2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Much has been written about how a woman lives in an abusive or codependent relationship, but few tell how it feels for her to build new ones later.
Any format of relations is based on interaction - preferably (although not always achievable), mutually beneficial and fair - when the needs of one are covered by the capabilities of the other, and responsibility is shared equally. In the case of traumatics, the first place is the fear of falling into something bad again, from which it will hurt. Each new candidate is scanned for red flags, and any fakap is perceived as a wake-up call. What an ordinary person may not pay attention to or write off as an accident, for a woman who has experienced violence, acquires a hidden meaning. Do you know how a dog that was beaten shies away from a sharply raised hand? Likewise, people who have gone through trauma are in constant internal tension, ready to run or attack at any moment, depending on the situation. This makes it doubly difficult for trauma sufferers to open up and trust new relationships. Someone lacks a heart, someone lacks brains, someone lacks courage.
The only way to decide is to understand yourself and learn how to convey your feelings and fears to your partner. Unfortunately, few people are willing to openly discuss their past and the limitations that result from it. Therefore, while an unsuspecting candidate is cutting an onion, chanting the name of her favorite team at the TV, or raising the toilet lid, the woman has time to trigger, remember the consequences of a traumatic experience, project it onto a new partner, get scared / offended and withdraw into herself. Therefore, wiping his eyes after a bow, leaving the restroom or turning off the TV, an innocent candidate risks facing resentment, anger or aggression, the reasons for which he does not understand and cannot understand. Hard? Not that word.
Imagine that you have a box of bricks that you have to carry around with you everywhere. It is inconvenient, restricts freedom of movement, takes up a lot of space and requires constant resources. And so you meet someone you like, chat, get mutual interest, and start planning. But your hands are constantly occupied with this damn box, and even in order to hug you corny, you have to put it somewhere. Your actions?
1) The box can be pushed under the table or covered with something, for the time being pretending that it does not exist. 2) The box can be put on public display, making it the center of attraction and the basis of being. 3) You can tell about the box by gradually taking out its contents and letting your partner hold and feel the weight of each brick. 4) You can immediately hand the box to your partner - after all, in the end there are no secrets in a relationship, and that's why you get yourself a man to share the burden with him.
Building new relationships is difficult, regardless of the answer you choose. However, in the case of the first option, there is a high probability of breaking off at the wrong moment and stunning an unprepared partner with a strange reaction. The second option implies that new relationships will be built around the remains of the old, which cannot but affect their quality. I recommend the third option as the most adequate scenario for gradually getting rid of the accumulated junk and the only one that takes into account the feelings and reactions of the second participant. My future husband and I chose the fourth option - not for the faint of heart. I didn't just give him a box from the doorway - I dumped all the bricks on him at once. And, to be honest, at the beginning of the story, I absolutely did not care whether it would fill it up or not. He was not scared, survived and learned to cope well with my fears. But the price is high, and we always have to say everything out loud. It's hard work, but worth it. After all, all my bricks are still with me, although they have been repeatedly examined, numbered and labeled in personal therapy. Therefore, when I am triggered, I have time to figure out which of them resonated. And my man learned to determine the moment when I was covered by the wave of his eyelashes and the movement of his eyebrows, and take preventive measures.
True, regular readers have heard from me more than once that people are attracted by injuries. So in most cases (and ours is no exception) there are two boxes with bricks …
Don't switch.
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