“I took back my pulpy heart and stitched it up securely in my own small but sturdy chest”

Dear readers,
Since Conscious Girlfriend put out the call for “worst breakup stories,” we’ve heard from many of you! It’s inspiring to read how you’ve turned devastation into growth, learning and joy. Please feel free to send your own breakup story with us: ruth@consciousgirlfriend.com.

Now, read on for this powerhouse story by Nicole Ditz, www.holisticdepththerapy.com.

I was a much younger woman, 27 years old, presumably straight, and married to a closeted gay man whom I met at age 18 and who helped to extricate me from a highly dysfunctional family of origin.
I was a grad student in a counseling psychology program and so was she.

She was butch, 21 years my senior, completely other from me in every possible way, except for being exceptionally bright and psychologically damaged by trauma. I was matched up to do a project with her.
I was nervous, skittish at the thought of going to a butch lesbian’s cabin — yes, the proverbial log cabin in the woods, with chainsaws in the yard, and lesbian feminist iconography hanging from every rusting nail head.

Yes, she appeared surprisingly attractive in her own environment, stocky and handsome with a daredevil grin, blue jeans and a purple “fuck the patriarchy” T-shirt-y get up.

I was primed for this encounter: Having been immersed in feminist studies and women’s spirituality for the past couple of years, moving from interest in supporting the men’s movement and even being a part of a men’s circle in Boston (long story—I drew men to me easily for some of the right, and many of the wrong, reasons), to women’s and feminist and goddess groups and books: Starhawk, Adrienne Rich, May Sarton, Kate Millet, Jean Baker Miller and so on.

But I definitely was not lesbian, just feminist, although I had purchased a pair of tie up black combat boots worn beneath tight denim shorts given to me by a gay man I was deeply in love with (no not the one I married).

‘Lesbian’ sounded strange like a sideshow in a circus. I was just a former daughter of patriarchy, wearing my outfits extra tight to attract the boys, but I began to find most men highly predictable, one dimensional and utterly boring.

Confusion. Patriarchy. And its opposite or so I thought. A strange older lesbian dyke who lived bra-less in a rather spooky cabin in the woods and called herself a witch with a devil-may-care glint in her eye.

It made for a good story to tell my girlfriends. Until it was no longer a tall tale, but a fleshed out reality, set to music by Ferron and Chris Williamson and Cheryl Wheeler, with me dressed in her flannels and she drinking Scottish Whiskey and me begging to be “held” and then dancing and then gazing and then falling to my knees as her black cat spun spiral 8’s around our fused fecund tangled heap on the floor.

And then my world was wrung inside out and I was trying to juggle grad school, internships and an early psychotherapy private practice and weekends at both her cabins, driving in a tin can of a car across three different states.

And obsession. And merging. And poetry. And Michigan. And kissing in the summer rain ensconced in crowds of half naked women.

And she became lover, mother, father, brother, sister, mentor, priestess, protector, and then persecutor.

She was bright and nurturing and manipulative. I was a vision of her younger self, before her motorcycle accident. She was the best and worst of every longed for woman and man rolled into one temptress and torturer.

She grew less nurturing and more and more controlling with interspersed moments of deep attunement and compassion and love followed by rage and criticism and coldness.

The old, sad story of intermittent reinforcement and a young woman who believed she could fix fundamental characterological problems by learning how to hold this tool properly or string the right combination of words together to unlock the jigsaw puzzle of another’s heart. The pieces just wouldn’t fit seamlessly together no matter how hard I tried.

I was desperately emotionally needy, having been raised by two completely inept human beings who couldn’t handle emotions of any stripe.

I admired her, revered her, was besotted with her and would trade my sexuality and alluring female wares, hungry for any dime of attention she would spare me.

Plus she was a diehard lesbian feminist so could only have my best interests as a younger woman in mind. Right?

You know the answer, but I wasn’t ready to acknowledge fully what I knew until I had to do her impossible and escalating demands. Such as shoveling her quarter mile uphill driveway by myself at 5 am in the dark before a 10-hour work day?

The word “no” was birthed, a new language in the dark womb of my mouth.

