Dealing with damaged women

[deccie]

To cut a long story down to the basic facts, the Father of my lady did and said something rather reprehensible when his daughter was very young and left his family and ended up leaving his wife and eventually marrying another woman. i do not want to provide details to maintain privacy.

From what I know my lady was about 6 when this happened. What happened was not sexual abuse.

I believe this scarred her at this time and she has basic issues with trusting anyone - including her mother - since. She has also had some rather bad choices of male partners in the past which I think has reinforced her views of people in general. I believe she has formed the view that the only one she can really trust in the end to protect her is herself.

I am not looking for relationship advice. Whether I continue this relationship is a decision that will be made by me and me alone. I don't need to be hand held on that choice. If your advice is for me to leave her, don't post and save the bandwidth and server space.

Nor am I looking for solutions that will make this problem go away as I don't believe there will be any.

However, what I am seeking are any sorts of resources that are out there that people may know of to help manage these sorts of issues.

I'm not looking for a fix, just the best way to manage a bad situation.

Thanks

[Shadow]

There is just one answer in such things. Patience and strength. Patience not to go too fast in those areas whereyou know she is damaged, and strength to support her in building the trust she needs to go forward, sometimes against your wishes but not against your will.

[deccie]

Thank you for your post Shadow.

[BillyB]

what I am seeking are any sorts of resources that are out there that people may know of to help manage these sorts of issues.

If you're looking for cheap resources, the library or book store may have books that give tips on managing the issues you speak of. Of course nothing is guaranteed and most likely it will take dedication on your part more than the norm.

[wxman]

deccie,

What she really needs is professional counselling. She has been bearing this cross since she was 6. Don't try playing the part. If you make a mistake, you will mess her up even more. If she was ill with cancer, would you read a few books and try to cure her? Of course not. Don't try doing that with her mind. She really needs professional help.

[subcom117]

Read the book "He's Scared, She's Scared," by Steven Carter and Julia Sokol.  They say it is common for women who suffer from commitment phobia to have lost someone close, especially a father, during formative years.

Four years ago I dated an AW who lost her father at the age of five.  She strongly pursued me, seemed to get more and more serious and then dropped me out of the blue.  In this book I read the exact progression of the relationship I had just been thru.  It was eye opening.  A mutual friend told me this had been her dating pattern.  Since then, she's been through about six other guys.

I agree with the previous posts.  This takes someone who recognizes they have a problem and a willingness to deal with it with a professional. Since her reaction is irrational, based on pre-programming from past events, simply being loving and supporting may not be enough to help her get past it. 

[Taz]

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but your best option is to punt. No to sound crass either, but their are so many women there, why deal with a damaged one? These kinds of issues take so much time to overcome and aren't successful a lot of the time. Factor in the stress she'll have moving to a new country on top of it and why bother?

Every woman is different but I suffered through this type of relationship for longer than I should have. A woman I deeply cared about didn't trust anyone but herself. We went to counseling and I did everything I could. In the end it didn't matter. You will likely always be outside of her little circle if she only believes she can trust herself.

To quote you "I'm not looking for a fix, just the best way to manage a bad situation." Again I'll repeat, why bother? You already know it is bad, are you a glutton for punishment? If it is bad going in, it rarely gets better. If you REALLY want to go down this horrible road, setup a visit with your local psychologist and lay it all out for him. He can definitely point you in the right direction of appropriate materials to support her.

[deccie]

deccie,

What she really needs is professional counselling. She has been bearing this cross since she was 6. Don't try playing the part. If you make a mistake, you will mess her up even more. If she was ill with cancer, would you read a few books and try to cure her? Of course not. Don't try doing that with her mind. She really needs professional help.

I agree with your sentiment completely wxman. I would dearly love to get her counseling however she is still in Russia at this point in time. I am also conscious that I could be yet another brick in that wall of disappointment she feels about people.

[dneid]

Hey, deccie,
Look for a book called "A Wounded Heart".  Good book that deal with abuse in a family.  It mauy not be a perfect "fit" for what you are looking for, but a central theme is the destruction of trust.  I was married to a woman who was severaly abused growing up on numerous fronts.  She never really sought help for her problems and the marriage eventually failed.  It lasted 20 years and we had 3 sons.  They live with her now and I am starting to see her behaviors in my oldest son.

The long and short of it is she and she alone, must be willing to get the help she needs.  You can only do so much.  At the end, my ex was even telling me that I had all the disorders, not her.  Was I a perfect husband?   By no means, was I perfect.  However, she just could not get to the point where she could really trust me in our relationship.  If she is not willing to seek the help she needs, then I would say it is time to run and run fast.  I completely understand your feelings at this point in time, but let me tell you that you can not do it all, she must be willing to take the risk of counseling.

PM, me if you want any more information.

