Relationship Sabotage

[DeadSpace]

Have you ever, or have you even been in a relationship where either you or your partner essentially sabotaged it?
What ways did it occur? what attempts did you or your significant other attempt to stop the ralationship suicide? Were any successful? What were the reasons given, if any were given at all for the breakdown? Were you, or your partner able to save the other? Save the relationship?

Should have added to this, currently in a budding relationship. Wonderful woman. Though the closer we get, emotionally she seems to pull away. Handing out ultimatums of certain things she won't tolerate, that are actually quite minor. Issues that could be talked out and she absolutely refuses to do so. Overtly flirting with other men as a test? Seems to ebb and flow in how she feels, gets close, then pulls away once more. Any advice would be appreciated. Completely at a loss.

[yondyr]

My guess...insecure. And testing you to see if you'll bail. My suggestion...stand firm, stay who you are... anyone who changes to accommodate another risks losing their respect. I should add, standing firm with affection.

[PortInStorm]

Not to go "psyche" on you, but sounds exactly like ambivalent attachment. To test children's attachment to their caregiver, they'll have a mom play with her child in a room, then go away for a few minutes, then come back in. An ambivalently attached child will cry inconsolably, cling to his/her caregiver and push them away at the same time or alternately. This sounds like your girl.

Or, on a more realistic level, I've been in relationships where I really, really want the guy, but can't be with him for personal reasons that I have trouble revealing. So to the observer, it looks like her pattern- draw close from longing until intimacy is inches away, then pull back as a result of the 'reasons'. If the ones she gives you sound phony, they probably are and she can't or won't tell you the real ones. I let one stupid argument ruin this relationship because I felt uncomfortable breaking up due to discrepancy in faith/beliefs. And I didn't blame him for getting frustrated with the conflicting signals.

I guess you've got to ask yourself if you ready for the never-ending drama. If you are, fine, but beware the life of a rescuer: "Deep down she wants it, but she's scared" (while enduring her cheating, tantrums, untimatums, emotional rollercoasters). Do you want someone who can give to you? A relationship where it's not all about her, a little teensy bit of stability?

[DeadSpace]

i am standing firm yondyr, thank you.
2ndtimestudent, i think she would be ok if she'd just talk about whats troubling her, work through it. I can't seem to spark that conversation without her getting angry. She is scared it seems, bad relationships prior. My difficulty lies in holding on until she sees that it's ok. Without pushing her away or giving her more reasons to go.

[PortInStorm]

I guess that's my point- you could use your T to evaluate whether it would be a satisfying relationship to pull her secrets from her, to "hold on til she sees it's OK", to tiptoe around her forever in case you "push her away" or make her angry.

Certainly it would be reasonable to give her a little bit of time to see that you're safe, but after that, move on to someone who can give to you IMHO. I have stood by watching soooo many relationships, wanting a guy whose time is consumed with another dramatic female who gives very little to him (not unduly biased by my wanting him, I don't think). I want to shout in his ear "Give me a try! We'd have it so much better!"- and my husband (an SJ), keeps saying he wasted all of his high school years on a similar female, wishing he had dated those trying to catch his eye instead.

I've also been the wavering kind *once*, and as I said, I didn't blame him for the frustration and eventual leaving. I left too and met my subsequent husband, with whom I had no conflicting feelings of staying/leaving. It was good for everyone concerned.

[Zilal]

Sort of. My last partner, who I gather lost his attraction to me quite a bit before he told me (I assume--to his credit--that he really didn't want to hurt me) became less and less affectionate as time went on. Obviously that's logical if he wasn't attracted to me, but I wonder if part of him wasn't also hoping I'd just give up and move on, and spare him the discomfort of having to tell me how he felt.

Your relationship, EndingOpus, sounds dicey... rather, the woman's behavior sounds dicey, as if she might not be someone it's a good idea to get involved further with. But if you're up for a try, it won't be the end of the world. I would start by making a couple specific requests of her... say, "The ultimatums are hurtful to me. The next time there's something you feel you can't tolerate, will you instead ask me if I'll stop? And I promise to listen thoughtfully." And see if you can't get her to make requests of you too. If you can get her to request something specific... like, a couple hours of alone time on Saturdays... and then you follow through, that can help build trust, which she apparently needs.