I leaned into my knowledge as a budding psychotherapist, my understanding of personality disorders and their subtleties, as well as abuse cycles. I had worked briefly in the field of domestic violence.
Funny how different it seems when the blows are not fists but words and shrewd control tactics.
I managed to stay away for a week. then two then months, then a year. I worked on my insecure attachment issues, trauma, and emotional deficits due to my difficult childhood.

I refused her request to meet with me in a public place, telling her I was too vulnerable and needed to solidify myself.

I did solidify myself, step by step. Believe me, it was achingly hard. I made small clay sculptures in dream groups of my heart hanging out of my chest looking still to be held by her large, calloused hands.

Fast Forward: I serendipitously met my now female spouse of 17 years, one-two years after the closing of that story.

There were challenges here with this new woman, but not the same type or degree. They were workable.
We have established a good, solid and upstanding life with two amazing careers, two homes in two states, and two beloved dogs.

But I knew I could not be around that original woman anymore than a drug addict should be living in an opium den.

I “learned to love with all my intelligence” as Adrienne Rich, in other words, once wrote.

It was muscular and sweaty: journaling, reading, workshops, therapy, deep self-reflection, working on building a foundation inside myself rather than in another. I took back my pulpy heart and stitched it up securely in my own small but sturdy chest. I no longer led with my emotions but with my growing and expanding ‘wisely discerning mind.’

I learned that passion and mature love are not the same animals. They may graze side by side in the same savannah and drink from the same trough, but they are not interchangeable.

I am thankful to myself that I learned to be my own answer and rescuer. Our power and responsibility for our own well being as precious individuals is our very birthright. Let us never hand that power over as adults to another human being. Let us use that power wisely and responsibly with compassion toward ourselves and toward others.

Blessed be to all my fellow journey women!

Nicole Ann Ditz

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Conscious Girlfriend: I took back my pulpy heart first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Dear CG,

My problem is that I can’t seem to accept imperfection. Every time I date someone, I find something wrong with her. She’s overweight, she’s not happy enough, she drinks too much, she’s too messy, she’s too neat, she’s too rigid, she looks too gay (I know that one isn’t supposed to bother me, but it does.) I know I’m not perfect either. Believe me, if I could break up with myself, I would! But I seem to be stuck with me, so I would really like to find someone else I can stick with, too. I understand intellectually that I need to get over this block. But every time I go out with someone, there is just something about her that doesn’t feel right to me. Can you help?

– M.L. in Ann Arbor, MI

Dear M.L.,

That is such a great question. I’m so glad you asked!

Your struggle with accepting imperfection sounds really painful. I get how it’s getting in the way of your creating an intimate relationship and clearly it’s also really getting in the way of your relationship with yourself.

And, having a loving relationship with yourself is key to being able to have one with someone else.

When we can’t love ourselves, it’s natural — and common -– to hope that someone else will come along and love us so overpoweringly that our self-dislike will just cry Uncle. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. In your case, I believe that coming to a more compassionate relationship with your own imperfections is what will help you become more able to accept those of others, as well.

“Okay, but how do I do that?” you’re probably asking. There are lots of ways. This is a huge topic! So I will just offer a few ideas.

The place to start making internal change is always with your intention. That is, you have to truly intend to make the change. You have to decide to do it. In other words, make an internal vow and declaration that you are going to begin to love and accept yourself, just as you are, right now. Even if parts of you struggle and resist, you can still declare that you intend to love and accept those parts (as well as all the other parts of you) just as they and you are.

Next, it’s helpful to empower your intention by calling on larger forces, however you understand them –- whether that means God, Higher Power, spirit guides, angels, the universe or even just the wisest, most loving and compassionate part of you. For instance, you might say, “Please help me to love and accept myself just as I am. Please help me to feel and know that I am worthy of love and compassion, just as I am. Please help me to heal those parts of me that cannot accept my imperfections, so that I become able to embrace and appreciate myself, in all of the facets of my being, exactly as I am.” (You can vary the wording, of course. This is just to give you a general idea.)

