It Shall Come To Pass…
There is an ancient prophecy. It’s been passed down from crippled harlot to slutty gimp through the generations1. Though originally recorded in ancient Sumerian, the English translation somehow manages to be a perfect Petrarchan sonnet. Disabled trollops must have been quite magical at one point.
The tablet upon which it was carved so long ago is kept in a secret underground vault at the base of a wheelchair accessible ramp, and is guarded by vicious Gila panthers. I’ve seen all this with my own eyes. Once.
Of course, I didn’t memorize it. Even if I did I couldn’t share it on the internet, not verbatim, on pain of Hitachi Magic Wand torture. But trust me, the rhymes are ingenious coming from people who couldn’t have possibly known the English language would even be a thing.
I can tell you the gist of the prophecy, though, and it’s this: Someday thou, Quizzical Pussy, shalt stoppeth being so damn insecure. Verily.
It’s actually a little surprising that this ancient, precious prophecy ended up being about me, when I stop and think about it. Was that nice of those Sumerians or what? Anyway, knowing the future like that is a great comfort to me in times like this.
Because really, I am ridiculous.
I told Laramy a few days ago that I’m kind of waiting for him to get sick of me and leave2. Which, as it turns out, is not a charming thing to say to one’s sweetheart. In retrospect, it was hurtful. It brushes up against ignoring what we have together, telling him I don’t really think he loves me even though I absolutely know he does. The problem is really that I don’t understand why, so I keep waiting to fuck it up by accident.
This is all mostly-to-entirely because I’m insecure. This is the same reason I lose touch with friends while I’m trying not to bother them. This is the same reason I feel like a creepasaurus creep whenever I try to flirt. It’s even why I’m afraid to say no to people I don’t want to have sex with. Insecurity has gotten me into so much more trouble than cockiness that I wonder why I’m still careful not to brag or build myself up. It should really be the other way around by now. But! Here we are.
Laramy never seems insecure about our relationship. We have a good thing going, and it doesn’t seem like I want to end it, so he doesn’t worry about it. This is pretty much just sense, but it feels like alien logic. I can’t imagine feeling that way. I’m glad he does, but it’s so counter-intuitive to me that part of me insists he’s not worried about losing me because it really wouldn’t matter much. But that isn’t fair. He’s probably just doing what emotionally healthy people do.
Why should anyone assume they’re on borrowed time in their relationship? What good does it do? And it’s not even that being single scares me as a general rule; I just specifically don’t like the idea of not being with him. We really do have a good thing going. And I think my insecurities have the potential ruin it more thoroughly and efficiently than anything else.
Does anyone ever really know why they’re loved, anyway? Is it necessary? Is it possible?
Why? Why do you do this to yourself? I know that moment well, when you look in the mirror, or focus on some nasty thought you’ve had, and wonder how or why anyone could ever love you. And it sucks. And we have to stop doing it.
The important thing is that you are aware of this, not to go all psycho-babble on you or anything, and that you and Laramy communicate. And from the vantage point of having a decade or so on you, I can tell you that if you keep working at it, you WILL get over your insecurities. Cliched as it may be, it just takes time.
Also rife with insecurities, I understand this perfectly…this feeling of always waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to realize what a mistake he’s made. It can be horribly debilitating on ‘our’ side of the fence and horribly demeaning on ‘his’ side. It’s a difficult struggle when you cannot look at yourself and see yourself as others see you – in your case, you’re an articulate, funny and entertaining woman who cares about other people. I’m sure there are many, many other positive things about you, too – these are just a few of the things I know from reading your blog.
I know it’s hard to believe he could be right about you – the let-downs, the insensitive comments and criticisms received over a lifetime from those that are supposed to love you leave deep scars. When he is someone that is non-judgemental, with whom you can be open and honest and trust, I think you have to come to believe that perhaps you are worthy – after all, he wouldn’t lie to you and you’d trust his judgement otherwise. Not to say that I don’t still ask “those” questions now and then (Are you sure you’re happy with me? Are you getting what you need out of our relationship? You’re sure I’m not too [insert negative personality trait here]?)…..but I have become much much better and more self-confident over time. It’s a wonderful feeling!
Oh boy do I recognize this. I’ve broken up with several lovely gentlemen just to preempt them dumping me. I mean, it was inevitable, right? I might as well just do it first and save myself the embarrassment.
I wish I could give you some good advice, but I’m still stuck in this rut. I only have mediocre and possibly useless advice, which is: Just suffer. Suffer the insecurity, suffer the fear that they’ll leave you. Suffer it hard. Eventually, if you suffer long enough but don’t do anything about it (plus getting constant reassurance, that can be nice too, and you can even ask for it [I only recently learned this]!), you’ll hopefully habituate and also learn from time that they actually aren’t about to leave you. Hopefully. It doesn’t actually make it better, but committing to suffering without acting really helped me relax about accidentally-on-purpose sabotaging a relationship.
Also, Emily Nagoski, if you don’t read her yet, is Very Very Helpful if science makes you feel better about stuff. No guarantees it’ll help you, but reading her thing about attachment styles really helped me stop with the bullshit sabotage. http://enagoski.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/attachment-styles-a-primer/
My response, which grew rather longer (and drifted further off topic on several points) than I intended: http://orphanwilde.blogspot.com/2011/08/in-response.html
Quit analyzing your relationship and just enjoy it. Laramy loves you! And you are a lucky girl!
I’m in a similar place since my divorce, but in my case it was expressed in a worse way; it was hurting people and ruining relationships from the outset. I started dating for a while but stopped again because of that. I was sure that any love I saw was just because they didn’t know me well enough, that they would eventually come upon the flaw I couldn’t identify that caused my wife to leave and either leave or even if they stayed they’d be miserable. I was nice consciously but my instincts were all wrong; how could what I thought matter to my date if it’s impossible that she could be serious about me?
I wonder if that’s a contributor to the attitude you see in PUAs. If it’s impossible that she cares about him or what he thinks, how can he hurt her?
I know you and Laramy personally.
So it is with a blush that I say that I am envious of what you two have, and think that each of you is lucky to have found the other.
Re-read that sentence: each of you is lucky to have found the other. Each of you is lucky to be in the relationship with the other.
This is not to imply that either one of you doesn’t deserve what you were lucky to find; it means that there’s only so much of that around, and you two have found it. That’s pretty damned special. So are you.
Please guard your relationship, if only from yourself. :)
You’re so lovely and delightful, QP, and it pains me that you torture yourself so. Laramy is a lucky guy, and you are both are lucky to have found such a felicitous union.
I suffer from this same problem. And despite 14 years of marriage, doing everything together and doing SO many destructive things to each other within our relationship, I KNOW it’s probably a forever thing. But I still secretly wait for it to be over. I mean, I’m so fundamentally broken, how could he want to deal with that?
I often find myself overcompensating to the point of annoying. Internalizing everything that goes wrong, thinking that it’s my job to make sure he’s always happy and never stressed and if I don’t do that, I’ve somehow failed at my job.
Which is absolutely stupid. But I’ve got a suitcase full of issues that constantly tell me that I’m just not worth it. Haven’t figured out how to let go of it yet.
I completely understand and relate to this. I’m working on it in therapy. It’s fucking hard living like everything’s going to fall apart any second.