[deccie]

  They say it is common for women who suffer from commitment phobia to have lost someone close, especially a father, during formative years.

I don't beleive the woman I am with is commitment phobic but trust phobic. She has an expectation i will leave her. When we argue she frequently uses the words "forget me". Note that she doesn't say "I want to forget YOU".

[deccie]

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but your best option is to punt. No to sound crass either, but their are so many women there, why deal with a damaged one? These kinds of issues take so much time to overcome and aren't successful a lot of the time. Factor in the stress she'll have moving to a new country on top of it and why bother?

I understand your comment but I just can't do so. It is not inside me to run away from this.

[Taz]

Don't run away, just sound a necessary retreat. Trust issues take forever to work out and even then they still don't trust you. It is almost always a no-win situation. I am an incredible optimist but this kind of thing will definitely get you down after it drags on long enough. Only thing worse to deal with is likely sexual abuse by a parent. I had the fortunate experience of dealing with a woman who had this issue.

I have now learned my lesson in both of these areas. YOU, will PAY for the sins of the people before you. I don't mind paying for my own but the price you must pay for the others is outside of my price range. Good luck and get some professional help and don't waste any more time here. Seriously! You are going on a bumpy ride and you might as well get buckled in before you leave! You only think you know what you are getting into here. I only hope it is as bad as you imagine...not worse.

[subcom117]

I don't beleive the woman I am with is commitment phobic but trust phobic. She has an expectation i will leave her. When we argue she frequently uses the words "forget me". Note that she doesn't say "I want to forget YOU".

Call it commitment or trust phobic, is comes from a fear of abandonment.  Her fear is that you will leave her and she may even try to make it happen.  Staying with her will not necessarily extinguish the fear.

[deccie]

Hey, deccie,
Look for a book called "A Wounded Heart".  Good book that deal with abuse in a family.  It mauy not be a perfect "fit" for what you are looking for, but a central theme is the destruction of trust.  I was married to a woman who was severaly abused growing up on numerous fronts.  She never really sought help for her problems and the marriage eventually failed.  It lasted 20 years and we had 3 sons.  They live with her now and I am starting to see her behaviors in my oldest son.

The long and short of it is she and she alone, must be willing to get the help she needs.  You can only do so much.  At the end, my ex was even telling me that I had all the disorders, not her.  Was I a perfect husband?   By no means, was I perfect.  However, she just could not get to the point where she could really trust me in our relationship.  If she is not willing to seek the help she needs, then I would say it is time to run and run fast.  I completely understand your feelings at this point in time, but let me tell you that you can not do it all, she must be willing to take the risk of counseling.

PM, me if you want any more information.

I agree with you that she must also be willing to do this and also that I cannot deal with this alone. If it were up to me and we had the facilities we'd be seeking all the professional help we could right now. She has expressed an interest in marriage counseling if we can follow that at some point in the future when she is out of Russia. I hope to be able to widen that to include counselling about issues from her past.

At one point on our holiday I asked her point blank why she did things to hurt me sometimes. All she could say was "I don't know". I know, or at least I think I do. It is part of her pushing me to see at what point I will leave her "just like all the rest"

[Blues Fairy]

If you are set on staying with this woman and seeing how this relationship plays out, a good therapist is your best bet.  As far as what you could do yourself - every time you argue with her, you have to look a little beyond the surface of those "forget me"-s.  Get her to talk about her fears as much and as "rationally" as she can.  You seem to be a perceptive man and conscious of what's happening between you two.  Help her become conscious of it as well.  Whenever she blurts out another destructive comment, help her see WHY she's doing it, and ask her to rationalise her behavior.  She may not be as damaged as she seems - just unable to control her emotional urges.  Self-control is teachable, with a little patience and articulation.   

[KenC]

deccie,
I once loved an AW with similar issues.  I helped her get professional counseling.  That didn't really help much and eventually she was so heavily medicated that she was almost zombie-like.  Worse than before the treatment.  It is a sad sad situation because you cannot exorcise her demons.  In the end, we parted ways.  A few things I realized were #1 I was not responsible for her situation #2 I couldn't fix her.

You have to face the real possibility that she will never change.  No matter how much you try to help, no matter how much you may love her.  It may always be what you see is what you get.  I thought I was strong enough and stable enough to counter balance my lady's instability.  I was wrong.

As cold as it sounds, I have to agree with Taz.
Sorry.
KenC

[evaljean]

You have to face the real possibility that she will never change.  No matter how much you try to help, no matter how much you may love her.  It may always be what you see is what you get.  I thought I was strong enough and stable enough to counter balance my lady's instability.  I was wrong.