Another approach would be to work with the Buddhist practice of metta. Again, you can vary the specific wording of the Metta prayer according to your needs (if you google “metta” you’ll find many versions!), but here’s a version I created with you in mind.

May I love and accept myself, even with all my imperfections.

May I find peace and love, even with all my imperfections.

May I be well and happy, even with all my imperfections.

Repeat the prayer silently or, even better, aloud for at least 10 minutes. Once you feel it start to sink in, then say the same prayer on behalf of someone you care about: “May ____ (name of person) love and accept herself, even with all her imperfections. May ____ find peace and love, even with all her imperfections. May ____ be well and happy, even with all her imperfections.” (If that ending, “even with all her imperfections,” starts to feel tiring to repeat, you can leave it off. Jst remember in your head that this prayer goes out to you, and to her, even with any and all imperfections you and she have.)

Next, say the same prayer on behalf of someone you feel neutral toward. Next, say it for someone with whom you’ve had difficulties. And finally, say it for the whole world (which of course includes you!)

I believe that if you work consistently with either or both of these for even a short time –- say, half an hour a day for a week or two – you will feel a softening inside of yourself. As that softening happens, you will spontaneously find yourself feeling more acceptance both of yourself, and of whomever you date. Let me know how it goes!

In love,

Ruth

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too!

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Accepting imperfections first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Dear CG,

My last three relationships all lasted less than a year. I thought my most recent ex was “the one,” but three months in, she stopped wanting to have sex with me! I know sex dies out after awhile, but three months?! Plus she didn’t work out much, she ate a lot of junk food and she was a slob. At the beginning I didn’t care because she was really hot, but after the first couple of months she was never in the mood.

I bugged her to work out more because I’ve heard that exercise increases sex drive, but she was always making excuses. I’m starting to think intimacy just doesn’t last.

– J.D. in Philadelphia

Dear J.D.,

Ouch. As I read your letter, I find myself wanting to get away from you! But it’s nothing personal, really. It’s just that criticism is not exactly a way to win friends and influence people, much less create lasting love and intimacy. In your short letter, you slammed your ex four times. If I were her, I might have stopped wanting to have sex with you, too!

I get the feeling that you may not realize just how critical you are. If you grew up with critical parents, it may seem normal to you. But John Gottman, who has studied thousands of couples over the past few decades, identifies criticism as #1 in what he calls “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” (The other three are Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling.) So I have to wonder whether criticism might have been the kiss of death for your other relationships, too.

Now, it’s true that hot chemistry can lead us to temporarily ignore issues that are actually problems for us. It’s certainly your right to decide whether someone’s gym, housekeeping and eating habits make her a rule-out for you. It’s best to get clear on what matters most to you and then take stock early on, so you can simply avoid getting involved with women who aren’t right for you. But the other side of the coin is that none of us can ever find anyone who’s 100% compatible with us in every way, so if there’s a heart connection (as well as a heat connection) there, you can nurture and grow intimacy in the following ways:

1. No criticism. None. She gets to keep her house however she chooses, eat what she pleases, and work out according to her own whims. All of her other personal habits are off-limits for comments, too.

2. Lots of acceptance and appreciation. If this is a new habit for you, it might take some effort at first. Actively look for things you appreciate about her, and then tell her. Of course compliments on her physical appearance are nice, but make sure you go beyond that. Does she listen well? Did she make you a cup of tea? Did she go out of her way to meet you somewhere? Does she make you laugh? Did she cook dinner for you? Did she help you think through a thorny situation at work? People open up when they feel acknowledged and thanked.

Even when you’re not appreciating, work on accepting. Each of us contains both “positive” and “negative” qualities (which vary according to the eye of the beholder, of course.) Strive to let yourself take in the whole package with more tenderness and compassion. I think you’ll find that this change pays off big time, by keeping alive both your closeness and your sexual connection.

In love,

Ruth

Visit Conscious Girlfriend to get your free copy of “The Five Keys to a Happy Lesbian Relationship!” and check out our amazing upcoming retreat, too! 

