I am married with a young child but often fantasize about how life could be different if I had chosen a different man. It’s slowly dawning on me that I’m going to bring the same brain to every single relationship.
Recently I thought I was obsessed with one particular friend who lives in a different country but I suddenly also felt attracted to another friend/coworker who lives even farther away while chatting with him on zoom (I KNOW). Thinking back, this was a common pattern for me, before I was married I would distract myself from negative emotions in my existing relationship by socializing a lot. If I found someone interesting I would then break off the old relationship and jump into a new one very quickly.
The model around that was:
T: If I start over again I would feel good with a new guy without all the pain in the previous relationship.
F: Empowered
A: Socialize a lot / Distract self with new people / Jump quickly into new relationships / Break up unceremoniously without any explanation of all the problems
R: Always restarting and avoiding the pain
I used to draw power from being able to ‘opt out’ of a relationship – but now I can’t choose again because I’m married (unless I want to go through all the trouble of a divorce, and thanks to SCS I’m not certain that a new guy will change anything). I also like how feeling attracted to other guys makes me feel attractive. Which makes me feel powerful and that I can make things happen (as I have in the past). But now that is taken away also. I recognize that all these in-depth fantasies about unattainable people is a way that my brain tries to “pause” my reality… like I’m buffering.
T: I wish I can escape my relationship by starting over but I can’t because I’m married
F: Stuck
A: Chatting a lot to male friends I am secretly attracted to
Fantasizing about how life would be different
Not being present in current relationship
R: I am escaping my relationship now.
I want to feel empowered and attractive in my current relationship and work on processing what I’m going through instead of always trying to avoid it by changing the “C” – changing to a new guy. But I just feel so blah and unattractive and always in “mom-mode”. What thoughts should I think to get out of this loop? Thinking that “I love my *unattainable interest* unconditionally” isn’t really helping because it makes me want to run away with them even more. It’s also interesting how they are both single and live in a different country so the fantasy is also leaving everything in my current life to disappear with them…