Showing scars: what are your relationship fears?

[imperfect_cupcake]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

I'm a runner. When my date/gf/partner says anything that sounds like commitment I invariably have to fight off that old panicky feeling and practice staying present. I do far better now, but I think I must have tortured my early girlfriends during the time of my life when it was easer to stampede me. Now I just warn anyone who dates me that they should act as if I'm a half-feral cat. You know- 'Here kitty, kitty...' And don't make any sudden moves.

Where does it come from? Oh, the usual bad family issues. And now I have extra baggage from losing two previous relationships to accident and illness. Those deaths certainly registered as emotional trauma for me. Now not only am I somewhat skittish in romantic situations, when I do get involved with someone patient enough to let me warm up on my own schedule I start having irrational fears that she's about to die on me.

I so relate to this!!!
Mine I joke comes from lesbian dating PTSD.

I find it very hard to attach to folks these days and I need people who are patient, confident, and easy going rather than grand gestures, intense romantics, who like overstatement.
All of those things will make me panic and run. It comes from experience of being with very intense romance driven partners who need to be distracted by the butterflies of being in love - they need to have that constant limerance feeling. And when that fades, as it always does, they freak out and leave. Usually 6 months to 2.5 years later. Also their drug use (yes pot counts) or alcohol use patterns didn't really become clear until a crisis or heavy stress happens.

I generally don't make my mind up about compatibilities until I've been seeing someone for 8 months or so. I kind of need to see how we deal with stressful disagreements, or how are differences in values and goals clash, before I will start to actually decide something can honestly work.

Once I do decide, I am nervous they will discover I'm unattractive, or that I'm not as spectacular now the butterflies have calmed down for them. I genuinely don't stop having low level stress about them taking off because they are bored or disillusioned with who I *really* am and not the fantasy me they had a crush on when they didn't know who I actually was - until 3 years in. Because that was when it usually happened.

Plus the last 3 relationships ended with the other person fucking off with someone else.

And if one more person pushes me to commit faster than I am comfortable with because I need to know who they are and that they like me for me, and not and idea of me, and says "you shouldn't punish me for the shitty things other people have done" or says "but I'm different, I'm not like everyone else" (said everyone I've ever met) I will push my dinner up their arse.

I'm just terrified of getting involved with another addict of any kind (yes, pot counts), or someone who is addicted to "being in love with love" instead of being in love with the friendship they have forged with me through expereince.