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Why did the intimacy end? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Ruth and Michelle of ConsciousGirlfriend.com

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, Ph.D.
Conscious Girlfriend

Dear CG,

We are both in our late 30’s. We dated for a few months about two years ago, and then reconnected last year. I am very much in love with her and have never been more willing to do the work, more eager to learn, more vulnerable. I am devastated by our steady decline. I struggle with PEP, and she struggles with PAP. We trigger each other quite a bit in different ways. There are major trust issues and we bicker constantly.

We just started therapy because we realized that we just don’t have the tools to communicate effectively and lovingly on our own and neither one of wants to walk away. We both want to succeed in this and to be in a happy and healthy relationship with one another. Is it too late? Has too much damage already been done? Do you have any tips on trust building?

– J.G. in Los Angeles

Dear J.G.,

Thank you for your heartfelt message. I can really feel both your pain, and the depth of your desire for happy, healthy love. I’m so glad to hear that both you and your partner are open to couples therapy — that’s a very good sign! And it’s also great that you can clearly see your own PAP and her PEP. It’s so helpful to be able to recognize and name these things. (Readers who don’t yet know about PAP and PEP, check out our Video #2 )

So, I’d say you have a lot of positive things going for you. But, it sounds like you have a hard time in the day-to-day with what you describe as the “constant bickering.” I agree with you, that’s a major cause for concern, because it’s almost impossible to build intimacy and trust in an atmosphere of constant bickering. I don’t know exactly what your bickering involves, but in general, bickering emerges from people blaming or criticizing each other. Of course that originates with some place inside of you that feels hurt, disappointed, scared, unseen, unheard, or perhaps blamed and criticized yourself. But, the problem is that by responding to those feelings in a bickering manner, you’re creating a vicious cycle, a negative momentum, which it sounds like you’re well aware of, since it shows up as the steady decline you mention.

So, how to change that? The answer is in our first video, in the SCORE Process. Since you really want the relationship to work, here is what I would suggest you do:

1. Commit yourself to stopping the bickering. Right now. Immediately. It takes two to bicker, so if you stop doing it on your end, the pattern between the two of you WILL transform.

2. Use the SCORE Process, which we go into in detail in Video 1, and also in the eBook available from our website (just go to www.consciousgirlfriend.com, enter your email address and you’ll get an email with the link, so you can download it). When you follow the SCORE steps, you can learn a lot more about whichever feelings are behind your own part of the habitual bickering, look into them more deeply, recognize their origins in other times and places in your life, and take responsibility for them.

3. Once you do that, you won’t have to bicker any more. As you SCORE, you can move from experiencing your feelings as anger, frustration, disappointment, etc. with your partner, to seeing the real, deeper, older source of the anger, frustration, disappointment, fear or hurt in yourself. Then you can work with those feelings on your own, or with the help of a therapist or healer, and when the time is right, you can share them with your partner as part of the process that you are working through. This will help you get to a much deeper level of connection.

4. The way to build trust and intimacy is by doing the opposite of criticizing and blaming: pouring out a lot of acceptance and appreciation toward both yourself and your partner. Obviously each of you is doing a lot of hard work to hang in there despite all the triggers. So there is plenty to appreciate there!

Acknowledge and thank your partner for everything you possibly can, as often as you possibly can. And acknowledge and thank yourself, too, and appreciate yourself, for how hard it may feel to do that… and for doing it anyway.

5. If your partner is on board to try to follow this same program (SCORE and accepting/appreciating) then so much the better. It will certainly be even more powerful if both of you are taking on these new ways of being. But, even if she isn’t up for it, you have a lot of power. Your own withdrawal from the bickering and negative-emotion cycle will make a huge difference.

I know this can feel really challenging. For some of us, taking full self-responsibility for our feelings can at first feel like “giving up,” “giving in,” making ourselves into doormats, resigning ourselves to never getting what we want, etc. It can feel that way if we’re used to being in power-struggle mode, and are holding a default belief that the only way we can possibly have what we want is to try to exert it from our partners by force. I speak from experience — I’ve been there! Again, do read the eBook, where I detail my journey from being a blaming, power-struggling partner who felt chronically emotionally deprived, to being a self-responsible partner in a joyful relationship. You can do it too, I promise. But it does start with making the commitment to SCOREing with your own feelings.

