Work with depressed man and their partners has convinced me that men's much-vaunted fear of women and of intimacy is really not a fear of EITHER. What men fear is subjugation. In the one up/one down, better than/less then, hierarchical world of traditional masculinity, one is either in control or controlled. Vulnerability, openness, yielding to another's wishes - many of the requiste skills for healthly relationships - can be experineced by men as invitations to be ATTACKED. Men's fear of entrapment, of female engulfment, is not really about women at all. It is a transposition of a male model of interaction to the living roon and the bedroom. When men fear that their women will "engulf" them, they fear that their women will act like men.
insert more from 318-319.
WWhat Real is talking about here between Joe and Barbara is something that has happened with darkdaughta and I except for the fact that darkdaughta does talk about how she is feeling. She is actually quite good and clear at proposing courses of actions and talking the lead at neigotating a path.
But I think this is where I experience my partner and the construction of her "engulfing" me. And it has become even worse, as I now move to actively sabotage all that was created. My latest and most tidy tactic is to not listen to anything DD says - at all, ever. And I want her to stop pointing it out to me. I want her to stop.
Memories of the past few days/weeks:
1. Camp director came up to DD to find out why Stinks missed grad performance. I agreed to handle this b4 hand, but drop the ball and left DD a sitting duck
2. After a long day out, DD told me she was hungry (she's breast feeding) and told me EXACTLY what to make her. I came downstairs and 20 minutes later( it felt like 5 minutes) , still- had still not gotten thru making the first part of the dish.
Truly though, I don't express love the same way as DD. I'm willing to take what I can get from her. I enjoy everything she gives me. But I don't give back in the same way.
I won't even always think first when it comes to Stinks and the new baby. I see things and blank that I ever saw them. Or I should saw, choose to blank them.
So here I am on blogger, at like 5 in the morning on Sunday.
Need to cry now.
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2 comments:
i'm on my way back to brasil (i hope) and find myself with the time (a few days in montreal waiting for my visa) to look into old bookmarks, saw that a child is born, ai ai ai, parabens! beleza!
she don't allow no comments, but you do, maybe that's something - you may at least read this before you trash it :-)
like it or not you are all in my prayers, be well.
as you should be...so what's happened since?
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