Day 133: Secure

9:00 PM

I am struggling, patterns and negative tendencies are emerging from past relationships that I have tried to learn from and not repeat. While I desperately want to protect myself from getting hurt, to stop myself from caring about another person and minimize how vulnerable I make myself, I am incapable. I value connection and communication, the building blocks to a secure relationship. I can’t have one without the other, I can’t protect myself and still develop intimacy in a relationship, it’s counter productive.

This desire to defend defines the beginning of most of my relationships and there are few people who can navigate this space. To be completely open and to allow someone into my life, to share those moments of happiness with those marked by intense pain, is to give that person power over my feelings. I am essentially providing my partner with ammunition they can fire back at me in the future. And even when this space is navigated in the beginning, the ammunition sits ready for when conflict arises. The alternative is to maintain emotional distance and fortify my wall of disinterest and avoidance. This is the ultimate dysfunctional behavior. I keep my interactions and my investment on the surface, when what I really want is to create something deep and meaningful.

In my current relationship, I have been trying to be open and vulnerable. To let closeness and intimacy develop despite my fears. And though I am aware and working on this tendency within myself, I have no control over my partner. Ironically, just when I am trying to move forward and shed some of my negative relationship habits, I am learning that my partner may cope with his fears of vulnerability in a similar way. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter who is maintaining the distance, the end result is a lack of connection and anxiety. Perhaps this is when neglect begins, when the acknowledgement of the issue is all that occurs, without any action to address it. Words mean nothing without action, and intent is not equivalent to impact. I continue to check my desire to retreat and protect with the hopeful optimism that guided me to this point.