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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!gitpyr!dana
From: dana@gitpyr.UUCP (Dana Eckart)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: dependence/independence in relationships
Message-ID: <213@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Mar-85 09:54:35 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.213
Posted: Wed Mar 13 09:54:35 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Mar-85 05:46:12 EST
References: <146@tove.UUCP>
Reply-To: dana@gitpyr.UUCP (Dana Eckart)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 34
Summary: 

In article <146@tove.UUCP> dsn@tove.UUCP (Dana S. Nau) writes:

> . . . . . . it can cause cyclic
>patterns of behavior such as the following:
>
>Suppose A wants closeness and B wants autonomy, and suppose A pushes too
>much for closeness.  Then B, believing that his/her autonomy is threatened,
>moves farther away.  This makes A get upset and try even harder to get
>closeness, causing B to move further away, etc.

This, in fact, has happened to me.  My fiance and I became engaged
while I was at UMCP (she was still at Ga Tech), and when I came back
to Atlanta to spend the Summer with her we found ourselves in this
situtation.  Unfortunately (maybe not, sigh) we did not understand
what was happening and she ended up breaking the engagement in an
effort to save herself (in retrospect this is quite understandable).

It did take quite some time for me to get over it, but I did learn
something from the experience about myself.  What is ironic though
is that we thought we had good communication, when in fact if we
had, neither one of us would have hesitated in bringing the matter
up to talk about it.  As it was, the situation worsened until it
had reached a point of no return.

Not wanting to end on somewhat of a sad note, I should say that
since that time I have had one extremely rewarding relationship
(we are still very good friends) and the ongoing possability of
several more.

Dana, thanks for sharing your thoughts with the net.  Up until now
I thought that I was really about the only one who had experienced
a cycle such as this.

Dana Eckart