He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships (33 page)

A statement like this leads one to believe that both thoughts have equal weight. Yet usually they don’t. Here’s why:

• Those with passive conflicts will almost always be more conscious of the wish. The first part of the statement, “I want a committed relationship,” has far greater resonance in their lives.
  

• Those with active conflicts, on the other hand, are far more likely to be aware of their fear. “I don’t want to make a mistake” will be a clearer expression of what they feel.
  

The classic commitmentphobic couple is made up of one partner with active and the other partner with passive conflicts. What often happens, however, is that both partners share the same kinds of fears. In fact it often seems as though the similarity in their fears are points of understanding that bring them together. Yet the degree of intensity with which each partner feels the wish “I want a committed relationship” and the fear “I don’t want to make a mistake” is completely different. This discrepancy in needs is what typically splits the relationship up.

With that in mind let’s see some of the things that can happen when those of us with commitment conflicts (active or passive) form romantic attachments. Let’s see what occurs when you
really
want a committed relationship but you also really have a set of anxiety-based requirements.

NARCISSISTIC COMMITMENT CONFLICTS

Do any of the following statements describe the way you feel? Do you think that these statements might describe the way your partner feels?

• I
  want a commitment, but I want to be with a partner who is perfect for me
  .
  

• I
  want a commitment, but I want to be with someone who makes me feel as though everything about me is perfect and we have a perfect love
  .
  

• I want a commitment, but I want it to be with somebody who has the right “résumé” and/or physical appeal
  .
  

If you want a commitment, but only to someone who will activate or reinforce your narcissistic needs, you run the risk of finding only relationships that have so many other problems that commitment is hardly a possibility. You may always get involved with people who have major narcissistic issues of their own.

A woman with passive narcissistic commitment conflicts, for example, may feel that she doesn’t have a sense of real value unless a man finds her lovable. She may be too easily swept off her feet by someone with the right M.O. This is the perfect setup for getting involved in a series of relationships with the kind of man who runs from partner to partner in order to reinforce his own sense of self. A man or woman with active conflicts may get image reinforcement by going from one partner to another.

Because men and women with narcissistic issues tend to be “picky,” one can’t help but wonder why they so often fail to be picky about the right things. Here are some of the ways in which narcissistic conflicts can keep you from finding the loving relationship you want:

The Difference Between the Narcissistic Quest for Perfection and Reasonable Judgment

All too often what are triggered at the beginning of a commitmentphobic relationship are all of the narcissistic vulnerabilities. What each person notices about the other depends entirely upon what that person regards as perfection—at that stage of the relationship.

For one person it may be physical beauty. But for someone else it may be wealth. For someone else it may be charm. For many people it is none of these. People whose idea of perfection includes emotional or intellectual depth, for example, may have an entire presentation that revolves around displaying their poetic souls. There are those who respond primarily to the promise of a perfect fantasy scenario. For one person it can be the perfect adventure or the perfect one-night stand. For another it can be just the perfect romance. For some people passion isn’t perfect unless
it’s filled with separation, longing, and despair; the words that resonate for them will be those that spell out challenge and potential pain.

How Image Issues Control Judgment

Not everyone acts out narcissistic impulses in the same fashion. Active avoiders usually have a pattern different from passive avoiders. And, this is one of those instances when men and women may be conditioned to think and behave differently.

Active avoiders, particularly men, may act out their narcissistic impulses by becoming immediately captivated by total strangers. It can be the sparkle in a woman’s eyes, the way she walks through a room, the way she looks in a miniskirt. It can be her accent, her intellectual credentials, or her family connections. Whatever the external image may be, what the active avoider typically feels is this:
This is the kind of special woman I deserve
. Somehow this woman satisfies some primal need and offers a sense of completion—and power. You feel good because you are projecting a successful image to the world. Passive avoiders may respond to those who “come on strong” or who make them feel that they will reinforce their worth to the outside world.

Those with narcissistic issues, both male and female, can be held spellbound by those who promise the completion of their special fantasies. As long as the spell lasts—typically until the person has been won over—reasonable judgment is suspended. Any quality that reinforces one’s image needs can cast such a spell—status, power, money, and physical appearance are all likely candidates to be the driving force in a narcissistic attraction.

As in most commitmentphobic relationships, once the active avoider has managed to win his or her partner over, all the old commitment anxieties surface, and the narcissistic faultfinding tendencies begin to dominate. Once again reasonable judgment is overcome by narcissistic impulses.

Finding Fault with All the Wrong Things

Because there is always a pull toward perfection, those with image issues act out their commitment anxieties by finding fault
with their partners or their relationships. Reason goes out the window, and what replaces it is sometimes so ludicrous that it seems to be a joke. In fact often their partners don’t believe what they are hearing. For example:

• After five years of dating, Wayne, five foot eleven, tells his girlfriend, five foot three, that they can never marry because she is too short and he is afraid of having short children.
  

• After two years of living together, Keisha tells her partner that she is moving out because he has “rotten taste” and looking at his ugly wardrobe makes her sick to her stomach.
  

• After six months of round-the-clock pursuit, Louis tells his girlfriend that it’s over because she doesn’t ski well enough to keep up on the slopes.
  

• Deirdre told Ian that she loved him, but that the relationship couldn’t last for two reasons: (1) Although he made three times as much money as she did, she felt that he didn’t make enough. (2) Although he had three times as many friends as she did, he didn’t have enough friends. She said that someday she wanted to make more money and have more friends, and he didn’t
  look
  successful enough.
  

