was empowering.

I have been in therapy all my life in one way or another because of the abuse and all the rapes. At first I was in denial and did drugs. When I got sober, I didn´t want to think about it, but I had all this rage inside of me. I then started AA and therapy and it has been ongoing since 1992.

"How old were you when you discussed it with her? Why was it good for her to talk about it? Did she have any idea it had happened? What did she have to say about it? What about your dad? When did he find out about it and what was his reaction? You mentioned that he died recently. What was your relationship with him like as a child, and how did it change after you became an adult?"

I told my mother what had happened when I was in my thirties. She didn´t know about it and was deeply shocked. She decided to go into therapy for two years to deal with it and it turned out to be very beneficial for herself. Her life developed in a way she hadn´t dreamed of and it healed our relationship. After it happened, I never trusted her. I felt she allowed it to happen because the mother is somewhat omnipotent in the mind of a child.

My father never knew. We discussed other issues, like his irresponsible lifestyle when I was growing up, and how distant he was, how he travelled whenever he wanted without thinking of us, had mistresses and so on. When he died, we separated as friends. Now I want to think of the good memories from my childhood, when he took me with him on his travels, how wonderful he could be and how much he loved me., despite everything.
"How much digging have you done on this particular experience and time period? Have you discussed it in depth and over a period of time with a therapist? If you haven't already spent a considerable amount of time and attention on it, I'm going to have to disagree that nothing good can come of digging into it. I suspect that this is a major source of the "mind fog" you mentioned earlier:"

I feel I have done as much digging as possible. I was even psychoanalyzed, but that didn´t help. I was in anger management, had hypnosis, Cognitive Behavior Therapy - which benefitted me the most, I think. I faced my anger at the perpetrators, broke through my denial, started to build up trust issues, but that hasn´t been possible and that´s where I am right now.

If it needs more digging, I´m not sure I´m up for it. The deep depression that comes with the digging was bad enough to get over. But obviously it is there, always there in my subconscious mind. That is why I have commitment phobia, but I am realizing with age that you´ve got to start trusting again. I just don´t want to pick the same kind of irresponsible man again and again.

I was in Bosnia before and after the war and I´ve worked in women´s shelters to share my experience with rape victims. Some women dig forever. It becomes their life, or their excuse for an unhappy life. There is life after rape, but only if you let it happen. Sometimes you have to let go of the hatred and the shame and leave it behind in the past where it belongs and keep going.

I stopped seeing men for a long while. It all became to painful and I took a long break from it all to build up my career. There is a danger involved, though. I became too comfortable being single and started to become really scared of involvement. I felt there was something missing in my life and I felt optimistic, as I was welcoming life again.

I will now address the other matter which is on my mind and answer the remaining questions tomorrow.

Again, thanks for being thoughtful and interested. It means a lot to me and feel free to ask me what you like on this issue.

Lily

harlysdream66

oh my i keep reading this ,and it getting very sad to listen to your plight,
i would suggest a clean slate, wipe out the past , start a new, with people you can trust
then look for the right guy .... we do select the wrong people its happens, and to the wrung people, that get hurt by they actions..... i ve been there before ,im sure we all have been ...... my question is do we set our self up to fail..... i would guess we do
but thu all your pain your doing really well. please stay strong john

George_1950

Evidently, you do not lack for self-confidence in your professional life. You wrote: "Then I had eight similar experiences in a row, all ending with finding the men in bed with the former wife or former girlfriend, or the "ex-wife" was giving birth." Doesn't this indicate that you are meeting men, but they are in some kind of a relationship? You are having difficulty finding what would be called "qualified" men. I did some checking and found one resource; I expect you are over my head in this area, however. Check this: Low self esteem and Self Respect. Learning to love ourselves.

Lilywhite

Thanks for the replies.

Harlysdream, I´m trying to start a new life, that´s exactly what I will do. I´ll stay strong.

George, thanks for the link.

Yes, after my divorce I met men who led me to believe they were unmarried or free, but they were not. I have never really understood why this happened. I stopped seeing them as soon as I found out they had lied to me.

One friend pointed out to me that I should have asked more questions in the beginning. I did ask them in the beginning and they lied to me, or at the time they were contemplating divorce or had moved out for a while.

To answer your question: I did meet men, but they were in a relationship they hid from me. I don´t see men who are married or otherwise engaged. I wonder what I could have done differently as everything should be a learning experience.

Ordinaryguy, I continue my answers to your questions:

"What was/is your relationship with your ex-husband like? Did you have commitment fears going into that marriage? How long were you married? Why did you get a divorce?"

I was married for seven years. I did marry my ex-husband on the rebound from another relationship. I was about to get married to a man I loved very much, but he left me just before the wedding ceremony. My ex-husband helped me a lot; his ex-wife had left him and their child as well, so we tried to build up a new life together. He didn´t want me to build up a career, however, and our marriage failed mainly because of this. But he was loyal and loving, so I am very sorry our marriage failed.

I answered the last question first about the men I met. I do realize they were not quality men - far from it. That´s why I stopped altogether to meet men and decided to work on it, but I didn´t. I just avoided men and devoted myself to my career.

Thanks again. I look forward to hear your input.

Lily

ordinaryguy

Thank you for saying so. The fact that you find it valuable is all the encouragement I need to keep at it.
But I'll bet you would have taken far fewer risks, sexual and otherwise, as a teenager if you hadn't been abused as a child.

I have to confess to being somewhat in awe of and humbled by people like you, who are dealt this really crappy hand as a child, but somehow manage to survive and cope and live and love and succeed and transcend, and help others transcend, that huge and completely undeserved deficit that a betrayal of childhood innocence imposes.

I was an only child of parents who adored me, an incalculable advantage in life, and yet, at 61 years of age I sometimes wonder if I've used that advantage as well as I might have. People like you remind me that even though life is not fair, that fact in no way inhibits the choice or freedom of our creative inner being.

Yes, having cast out the demons, it's tempting to want to keep them nearby to remind yourself (and others) of how valiant you were in confronting them.

I'm prepared to believe that you've got about as much juice out of your past as can be safely extracted by the psychological medical pharmaceutical industrial squeezing apparatus. Helping other women who have suffered similar outrages and indignities is a good way to make lemonade out of the lemons you were dealt. I salute you for that.

I think you were right to give up romantic emotional relationships for several years. A lifetime can contain many experiences, but not always simultaneously, so there's no blame in setting aside one thing in order to focus on something else for a time. Now, you have accomplished what you needed to do in the career and motherhood departments, the wheel has turned, and it's time to refocus on your own emotional and (I suspect) spiritual growth again.