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Forfeiting the Fantasy
by Lesli Musicar
Have you ever been in an unhappy relationship
where you kept wishing that your partner would change? This
was the story of one woman’s life—I’ll call
her Greta. She had had one three-year relationship after another
ever since she was twenty.
Greta was now 38 years old and she found herself ending yet
another dead-end relationship. This one had been frighteningly
abusive and Greta was shaken up. For the first time, she paused
to reflect on her history of bad relationships. Yes, these men
all had problems. But she had gotten together with them. And
she had stayed far longer than she should have. It was only
now that Greta asked herself: why have I been doing this and
how can I stop?
For so many years Greta had been avoiding her problems by focusing
on those of others around her. Now she was going to look at
her own. To her surprise, Greta found she was insecure. She
was not the strong, independent person she had thought she was.
Greta discovered that she lacked self-confidence and had little
self-esteem. No wonder she had never pursued the men she found
interesting. She had never felt worthy enough. In each of her
failed relationships, Greta had succumbed to the flattery of
being pursued. But then, after finding out what they were really
like, why had she stayed?
Once Greta had committed her affections, she felt trapped.
Suddenly, their feelings became more important than her own.
Somehow, Greta now felt responsible for their happiness. She
couldn’t bear to hurt them—or so she told herself.
Even at the outset when Greta knew the relationships were doomed,
she felt helpless to end them. So she simply made the best of
it until, inevitably, they fell apart.
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