I hope this helps!

In love,

Ruth
Are you ready for a truly happy, healthy relationship? Check out Conscious Girlfriend: Lesbians & Queer Women Creating True Love. Register today for our free telesummit to hear interviews with 11 LGBTQI relationship experts from around the world!

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Constant bickering first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Ruth, left, and Michelle, cofounders of ConsciouGirlfriend.com

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, Ph.D.
ConsciousGirlfriend.com

Take your finger off that trigger! How processing can destroy your relationship and the SCORE process can save it.

We all know that fighting is hard on our relationships. When we respond to conflict by yelling, storming out, giving each other the “silent treatment” or trying to stuff our feelings down, we erode the feeling of safety and trust in our partnership, and without safety and trust, intimacy and love eventually die, too.

Obviously, directly communicating about conflict seems a much better alternative, and since lesbians and queer women care a great deal about our relationships, many of us have worked very hard to learn to name our feelings, speak in “I statements,” and ask for what we need. Sounds good, right?

Yet often, our best efforts at communication fail to improve our relationships. Instead, we find ourselves locked in lengthy, emotionally draining “processing sessions” which leave both people feeling wary and exhausted.

There is an alternative, a means of responding to and working with our conflicts in a way that actually builds intimacy, rather than erodes it. We call this approach the SCORE Process. Remarkably, once you know how to SCORE and use the process regularly, your relationship won’t have to get derailed by hurt, anger and disappointment. Even when difficult feelings come up, you can respond to them in ways that actually bring you closer to yourself and to your partner.

Let’s explore the difference between regular “processing,” and the SCORE

Process. Processing, as it’s commonly done, is a conversation in which one person takes her hurt, anger, disappointment or other difficult feelings, and subtly or overtly blames her partner for these feelings. In general, the aim of processing is to convince our partners that what they did was wrong, and convince them not to do it again.

But where did these feelings come from in the first place? The assumption of processing seems to be that our partners caused these feelings, and can prevent them by changing their behavior. Yet this is almost never the case. Most difficult feelings we have as adults echo back to other times and places. When circumstances bring up the same feelings again, we get “triggered,” meaning that our minds and bodies respond with the full force of the original incident. This is why seemingly small things can elicit big emotions for most of us. When your girlfriend arrives fifteen minutes late, it might trigger the panic of being left alone as a young child –- or of receiving a beating for being late yourself. When your partner encourages you to pedal faster on your bicycle, it might trigger the pain of having grown up with a highly critical mother, the feeling that nothing you did could ever be good enough.

Because our hurt, disappointment, anger and other difficult emotions live within us, there is no way our partners can ensure that we’ll never get triggered. Of course, it’s fine for us to make requests, like “It’s really important to me that you call me if you’re going to be late.” But we can also be sure that our intimate relationships will end up pushing our buttons, so our best bet is learning to work skillfully with those buttons.

The SCORE Process can transform your intimate relationships by giving you an effective way to work with your difficult feelings before communicating about them. Once you’re calm and clear, you can make a thoughtful decision about when, how and what to share with your partner. This makes it much easier to have a conversation that’s insightful, productive and loving.

The SCORE Process

S Step back into yourself
C Connect to yourself with compassion
O Open to and observe the origins of your feelings
R Remember responsibility for your feelings (and relinquish responsibility for hers)
E Experience empowerment!

This article is #1 in a 4-part series. For more information, read the next article in this series, available March 8, 2014: “How to Destroy Your Relationship.”

Are you ready for a truly happy, healthy relationship? Check out Conscious Girlfriend: Lesbians & Queer Women Creating True Love. Register today for our free telesummit to hear interviews with 11 LGBTQI relationship experts from around the world!

The post The SCORE Process: Take your finger off that trigger, part 1 first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Ruth and Michelle of ConsciousGirlfriend.com

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, Ph.D.
ConsciousGirlfriend.com

Dear CG,

I am in a long distance relationship so I only see my girlfriend every couple of months. My girlfriend is most definitely a PEP, having issues around a smothering mother. Her mother made everything about herself and expected to be taken care of by her daughter. She feels like we talk too much. I on the other hand am most definitely a PAP. I grew up with a very domineering mother who was incredibly abusive, both physically and emotionally. I am learning I am worthy of love.