• Don has rejected every woman he has ever been out with because they weren’t pretty enough. He always feels he can do better.
  

It’s interesting to note that active avoiders with narcissistic impulses frequently reject their partners because of qualities that the avoider was aware of from the very beginning. It’s also interesting how rarely one hears these people say they are ending a relationship because their partners are unkind or thoughtless or uncaring.

Narcissistic Fears for the Future

One of the most distressing actions someone with active narcissistic conflicts may take is to dynamite a really good, solid relationship
because of some vague worry about the future. Just about everybody who is trying to decide whether or not to make a permanent commitment to another human being has a set of fears that we call the
what if’s
. For example:

“What if she gets fat like her mother?”

“What if he gets paunchy like his father?”

“What if she gets wrinkles?”

“What if he goes bald?”

“What if childbirth changes her body?”

“What if he loses his money?”

“What if I meet a woman later who is really perfect?”

“What if my friends think he looks funny?”

We could go on with this list of
what if’s
indefinitely. What they all boil down to is the following worry: Suppose I make a commitment to someone who is less than perfect and then I feel stuck?

Women and Narcissistic Image Issues

When a woman’s good sense goes out the window in relationships, image issues are often implicated. But women, particularly those with passive commitment issues, find it difficult to relate to the notion of narcissistic faultfinding. They quickly point out that they don’t demand perfection. Typically they feel that in relationships they are, if anything, too accepting. While this is probably an accurate assessment, what they fail to notice is how their behavior is influenced by image issues. Too often too much of their sense of value is dependent upon what is happening externally. We understand that a lot of this is a cultural setup; but it can also have at least a part of its roots in narcissism.

Let’s take an all-too-common relationship scenario:

Naome, a social worker in a large urban hospital, has been having an affair for fifteen years with a doctor associated with a medical center in another town. The affair consists of two or three dates a year. She says:

“I feel like a total fool. I’ve been going out with a married man for fifteen years. He never calls, he never writes. He never does anything, but a few times each year he drives through town and
we spend the night together. Each time he calls, I get all excited. I feel wanted, and it thrills me. This is stupid because when I’m with him, I don’t even have a nice time. The next day I always feel terrible, so why do I have this knee-jerk response when the phone rings and it’s him?”

From the time a woman first starts dating, when the phone rings and a man asks her out, she finds reinforcement of her worth. Think about the average teenage girl waiting to be chosen at the school dance. As she gets older, things don’t necessarily change. Society has told this young woman that she should have a date for the prom, a man at her side, a husband to give her life meaning. Projecting this kind of image can assume monumental importance. She is told that women who count have these things and that women who don’t are objects of pity.

Often her family reinforces these feelings. Think about a single woman coping with relatives who are questioning why she has yet to “get” a husband. When someone sees her with a man, it means that someone wants her and that she has value. And if she doesn’t have a date, doesn’t have a man, doesn’t have a husband, because of all the messages she has received she may well find that
she
is questioning herself. She may need this sense that a man finds her attractive in order to reinforce her sense of worth. And if he is an attractive man with good credentials, so much the better for her image.

Naome, the social worker who is dating the doctor, is a case in point. When she met him fifteen years ago, she was still in school, and he was a guest lecturer and already considered very important in his field. When he singled out Naome for his attentions, she was flattered. She was impressed by the way people treated him and she gave more weight to that than she did to the fact that he was married and living in another town. That’s why she allowed this intrinsically unsatisfying relationship to develop.

Looking at this relationship closely, one can see how it triggers both sides of the narcissistic coin. On the one hand, when this man phones Naome and pays attention to her, he makes her feel desirable and worthwhile. Because he talks to her about psychiatry, he makes her feel as though she is smart and interesting. In short he validates her. But being with him on abbreviated dates that revolve
around a sexual connection makes Naome feel undervalued and used.

If you are a woman, you should think about Naome’s story and then think about the times in your life when getting attention from a man has made you feel like more of a person. Think about the times you have gotten into questionable relationships—often knowing full well that they were fraught with problems—simply because having a man in your life made you feel more desirable. Think about the times you may have gone out with men you didn’t particularly like simply because you were thrilled to be seen with a man. Think about the instant image hit you get when a man finds you desirable and attractive. Think about how you feel when you tell your friends some story about a man who is pursuing you.

Then think about how you may have felt when a man didn’t complete your fantasy scenario about a relationship. Think about how your sense of self-worth can be threatened by a man’s failure to make you feel special. Also think about the amount of energy you may have expended trying to prove to the men in your life that you were indeed a perfect woman.

Like it or not, these are all connected to narcissistic issues. On some level it may all seem harmless enough. After all, what’s wrong with feeling good because someone thinks you’re nifty? Obviously nothing. The problem occurs when you are so taken with the feeling that you allow good sense to vanish and when your own sense of self-esteem is so shaky that it can be inflated or destroyed by a man’s attentions.

This can leave a woman vulnerable to the most inappropriate and unavailable men. Let’s consider what can happen when a worst-case commitmentphobic man, one whose M.O. revolves around pursuit/panic, chooses such a woman. Her responses to the heavy pursuit are more extreme, more total, than those of the woman who is centered and sure of herself. He tells her that she is wonderful, and she believes him because his words make her feel wonderful. Then he panics and pulls away, and she is left reeling, with no firm center of her own.