The Disappearing Male by Joan Lachkar

Author:Joan Lachkar
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

FLAWED PARTNERSHIPS

Paradoxically, obsessive-compulsive men often choose histrionic or dependent, emotional, over-the-top partners. These are women who are overly emotional, loud, messy, disorganized, and often dysfunctional. I am a reserved kind of a guy, and whenever we go somewhere she embarrasses and humiliates me. She dresses provocatively and always has to be the center of attention.

In How to Talk to a Narcissist (Lachkar 2008b), I describe the dance between the obsessive-compulsive and the histrionic, how each one needs the other to play out undeveloped parts and unconscious fantasies. He needs more of her emotionality, which he long ago abandoned, and she needs more of his structure and orderliness. But as much as he needs her, he must attack her and destroy her. All he does is attack, criticize me, and pick on me. He expects me to be perfect like him. Often he just storms out of the house. Sometimes I don’t see him for days. When he returns, he stays up night after night working. He just disappears! This is when I lose it and get totally hysterical. I start screaming, cussing, and yelling, but he just phases me out, does not listen or pay any attention to any of my feelings. He just continues on hacking away at the computer 'til all hours of the night.

The obsessive-compulsive man has a delusional inner emotional experience. To him emotions, feelings, and desires are something dirty, crawly, destined to contaminate or infect a perfect world. These are the men who are obsessed with cleanliness and have a delusional sense of the dangers of “dirt.” They will compulsively wash their hands again and again, check and recheck doors, file and re-file, and organize cabinets to ensure orderliness and sanitation. These are the men who confuse love, emotions, and vulnerability with something so filthy that it is only suitable for evacuation. It must be gotten rid of. The obsessive-compulsive man (or woman) cannot tolerate confusion, chaos, confrontation, or anything that stirs up a perfectly cleansed internal world. When their perfect world is tampered with, they defend in two ways. First, they withdraw into a robotic state, and, second, they clean, file, and do everything possible to restore order, often creating internal chaos and turmoil in the process. Of course, it is not fair to classify all obsessive-compulsives this way, but where relational love bonds are concerned, there does seem to be a certain cluster of men who share these common defenses.

It is usually at this juncture where women get very discouraged at trying to pull out some emotionality from the obsessive-compulsive: Did you miss me? Do you love me? How do you feel about me? Because needs are felt to be dirty and these men aim to live in a sterile, dirt-free environment, when pressured to express their feelings, they flee (usually only momentarily because of the pressure they feel to return to their work). I have had enough of your emotions, needs, and demands! They are every environmentalist’s dream since they are usually

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.