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- Path: sparky!uunet!dtix!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!boulder!tigger!bear
- From: bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles)
- Newsgroups: alt.support
- Subject: Re: Denial -- Update
- Message-ID: <1992Sep10.013007.7353@colorado.edu>
- Date: 10 Sep 92 01:30:07 GMT
- References: <1992Aug31.061032.12392@colorado.edu> <1992Sep4.164018.3495@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> <1992Sep10.001650.4949@colorado.edu>
- Sender: news@colorado.edu (The Daily Planet)
- Organization: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration / Boulder Labs
- Lines: 56
- Nntp-Posting-Host: tigger.cs.colorado.edu
-
- I'm back from Dallas and points beyond.
-
- Integrating a _lot_ of information (a time consuming process since I
- need to filter out my own reactions) it appears I was right, natch :-)
- She had a lot of unspoken hopes/expectations about our trip to Mexico
- last year and 'latched onto' someone when she got back because I didn't
- respond as she hoped.
-
- A year passes and she learns she does not have her act as together
- as she thought....
-
- This year she asked me several questions before I left (but after I
- posted the original article) so I was able to be unambiguous in
- 'renegotiating' our relationship. She still refuses, but it is because
- she refuses to believe my answers and she doubts herself.
-
- Those questions are the key to this puzzle.... but it is extremely
- hard to explain. Pam (and I) are extremely intelligent but come from
- environments where it was forbidden to ask for what we want, so we
- 'signal' others. I used to do this, but over the past few years have
- managed to make it much more conscious and explicit. Pam still does
- this -- and complains when I vocalize my desires! (For instance, when
- we reached the last few miles I made an off-handed comment about
- 'getting a hug, or even a kiss, for getting us there safely' (in part
- because she has complained mercilessly about my driving since I spun
- out on an icy interstate shortly after we met -- an interstate with
- numerous accidents on the downslope lanes) and later made an open-armed
- gesture (with an upraised eyebrow) as we carried our bags into the motel.
- She snapped at me that she _would_ have probably/possibly hugged me but
- not since I asked for it). Considering her brother, who apparently
- delighted in destroying things she cared about....
-
- Anyway, she has been dropping 'hints' about what to say. I don't
- always follow them, but I'm aware of them. One of these hints was
- several questions for me -- questions which were extremely disturbing
- because they showed she knows me much better than she has been letting
- on. (These were the type of questions which turn the world upside
- down).
-
- Had she not asked those questions, I would be wondering if I've
- been deluding myself through selective memories, etc. But those
- questions are impossible to ignore... and she has refused to accept
- my answers to them (and I get a sense that she is _afraid_ to
- accept those answers).
-
- BTW, that is what misled me in Mexico last year. I could easily
- read her 'signals,' but I didn't realize there was another entire
- level below that. Since she was too afraid to signal, and didn't
- realize I couldn't read the more subtle signs at the time, she thought
- I was rejecting her (and fears I am still rejecting her).
-
- More later....
-
-
- Bear Giles
- bear@fsl.noaa.gov
-