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Dear Breakup Girl,

Your column is, as always, a gem. This is Slightly Baffled Emma who had complaints about disappearing people ... and got on with her life with a smile brought on by you.

I just got out of another relationship and have the following question: How normal is ambivalence? I never seem to be happy for a long time with anyone, and incidentally all my relationships have never surpassed three months. It's always like that: I meet someone, am attracted at first sight, plan how to get his interest and/or ask him out, we date, I fall in love, we spend 24/7 days together all lovey dovey for one or two months, we even talk long-term and soulmatehood and connectedness ... but then gradually I have all these criticisms: I need space, or his mannerisms annoy me. Then some issue comes up (interracial/his ex/values) and he dumps me, usually because I had started requesting space or complaining about something in the relationship or becoming "not as sweet as I was before," yadda yadda yadda.

Then I am a basketcase for a few months (though less so now with all the practice), I tell myself that we didn't know each other that well after all, I was more into being in a relationship than being with him, blah blah blah. Then I make myself tough again like I make myself tough at work, count my losses and move on, while deep inside I painfully feel the solitude and see that behind the tough and ambitious career woman that I am, I still long for someone to care for, to hold me, to reassure me, to believe in me. Yes, I crave affection.

Anyway, this pattern has been repeating itself the last few times. Being the thinker type, and trying to learn from experience, I'm still baffled that each year I manage to get a November to April relationship and that's it. No matter how perfect the beginning was or how carefully I screened initially, it failed at three months this year again. Is it because the beginnings are too fast, because I was too impatient to become "a couple" out of loneliness, because I should hold my tough honesty back, or just because we "weren't meant to be?" And should I work on my ambivalence -- i.e. when I'm single I crave couplehood, and when I'm in a couple, I want some freedom?

Thanks in advance. Your site is immensely reassuring in believing in oneself and life again after a breakup, which wasn't that obvious to me a few years back. Your realistic optimism is really a wise smile to all of us brokenhearted.

--Emma

Hi again Emma,

How normal is ambivalence? So normal that Anastasia can't decide if she's ambivalent, or just torn.

That said, Emma, I am honestly sure that you are fascinatingly, sparklingly unique. But -- at the risk of sounding flip or dismissive -- it sounds to me like you're having...relationships. And not particularly unhealthy ones at that. Three months, for whatever reason, seems to be the official make-or-break time span. You're right on schedule -- and, to some degree, in the throes of a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Like, to the point where you think that November to April equals three months.) Look back at your letter: your relationships -- and in particular the reasons for their demise -- have really been rather varied!

In fact, the only really solid constant here is that he's always the dumper. Hmm. Is that because you're always, like, getting rejected -- or because you're just not stepping up? Maybe sometimes it's a just-not-working thing that you're trying to fix and mold, against the oh-well orders of your gut. And thus maybe his gut gets there first. Maybe that's all.

And by the way, your "cravings" are part of a balanced diet. Humans are social creatures, and hey, that's your spot on the food chain. (Not to mention: couples should have plenty of me-time freedom.) Nothing there, really, to work on or apologize for.

So sure, next time, just for variety's sake, use different "screening" protocols, let him come to you, take it slow at the beginning, whatever. You're in a process of learning, gauging, testing for doneness. Assembling notions of needs and wants and naaahs as you go. With that under your belt, I bet you'll know when you're neither ambivalent nor torn.

Love,
Breakup Girl

PS Such daymaking words! Thank you.

 
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