26th October, 2008
Question
I'm a male in my late thirties and have recently become single again after a long-term relationship. I have a nice house, nice car and plenty of money. I am not bad looking and have been out with some quite attractive girls. Yet I am so unhappy it makes me cry.
I have had several long-term relationships and each time I ended it because I lost interest, no longer found the girl attractive, could not see a future for us. It's not from lack of trying, as I have genuinely made a huge effort to get it to work.
When I was younger I never really bothered with relationships and spent my twenties out and about enjoying myself. It was not until I was thirty that I had my first real girl-friend. She was a really nice girl, with no baggage, as were the ones who followed, but I could not find it within myself to commit. I have been in counselling to examine the reasons why. I also recognise that there are plenty of reasons for staying with someone. But fear of being alone is not a valid reason. You have to be fair to both your partner and yourself and if the relationship is not right, then it's not right.
I am now facing my forties alone, with no-one to care for or love. I am jealous of all my married friends who have what appear to be perfect lives, although I know that every couple has their ups and downs. I am so scared of growing old with no-one to care for. I am sick of the rat race in town - the pubs, the clubs, the whole scene. I know I should be grateful for my health and financial security and satisfying career. But I am so sad and alone and feel I've wasted years when I could have been happy. Am I on my own?
Answer
I've always been a bit bothered by this charge of commitment phobia, the tale of the man who chronically fails to 'commit'. It sounds perilously close to a put-down. It certainly implies lack of character. In most cases, it most decidedly misses the point. You're not shallow, or selfish. You're suffering.
Failure to stick the course in a committed relationship is not a lack of discipline. And it's certainly not a lack of trying. It's about emotional shut-down. You can't build and sustain togetherness because you're buttoned up, or rather battened down, in terms of your deep feelings. What's missing is not character. It's passion. And in my experience, passion is suppressed by anger.
Let's clear something else up while we're at it. There is nothing wrong with being needy. On the contrary, needing others is not only normal, it's an integral and necessary part of all human bonding. Man is not an island, he's a somewhat messy mass of needs. Fear is fine too, up to a point anyway. It flags up our innermost feelings. It stops us losing sight of who we really are. You're afraid of growing old with no-one to care for. That's normal. Don't know knock it. It's wonderful to want to love someone.
The anger I'm talking about is born of frustrated need. In fact it is born of despair. I don't know what happened you in any specific sense. But somewhere along the line, as the psychologist Tony Humphries in his self-help books would put it, you creatively chose to shut down sustained emotional enthusiasm in order to save yourself from some huge hurt. You learned not to get in too deep. Maybe this is only with women. Maybe it's more general. It definitely came from a profound sense of powerlessness. And you can definitely decide to choose differently now. Isn't that worth exploring?
