My Fiancé and I live together. (I’ll call her Karen for the sake of this posting) We are both in our 50’s, have been together 2 years, and have lived together a year and 5 months. We plan to be married in the near future.
We are very much in love. Like any couple, we have ups and downs, but I think our relationship is much better than many.
During the time we have been together, I have had a nagging sensation that something was different, quite fundamentally, than other relationships I have been in. It was nothing I could pinpoint…everything seemed to be in place. Something just felt “different”. She lived 500 miles from me when we first got together. I would drive there every weekend to be with her. Those were great weekends! But, I began noticing something every weekend when the time came for me to go home. I didn’t get the feeling that I would be missed or there wasn’t any sense of “parting sorrow”. It was just “goodbye, call me when you get home”. Kind of bland. I asked her about it once, and she said that she just kind of distanced herself from my leaving because she would not have to deal with the pain of it. Ok, that made sense….but something did not ring true. I had never encountered that kind of reaction before, and it puzzled me. This continued, and eventually she moved to where I live, and we moved in together and planned to be married. But….I STILL had this nagging feeling that I have NEVER felt in a relationship before. It was just weird…I KNEW she loved me a great deal, and I loved her. Everything SEEMED to be perfect.
Several weeks ago, her world was seriously rocked when her Mother passed away unexpectedly. She was devastated. I have never seen anyone as consumed with grief. She received the phone call from her brother in law, and she immediately broke down in sobs. It took me nearly 10 minutes before I could actually find out what happened. When I did, I knew it would affect her in an awful way.
I have ALWAYS been there for her to the best of my ability. I anticipated that she would really really need to lean on me, and I would need to be there for her, which I would happily be.
But she had an odd reaction. I expected her to kind of fall into my arms, wanting to be held and comforted. But she didn’t. She cried continuously, but did not seek physical comfort of any kind. Now, this was the first time I had seen her go through anything like this, so I simply thought that it was her way of dealing, so I just stayed near in case she needed me. I remember one moment in the kitchen where she was standing, facing away from me, and she broke into sobs. I walked up behind her, and wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t respond, which was fine…after a bit I thought she might turn around and want to be held….(NOTE: I thought these things based upon other relationships I had been in…from experience….the way I found MOST people act in these situations.)…she did not turn around, and eventually, just walked away and upstairs into the bedroom and cried on the bed for a while. This continued for a couple of days, when she left to go back to her family home to deal with the various issues that a death creates.
I thought a lot about her reaction, which I found a little unusual, based upon my relationship with her AND past loves. The reason I thought about it was that there seemed to be some connection with the reaction to the death of her Mother, and the “odd” feeling that I had experienced since we had been together. It really bugged me.
And then I happened to read an article on “being needed”…..and it hit me like a small asteroid: Karen doesn’t NEED me…she loves me, she wants me, but she does not NEED me. And THAT is quite an epiphany for me. It ALL fit. Every time I think back to an incident that gave me an odd feeling, I could trace it back to this one idea of being needed.
Karen is a VERY strong woman who has been through some horrific emotional and physical trauma. It is clear to me that she does not NEED anyone because she has been self-reliant for many years. She left an alcoholic marriage (she came and went several times, until her drunk hubby kicked her out in favor of a twenty-five year old version of her), she was raped, she had some bad relationships, she was VERY promiscuous in her younger years, and she was in a near-fatal accident that left her pretty messed up emotionally and physically….over 20 surgeries, and severe PTSD. BUT…through it all, she is a remarkably self-reliant and capable woman who lived on her own for 10 years since her divorce. And, she does not NEED me, I think.
But she WANTS me….and she LOVES me, and that, I think, is the important thing. However, I am VERY used to being needed. I love it when people turn to me with their troubles and I can help or comfort them…I have learned to be very good at that in my life. Not totally depended upon, I have been there and I do NOT like it. But needed at least SOME. And it troubles me a bit to feel like I am not needed….expendable, perhaps….I’m not certain. But I DO know that this seems to FIT….it explains everything about how I have felt the last couple of years.
So…I’d like to know what you think of this idea of mine, and what the ramifications might be….if any. It is just an unusual and uncomfortable feeling to feel like I am not really needed in someone’s life…..wanted, yes, but that is different.
Thanks for your thoughts!
MR