If you give this strategy some time and she won't comply with your requests, then it's probably time to move on.

[muguly]

Dude, it's like this:any real woman worth her weight will not play games like that. If she feel the need to flirt and drop ultimatums, then let her....with some other guy. You deserve someone who's in it 100%. If she has intimacy issues, and really wants it to work, she would have told you by now. I'm no psychologist, but it seems to me that she doesn't know what she wants. You can't make her figure it out so until she knows, tell her to hit the bricks, but say it like this:I don't know how you feel about me. Sometimes it's like you're into me, other times it's like I don't exist. I like you but if we aren't on the same page about this relationship, we have to chill for a while. If that doesn't work, tell her HIT THE BRICKS, BIATCH!!!!!

[Colette]

Have you ever, or have you even been in a relationship where either you or your partner essentially sabotaged it?
What ways did it occur? what attempts did you or your significant other attempt to stop the ralationship suicide? Were any successful? What were the reasons given, if any were given at all for the breakdown? Were you, or your partner able to save the other? Save the relationship?

Should have added to this, currently in a budding relationship. Wonderful woman. Though the closer we get, emotionally she seems to pull away. Handing out ultimatums of certain things she won't tolerate, that are actually quite minor. Issues that could be talked out and she absolutely refuses to do so. Overtly flirting with other men as a test? Seems to ebb and flow in how she feels, gets close, then pulls away once more. Any advice would be appreciated. Completely at a loss.

Well speaking more at a theoretical level, the reason people generally do this, is to protect themselves from hurt, after some kind of history of bad relationships or traumatic ones. The best thing you can do, I suspect, is proceed slowly, gently, and sensitively, build up the trust and confidence incrementally over time, and try to get the partner to the point where they don't need to keep 'pushing you away' in order to feel safe and secure in their own mind and heart. That's the best advice I can offer. I know where this 'self sabotage' comes from; I've done it before, and it's a difficult problem to overcome, but not impossible. Good luck.

[JTG]

It's definitely some kind of emotional conflict. My past experiences with such situations have been because of one of two factors:

1) She had an abusive or otherwise traumatic past. She likes you, so she gets close, but then she gets scared that history will repeat and finds some excuse to pull away. It could either be tests to make sure you're not going to hurt her, or it could be genuine aversion to commitment out of fear.
2) She has some other situation or commitment going on that she can't tell you about. I get this one a lot, usually a girl is having trouble with her boyfriend and reaches out to me. After we start to get close she makes excuses to pull away, because she either feels guilty or starts thinking about staying with her guy again.

Either way, personally, i'd probably steer clear. Then again, all of my relationship attempts for the past 2-3 years have ended up badly. I'm just tired of the hassle. In the end, you have to decide whether it's worth the stress it causes you. If you think things will work out for the best and don't mind some rough times until then, i say go for it. If you think it's likely that she'll never "grow out of it" then it's probably best to move on, for your own sake.

I do agree that any good woman will avoid mind games, but sometimes people (feelers and thinkers alike) can have conflicting emotions or worries. It's possible that it's not a mind game on her part, she just can't commit yet.

[denaria]

Leaving aside the irony of asking a bunch of INTJs about relationships...get out. Some people are just imposssible for INTJs to tolerate, even those of us who back away from any overt conflict. And being a doormat is not exactly a good role in any partnership. She'll change if she really wants you.

[Nomad]

Yep, I had a relationship sabotaged .She did everything she could think of push me away, and me, being my INTJ, self, was not really concerned. She eventually just invented stuff. Just scared of love, I suppose. Much later, I was confronted by a friend of hers and in response, i just replied that while I still spoke to and had good relationships with my exes (her being the exception) maybe that fact that every one of my exes relationships ended in a smoking ruin, with no salvage possible (according to her) and this has been a consistent pattern for twenty years was maybe food for thought. I left her friend quite troubled.

It can be difficult to save something when your partner continues to stab it. It does not sound as if you are there yet, but don't do unnecessary damage to yourself.

-Nomad

[vaguely dissatisfied]

Sounds like relationship sabotage all right.

If I were a psychologist I might say that she has huge trust issues surrounding a sense of being unlovable and she is testing you to see at what point you will prove her right.