I would like to talk every other day and text in between. Yet I know that my girlfriend is not responsible for my happiness, and I can understand where she is coming from. How do I stop my fretting when I don’t hear from her? Is it possible to make some compromises so we both get what we need? There are so many other parts of our relationship that make me feel secure and loved. We are both very committed to making this work.

– Tara in Ohio

Dear Tara,

That is such a great question. Thanks for asking! (By the way, for those readers who don’t yet know about PAP and PEP, they stand for the “primal abandonment panic” and “primal engulfment panic” that come up for so many of us when it feels as if our girlfriends are too far away — or too close. You can find out much more about PAP and PEP in our Video #2, or read our introductory column here on Lesbian.com)

First, it’s great that you can see why both you and your girlfriend have the tendencies you do, based on your childhoods – and when you remind yourself of that, it can help you remember that her needs and actions are not about you. That is, her needs have nothing to do with your worthiness. You are worthy of being loved, and it sounds like she does love you and

wants to keep loving you better, which is wonderful! And of course, she too, is worthy of love, and it sounds like part of what she needs from you — part of what spells “love” to her — is having you fully respect and treasure her autonomy, her separateness.

I can see why it’s rough for you that it’s a long distance relationship. That does seem like a circumstance especially designed to push your PAP buttons (though I’m sure they’d get pushed in a different way if you were in the same town because that’s just how it works. Life finds a way to push our buttons no matter what.) If you are really willing to take this piece of self-
responsibility and self-healing on (which it sounds like you are!) then here’s what I’d suggest:

1. When you start “fretting” that you haven’t heard from her, do the SCORE Process. Step back into yourself and connect with yourself, with compassion. Compassion is an incredibly soothing balm for what ails us! Breathe in deep and slow, feel your body, come home to your body, and invite in a sense of love and tenderness for yourself. Remind yourself that yes, you are totally worthy of love. You can use the Metta prayer Michelle shared in our True Love Teleclass , since she wrote this specifically to address her own fear of being unlovable.

May I be happy.

May I know my true worth.

May I know that I am lovable.

May I love and be loved with ease.

Once you’re feeling calmed and gentled by that wonderful application of self-compassion, you can open to observe the origins of the feeling you’re calling “fretting.” In a gentle way, check out what the feelings really are, and where they’re coming from inside you. My guess is that you’ll find a child self who is totally freaked out by her abusive mother, and really scared that she isn’t worthy of love, and can’t and won’t be loved (or something like that). Take the time to really see and listen to that little girl, whatever’s going on with her, and let the stream of compassion touch her, too. Bring the metta (loving-kindness) on in to her, too.

As you do that, you’re actually taking responsibility for your own feelings in the sense that you are treating them as your own, and addressing them from the inside. The love that scared, hurt, sad (or angry) little girl needs most can only come from… you! You are the one who can be with her 24/7 if you are willing. No one else can or will, and it wouldn’t be appropriate if they could (and frankly, if someone tried, you’d probably start feeling your own PEP after awhile!) But you can bring your own larger self, your adult, wiser, resourced self, to that little girl and as you do, she will feel much more secure and comfortable and lovable and connected, and “fret” much less.

(By the way, sometimes people worry, “If I’m with that little girl 24/7, then doesn’t that mean I’ll feel anxious and alone 24/7?” But actually, the opposite is true. If you’re with her, she won’t feel anxious or alone any more, so neither will you! And if you have any spiritual beliefs or practices, call in whatever larger/wiser being you believe in — God/dess, angels, spirit guides, your higher self — to be with you and your little girl self, too. That way, if your adult self ever feels overwhelmed, the larger, divine part of you is right there to step in and bring even more love to both adult and child.)

2. And then, after you’ve done this kind of work for some days or weeks on your own, you can share it with your girlfriend, not in a “Therefore I want you to be different” way, but in a “Here’s what’s been going on with me” way. She’ll feel your energy shift and that will make a different kind of conversation possible from her end, too.

