Direct Answers - Week of December 6, 2010

Weekly column for the week of: December 6, 2010

Direct Answers

by Wayne and Tamara Mitchell

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Flawed Attraction

I met a woman on an Internet social site, and after a few phone conversations we decided to meet. The first date went well, and so did the next few. For the next month or so things were going well and progressing steadily.

But when we kissed and hugged, she would withdraw. Over a period of weeks she became more distant. I suggested we break up but she didn’t want to. We have a good personal connection and chemistry, but she won’t commit or let me enter her personal life.

I researched emotional damage in women, and she fits the description like a glove. She’s been in three major relationships in her life, all of which ended badly. I love her very much but do not know how to reach her heart.

How do I break through the walls and show her I care and won’t hurt her. I am not the men of her past, I am me.

~ Rex

Rex, you want to show her “I am not the men of her past,” but that may be exactly the problem. She isn’t attracted to nice guys. She is attracted to aggressive, domineering men. That’s what makes her knees weak.

Perhaps it’s how her father treated her mother, or the way her first lover treated her, but whatever it is, it is imprinted on her. You want to put the fault on the men in her life, but at this point the fault is within her.

Can she change? Will she? Those are the questions. If she sees her life as the result of her own actions and decisions, she may. But if, as is more likely, she feels outside forces are in control, she will minimize problems and refuse to act. She will address life as a fatalist.

When the pressure in a pressure cooker reaches a certain point, a valve opens releasing steam and preventing the pressure from rising higher. Often “nice guys” with damaged women function in the same way. They are safety valves. They release the psychic pressure the woman is under, but once the strain lowers, the woman will go back to her last lover or one like him.

Not what you want to hear, we know. But everyone out there is not someone for us to fix. This is someone who needs individual counseling, once she decides to change.

~ Wayne & Tamara

Knee-Deep

I’m 37, an only child, of Indian origin, but I grew up in the U.S. My parents, especially my mother, constantly want me to marry. They are so worried about me they even posted me on Indian matrimonial sites without consulting me.

They keep saying if I don’t get married I’ll have no family, and what would happen if I get sick after they die. I live far away from them and have a master's degree and a job, but that doesn't keep them from making my life miserable.

Don't adults have rights in the USA? Isn't it my right to pursue a single life if I want to?

~ Dev

Dev, there will always be people who want us to live our life based on how they live theirs, and some of these people may be family. It is scarily common. But we see no possibility for success in a venture you disdain.

One of my mother's favorite sayings was "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride." But if wishes were horses, every little girl would have a pony, and we would be up to our elbows in horse manure.

Your mom has a wish for you, and it is something you never wished for. It is not fair for her to impose her will on you, nor would it be fair of you to marry a woman you do not love. These days marriages can only be for love, because only love can hold a couple together.

~ Wayne

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.

Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.

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