[iamnotspock]

Nomad -- You're ex was an ISFP, am I right? They tend to be Borderline-Personality Disorder cases. Every relationship ends in a smoking ruin.

[pavman]

Have you ever, or have you even been in a relationship where either you or your partner essentially sabotaged it?
Yes.

What ways did it occur?
Hmm. Well, mainly subconsciously, but there was one where I just couldn't trust this woman I was dating, but she felt she loved me and expressed it. I couldn't bring myself to break her heart directly/as usual, so instead I kind of made her think I was a jerk (nothing bad...no comments from the peanut gallery), and she ended up breaking up with me. She was fairly insecure, in certain ways, which made the relationship aspect much harder to work out, and made me that much more sad to have to cut the cord.

When I see her after the fact, she's still upset and complains to me that it feels like I broke up with her even if she did the breaking up. UGH. :thumbsdown: Guess I just can't win :scared:

what attempts did you or your significant other attempt to stop the ralationship suicide?
She tried to reason with me, prove her love to me, etc etc. But at this point it was far too late for me.

Were any successful?
Hmm, I had a number of relationships where one or the other would break up and we'd get back together, only to break up for good later.

What were the reasons given, if any were given at all for the breakdown?
This is hard to answer. Thinking we would try to work things out, but a lot of it depends on time-frame in my life, what my thoughts/feelings on the situation were.

I think a lot of my relationship problems had to do with sex (go figure), and moving too swiftly into this area, without giving the relationship enough time to blossom into, rather than rush into, a real admiration for each other first. The emotional bond with regard to the sex caused certain parts of our relationship to become more focused than others, and we didn't get to this admiration point prior to that.

This just fed my insecurities during the relationships (and possibly the other party's), which didn't help the situation.

The irony is, the one who's heart I didn't want to break was probably the only one who actually lied to me... I kind of caught her in it and pressed her, and she cried for like 3 hours the night I confronted her. It was a big lie too, not just some little white lie. I stayed in the relationship, but when I started adding up all the pieces, and combining it with the information I had already confronted her about, it became harder and harder to say that I could trust her and, ultimately, caused me to want to get out of the relationship. That and her insecurities didn't help the matter. She would get upset at me if I didn't make plans every weekend, or didn't respond to every email she sent, which were about 5 a day. She became unreasonable and I just realized that we didn't have a relationship that was conducive to moving forward

Were you, or your partner able to save the other? Save the relationship?
Nope.

Should have added to this, currently in a budding relationship. Wonderful woman. Though the closer we get, emotionally she seems to pull away. Handing out ultimatums of certain things she won't tolerate, that are actually quite minor. Issues that could be talked out and she absolutely refuses to do so. Overtly flirting with other men as a test? Seems to ebb and flow in how she feels, gets close, then pulls away once more. Any advice would be appreciated. Completely at a loss.

:irked:

[DeadSpace]

i've failed, nothing it seems can stop this from happening, if there aren't reasons...they'll be rationalised ones...based on little real actions, or miscommunications. Seems the intj mind is suited for that, it can find rational reasons based on assumed actions, truth doesn't matter and is not wanted, in any form for that process.
Reasons will be created to avoid anything that could clear the air. I guess too much hurt, too much history...in someones life, makes them distrustful of honest feelings. IE: they been treated a certain way, and have come to expect that, when treated with respect, caring, dignity...those qualities seem unreal...false to them mayhap...they expect the negatives and look for them, create them if possible.
Truth no longer matters. Promises no longer matter, nothing.

Even an ex that treated her horribly got a 2nd chance...





DeadSpace added to this post, 71 minutes and 36 seconds later...

Any take on that? is treating someone well...when they've not experienced that, a reason from their point of view to mistrust everything? To believe the worst about themselves, and want that reinforced by my actions...rather than treating them as a human being as i see them? Should i have treated them as they expected?
That mistrust, the misinterpretation of my motives and words. Always the worst take, worst scenerio.
I write these...because maybe someone can gain insight from mine and others posts. Emotional baggage, and snap judgements can destroy everything built up over time in moments.
Talk, if you feel something from someone you love, and it causes an instant emotional response, a negative one, might be a good idea to tale time to seriously examine the source, especially if that person hasn't evoked that response before...or hasn't shown themselves to be the way you suddenly see them.