How do you love someone who is emotionally detached? I try to ask myself that question over and over in hopes I will be able to answer it with a better answer, each time however, I am left more perplexed. The idea that you can change someone is the most selfish act that people commit without even knowing it (Our ego has a way of blindfolding you just as much as love does) If you think about it, when you want change, it mean's that you are either bored or unhappy with the current events taking place in your life, whether it be a job or a partner. In my case it is a partner, now on the other hand, would it still be selfish to assume and hold on to the idea that they may grow? We ourselves are constantly changing, so to think that maybe he will grow into the person I know he can be is, is somewhat comforting. Loving a broken person is one of the most difficult trials a person can put themselves through. Unfortunately, in life no matter how good your advice may be based on your own life lessons it will likely have no impact on somebody who has not learnt the same lesson for themselves. The difference between somebody who learns from their life lessons, and somebody who is emotionally detached. Emotionally detached people do not feel, or if they do, they compartmentalise their issues and put them in boxes which they seldom relook at. This kind of behaviour is consistent with that of people who have experienced traumatic events either early or later on in life. How do I know this? am I a psychologist with a fancy degree? No. I am not, but what I am is Human. I myself have experienced childhood trauma to know what it is to compartmentalise. And what do I know about detached people? Well, My father is one. To this day, I don't know who he is as a person, or the complexity of his being. All I see is a man who loved his family, but a man so cut off from his reality, he was always a stranger. I tend to believe that whatever trauma or incidents that moulded you to a certain degree play a role in the decisions you make. An example of this, is familiarity. Familiarity is unbiased, whether it is good or bad we tend to welcome it unknowingly. I know that now. I should have learnt this sooner. When I had met Chris, I could see immediately that he exhibited signs of an Emotionally detached person, he had a childhood similar to mine. Instead of realising my life lesson through my relationship with my father. I felt a need to help him, for my lack in trying to understand and help my own father. I saw this as something I would be able to do. An opportunity to do something good. Boy, was I wrong. I saw the person I knew he could be or at least in my mind what I wanted. Not once did I think that, wait, maybe this is the way that he will always be? At first, everything was as I had dreamed of, the deep conversations, walks on the nearby golfcourse, gazing into each others eyes intently, exchanging playlists. It was new we were both enamoured. The timeline of all the aforementioned activities? 2 weeks.
Chris literally walked into my life as a housemate at the Houseshare that I have lived at for the past year. Within 2 weeks, we were a couple. I must admit the recent timeline of events of the people around me had changed considerably. 2 of my best friends engaged, let alone the copious amounts of people in or around my age (27) getting married and popping out babies. I now see that I was trying to manifest my wants, and dress our relationship up to be fate. I thought he was the one, deluded by my idea that the Universe conjured him up. All of that came crashing down when he had told me that he did not want to marry or have children. This shocking revelation sent me into a tailspin of emotions. Who on earth discusses these thing 2 weeks in. As much as I tell myself this was all badly miscalculated by my desire for it to be something that it wasnt. Was that I felt an immense connection with this person. I knew without a doubt without even speaking that our souls were somehow connecting. but as humans, it is easier to be let down than have hope in what will never be. I understand that his childhood may have played a pivotal role in his set-in-stone ideas about children and marriage, where I was different was instead of banishing it from my life, I chose to learn from it and be the best person I can be based on what not to do. He compartmentalised to the point that I fear I may have no impact in helping him to see the light. Whats worse is having to challenge my own idea of happiness so deluded to the idea that this person is who I think he is, I decided to wonder if I could live my life without Marriage and Children. Is that not what life is all about? Then I challenged my philosophies, helping myself to process the idea. I thought, what a terrible world it would be to bring a child into this world. Or, that yes the sanctity of Marriage is a dying fad, after all my parents were an example of this. I began trying to see the illusion in everything, and the more I analysed the more I realised it all boiled down to my own perspectives based on what I really wanted on a soul level. Truth is we feed into the illusions best fitted to what we want, because like a puzzle piece we find contentment and happiness. The notion that we constantly need to feel this happiness, may start to feel like a currency, through which these actions pay out. Do I on a soul level want children? Did I think about what our kids would look like when gazing intently in his eyes? Ofcourse I did. Now I am at the stage where I have to make a decision. Should I stay or should I go?