Of course, if she’s able and willing to do her own SCORE Process with her own younger self – bringing her adult self to her younger self and assuring her that she will always get to have her own boundaries and separateness, that her autonomy will always be respected, and that she gets to have connection, too (she doesn’t have to choose between them!) then that will help ease things up on her end.

Over time, as you both work on healing your triggers, you may actually find that you’re able to get into a rhythm of talking and/or texting with each other that is easy, natural and organic, something that changes from week to week, and that you are both comfortable with, without even having to negotiate or compromise!

Lots of love and blessings to you both,

Ruth

Love is where it’s at! Check out Conscious Girlfriend: Lesbians & Queer Women Creating True Love. Register today for our free telesummit to hear interviews with 11 LGBTQI relationship experts from around the world!

The post Ask Conscious Girlfriend: Lesbian and queer love tips first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Ruth, left, and Michelle, cofounders of ConsciouGirlfriend.com

BY RUTH L. SCHWARTZ, Ph.D.
Cofounder, Conscious Girlfriend: Lesbians & Queer Women Creating True Love
ConsciousGirlfriend.com

“We live in different towns, and Susan hardly ever wants to talk on the phone,” Elise said tearfully. “It makes me feel so rejected, like I’m not worthy of her time and attention.”

“I love Elise, but I’ve got a really busy life,” Susan explained. “Talking on the phone sometimes feels like too much at the end of a long day. And when Elise gets too demanding, it makes me not want to talk at all.”

“It’s bad enough that Lou doesn’t feel ready to live together,” complained Jerri, running her hands through her cropped silver-grey hair. “But when she makes other plans for the weekend too, I get really upset. How are we supposed to build a relationship if we don’t spend time together? I think she’s just scared of intimacy.”

“Every one of my relationships has ended because my girlfriends just glommed on to me,” commented Lou. “It sucks. Even when I really care about them, I end up having to pull away so they won’t drain the life out of me.”

What do all of these women have in common? Like many of us, they’re struggling with navigating healthy closeness and healthy distance in their relationships. Of course, couples of all sexual orientations confront this issues, but it often takes on a particular intensity in lesbian and queer couples.

All human beings need both closeness and separateness. These needs are hard-wired into us, an essential part of our human psychology. Yet we and our partners often need these things in different ways or amounts. This conflict may not surface during the early weeks or months of our relationship, but it’s bound to come up eventually and when it does, it can wreak havoc. Here’s why.

Whether it’s due to nature or nurture, brain chemistry or conditioning, female couples seem to do the dance of bonding particularly well. When we first fall in love, we often spend weeks or months in a delicious state of fusion. Our new love is all we can think about, and we spend as much time as possible in bed. At this stage, the boundaries of our separate selves feel blurred and permeable; we’re merged, and for many of us, this feels great, at least at first.

But over time, this merged state – which psychologists call “limerence” – begins to fade, because it’s actually produced by a potent mix of brain chemicals. You’re literally “high on love.” And although it might feel like it’s all about your girlfriend, the truth is, you may not even know her all that well yet. The intensity of limerence isn’t so much about her, as about your own brain chemistry. And when those chemicals shift back toward normal, as they inevitably must, you may find yourself asking, “Who is this person?”

Sometimes, as the limerence fades, you may realize that your new flame isn’t the right partner for you after all; what you thought was love may just have been a powerful case of lust.

If you and she are on the same page about that, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Often, though, women quickly feel stuck together with lesbian super-glue. Even if you have differences that make you ill-suited to be partners, the idea of breaking up feels wrenching, so you struggle along in relationships without much “there there” for years. Of course, this makes the inevitable conflicts and differences even harder.

At other times, you may see post-limerence that the two of you really do have the makings of a relationship. You have similar values, you’re reasonably compatible in your lifestyle habits, your communication mostly flows well, yet still, you’ll face a challenge in transitioning from “the honeymoon stage” into real life.

As we move out of limerence, we move back into our separate sense of self. This means that differences that didn’t matter much to us early on, can suddenly loom large. Often, one of those differences relates to our preferences around closeness and separateness.

For instance, