SusanAnderson

Trying to Get Over Someone?

If you are, you might feel like John who wrote into my forum: “Cold, Wet, Miserable, gray day outside and that’s just how I feel on the inside too.  Guess we got another visit from the Withdrawal Fairy. Hurts like a Mutha, but I know it'll pass.” The “Withdrawal” he is referring to is the second stage of abandonment (Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing, Rage, and Lifting), when your body/mind anxiously “searches for the lost object. More…

My Insecurity Drives Him Away

When I give a workshop, the hottest issue people share about is the pattern of driving their lovers away due to their insecurity.  How many times have I heard:  “They love me at first….until my intensity drives them away.”  As common a pattern as this is, the people struggling with in feel quite isolated.  They feel they are in an abandonment box of their own making.  They feel freakish for having this problem.  They feel weak, unfit to be in a relationship.  It’s such a painful pattern, and there are thousands of people out there suffering through it.  Insecurity creates such a disastrous dynamic in a relationship.  It gives our power to our partners.  It takes the mutuality out of the equation.  It makes us overreact and over-need.  Insecurity makes us want too much too fast.  It gets us in over our heads. It causes us to aim our emotional suction cups at our partners. More…

When We Try To Move Relationships Forward, And It Goes Backwards

"Dutch Girl" inspired me to write about this (see my interactive forum), but I’ve gotten a lot of messages lately about relationships going out of whack.  One minute you're in sync and the next, one is pulling away, and the other is feeling abandoned.  It makes me appreciate the fact that the most important commodity in a relationship is mutuality.  Mutuality is precious.  Once someone “wants more” from the other person, it can tip the balance of power. More…

Making Sense of Astronaut Lisa Marie’s Actions

Lisa Marie Nowak managed to go to the moon and back without a hitch, but freaked out from being in a love triangle, and is now charged with attempted murder.  She behaved out of character.  Years before, so did Jean Harris.  She’d been headmistress of an exclusive female boarding school where she earned the nickname "Integrity Jean" for her high moral standards.  But feeling spurned by her lover (famous Scarsdale diet doctor Herman Tarnower), she suddenly wielded a gun and drove hours to his house where she managed to fire multiple gunshots into his body.  She claimed her intention had been suicide, but was ultimately convicted of murder. More…

I'm Insecure, but It's About Me

Someone wrote in that his girlfriend has just pulled away after experiencing an emotional crisis in her family. The day before, they’d been like love-birds, but she’s suddenly stopped showing affection and now wants her space.  He writes,  "I have been supportive and try to give her space, but I am fearful and alone and feel rejected. I fear losing her and miss her terribly.”  He asks how he can be supportive while at the same time convincing her to come back to him -- without driving her away. He ends with “I feel so lost. More…

Is Your Partner Love-Challenged?

So many are vexed by this.  You’re with someone who keeps you at arms length.  Someone who’s not deeply committed to you.  Someone who’s attracted to other people.  Someone who holds his or her love back.  What’s wrong with your partner?  How can you get him/her to stop holding the love back?  How to turn the tables? More…

Let's Just Be Friends

One of my former clients read my last blog “I love You But I’m Not Attracted To You.” She called to tell me how much her life changed as a result of having gained that insight back when.  It was one of those thank you calls therapists love to get.  She said the insight turned her marriage around.  What insight? That when your relationship begins to lose its passion and the sexual energy goes out of it, maybe it’s not as it seems – maybe it’s not a sign that you need to move on.  Instead, maybe this “Let’s Be Friends” feeling is because you are with a person you can trust and with whom you feel secure.  Maybe the lack of passion is a little quirk within your own emotional makeup.  Maybe the real problem is that you can’t feel “hot” unless you are in “conquest mode.”  Conquest is when you are still not completely sure of your partner.  Conquest means that there is some subliminal “abandonment fear” floating around inside of you serving as an aphrodisiac.    Yes, insecurity is an aphrodisiac., More…

I Love You, but You Don't Turn Me On

  Someone wrote to my Forum at www.abandonment.net about his partner of 20 years never being turned on by him.  He claimed that she had been hot with other lovers outside of the marriage, but with him there was “No Lubrication” (title of his post).”  They are in therapy and he asked if there is hope.  I told him, yes there is hope.  My biggest concern would be the couple and therapist failing to identify the real cause.  One possibility:  Many people have trouble feeling sexual passion toward a “secure attachment.”  They only get turned on when their lover is one of three things: 1) New, 2) Forbidden, or 3) Hard-to-get.     If your relationship has been calm, stable, and caring for a long time, this can be the problem! More…

Therapists Can Be Fooled Sometimes

Someone, calling himself “Mr. Confused” had written into my Abandonment Forum (www.abandonment.net) that he recommended his girlfriend to therapist to get some help with her abandonment issues, and the therapist turned around and advised her to get rid of him.  This was a mystery to him.   He didn’t provide enough information to draw any real conclusions, but it allowed me to make wild speculations.  One possible way to explain the mystery was that his girlfriend fooled her therapist. More…

Keeping Your Outer Child in Line During the Holidays

I don’t know about you, but my outer child has been really acting up lately – and I think it’s the holidays.  For me, the issue is, as usual, food.  All year long I remain on an eating plan designed to keep me slender and fit, but during the holidays, Outer Child rises up within me and has a plan of its own: to chow down.  On Thanksgiving, My outer child not only wanted to binge on turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and gravy – but also insisted on consuming lots of pie.  Our course, Outer wasn’t straight forward about its motivation: Outer rationalized that eating all of the pies was a way of honoring all of the family members who made them – it had nothing to do with gluttony. More…