I went through a similar situation with two British Girls.  One I almost married, the other while I was on the rebound.  The 2nd was most telling, molested as a child by a foreign exchange student, issues with the father. As she put it, "When you are 14 years old and you come home to find your father wearing your clothes and telling you he wants to be a woman, you can't help but have issues."

Although I cared for her very much, I  could not be the caretaker for both of us, so I left.  As much as she claimed she loved me, within a week she was engaged to someone else.

Bottomline, you cannot have a whole relationship with someone who is not emotionally whole.

Good luck to you both.

Uncle Eric

[deccie]

You have to face the real possibility that she will never change.  No matter how much you try to help, no matter how much you may love her.  It may always be what you see is what you get.  I thought I was strong enough and stable enough to counter balance my lady's instability.  I was wrong.

As cold as it sounds, I have to agree with Taz.
Sorry.
KenC

Ken,
I know you are right on all fronts. I do not expect to counter balance the problems. I expect we will have them for a long time, probably always while we are together.

Even knowing that I simply cannot walk away from her. I love her too much. If our good times were not so good it would be easier but, well, to put it simply our good times are simply fantastic and at the moment (and for the last two years we have known each other) they outweigh the bad times greatly.

I am not looking to "fix" her.. Only to reduce the negative aspects as much as possible.

The problem I see for me is that these issues do become wearing over time. One does not want to come home from a hard day at work, try your best for your partner and still be criticised about something largely unimportant.


 

[Jet]

deccie,

What she really needs is professional counselling. She has been bearing this cross since she was 6. Don't try playing the part. If you make a mistake, you will mess her up even more. If she was ill with cancer, would you read a few books and try to cure her? Of course not. Don't try doing that with her mind. She really needs professional help.

wxman, I'm certain that your heart is in the right place, and although professional help might be what she needs, it is probably not something that she'll accept easily. Virtually all the Russians I've known in the real world have a STRONG aversion to psychologists and psychiatrists. "Personal problems are to be dealt with by the person" and "family problems are to be handled within the family" are deeply ingrained beliefs that are hard to overcome.

[deccie]

Wow, I have been quite surprised as to how widespread these issues are.

[Lit_1nce]

Experience -- A manic depressive, with paranoia addicted to pain killers.. who was getting therapy and medication.

I went through the "your going to leave me" ... and "your going to cheat on me"  thing for 4 years.. I never did either.. it never changed.

I am not saying your woman has as many problems, or as severe.. but you will always have "your going to leave me"  in every argument, and you will always have to prove her wrong... and in a heated argument where perhaps just getting away from each other for awhile would be best.. you won't be able to.

No one will ever know some of the crap I endured.. Karma owes me big time.

Run.

[deccie]

Thankfully my experiences are nowhere near as bad as a lot of the other posters here.
What I primarily deal with as a result of these issues are:

A lack of Empathy for others. Such as an inability to see the impact of her choices on others.
A sense of entitlement.
A lack of trust in terms of commitment.

[Daveman]

While much good advice here in this thread, I'm going to suggest a different approach..

Just bring a bucket of ice water home with you.. and when she starts her nit-pickin', just dump it on her. Rinse, refill, and repeat as necessary.  Soon she will be reprogrammed with a fresh new batch of neuroassociations to deal with.  You can lower the dosage to mild freezing blasts from a SuperSoaker, then a squirt gun, and then a photo of an Eskimo taking a leak.

On a more serious note, you really could be in for a rocky ride on this one.   Easier to break an oxycontin habit than to change a deeply seeded emotionally conditioned response which shifts and relieves pain.  If she has trust issues, she's not ready for a solid relationship because she's not standing on solid ground.  I hope it works out for you. Good luck.

Dave

[Daveman]

Thankfully my experiences are nowhere near as bad as a lot of the other posters here.
What I primarily deal with as a result of these issues are:

A lack of Empathy for others. Such as an inability to see the impact of her choices on others.
A sense of entitlement.
A lack of trust in terms of commitment.

You might want to check out a couple chapters on "narcissism" while you're doing your research.. you might be surprised at what you find.

[Shadow]

Thankfully my experiences are nowhere near as bad as a lot of the other posters here.
What I primarily deal with as a result of these issues are:

A lack of Empathy for others. Such as an inability to see the impact of her choices on others.
A sense of entitlement.
A lack of trust in terms of commitment.

1. She is a RW.
2. She is a woman.
3. Work on that one.

To overcome the trust issues is not easy, but it can be done if handled during the good times as well as during the bad times. The moments when the problems show are not the time to handle the issues, they should be handled when she is in a good mood.
It will need a lot of talk and comforting. Professional help might be a part of it, but the main thing is that she should see you as the exception on her issues.
You might need to think about your own habits as well. If you are not on a fixed schedule, she should always know when you are running late and why. Do not give her a reason not to trust you, however small it might be. For instance a small secret over a birthday gift might be a major issue for her.