Let Hope Live
When great dates bring up attachment wounds
I had the best date this weekend.
Everything was my version of perfect. He made all the plans. He picked up me, opened my car door, chose a great restaurant, grabbed the bill before I could even think to reach for it.
He bought tickets to a show after dinner - a burlesque show, definitely a risk on a second date, but one he said he felt pretty confident taking based off of a random comment I made on our first date about loving hot springs where I’m not required to wear a bathing suit. Adventure, fun, nudity, and someone who was attuned enough to catch that this was my vibe? YES.
He held my hand as we walked through the city. He thoroughly ravished me in a very hot make out in the car after the show, without ever going past first base - no pushing of boundaries, total respect and care. “We should get you home,” he said as we caught a breath, and then drove me home, walked me to my door, and said goodnight.
Like I said… perfect.
Which is exactly why the anxiety started to build in my body the next day.
I have come so far in my journey of flipping between the anxious and avoidant tendencies that used to rule all my relationships, but especially my romantic ones.
I no longer cling to anyone and everyone who shows me attention without any discernment, boundaries, or expectations of how men should treat me. I feel secure inside of myself, I have learned to love being single, I have an absolutely fantastic life full of connection and love and support. I have no interest in adding anyone in who isn’t worthy of that spot, because I know I am worthy. My anxious attachment strategies in early dating have nearly disappeared.
My avoidant strategies were always a little sneakier. I’d shut down conversations early on at the slightest “flaw,” show up to first dates assuming the worst, and lean way back emotionally in a desire to be chased. Every once in a while, I’d meet a “nice guy” who was available, and interested, and who I knew I should like. I would play out a three to five month relationship where I’d gaslight myself the entire time into believing it was my wounding that caused me to hold back, ignoring the total lack of personality, the self-abandonment, and the people-pleasing that left me repulsed until I would finally wake up and end it. But that pattern ended years ago. I now fully understand the difference between a nice guy and a good man, and I don’t confuse the two when dating. Breaking this pattern has re-established my self-trust, and … poof … most of my avoidance patterns are gone.
But nearly disappeared and almost gone aren’t the same as actually disappeared and gone, are they?
Attachment wounding is tricky.
When we don’t learn early on in childhood that we are safe and sacred, utterly lovable, and cherished for our being not just our doing, we develop strategies to try to forcefully pull love toward ourselves or to push it away in order to stay safe… or both (for most of us, it’s both).
And while there’s so much we can do to heal those wounds, I’ve found that healing the deepest wounds that we have is a lot like healing when every bone in your body is shattered after a major accident — even after an immense amount of time, energy, physical therapy, and support, you may never get back to what you were before. Even if you do, certain weather conditions will always cause aches and pains.
After more than ten years of what has at times been an excruciatingly painful healing process, these days, I do feel like most “healed,” whatever that might mean. I can use all my limbs again. I walk without a limp. I live an active life (when we are in the metaphor of being able to have healthy relationships anyway - I’m still working on healing my relationship to actual movement). But every once in a while, when the weather is just right, those old aches and pains act up again.
For me, the weather that is most likely to wake up those metaphorical aches and pains… is happiness.
Hope.
It gets me every time.
Is it too early to feel hope, after a second date? Maybe… but maybe not. Some people just feel like home, and I’ve done enough healing (and enough dating) to know that I no longer project that onto people who aren’t actually eliciting that reaction in me in a real way.
That doesn’t mean this will go anywhere, of course. Relationships are made up of a lot more than chemistry and good manners, and two dates certainly isn’t enough to know is there’s enough compatibility and connection for this to go anywhere. It could fizzle out, or crash and burn, at any time.
But the thing is that at my level of clarity and attunement and discernment, 9 times out of 10 after two dates I know that it won’t work, so this feels… hopeful.
Hence, the anxiety.
It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I now recognize it for the hope that it indicates.
I remind myself to stay out of fantasy. I check to make sure I’m not self-abandoning or bypassing. I just all my practices to care for myself, so that I can stay fully in the present moment, and simply… feeling excited, and hopeful. I try to acknowledge that the hope makes me a little nervous.
The shame that used to be there doesn’t get to have a voice anymore, which makes it easier for my growing feelings of affection, and excitement, and possibility to continue to swirl in fun and healthy ways.
At 41 years old, I finally know who I am, and I do know, deep down, just how worthy I am of love, of support, of happiness, anxiety and all.
I know what I am looking for in partnership.
Will it be this guy? I have no idea, which of course is where the anxiety stems from, but I remind myself that that is always the case. We never know what the future will hold, but I know I can hold myself, and that is really all that ever matters.
“This or something better,” I remind myself.
“It’s okay to enjoy this,” I remind my anxiety. “It’s safe to let hope live.”
For the rest of 2024, all stories written on Substack will be accessible to all, as I work to find my voice in this new medium.
Thank you for reading, commenting, and following along while I build out this space.
If you desire, you can learn more about my work, which centers attachment re-wiring to create a secure attachment with self, at www.jenunderwoodleadership.com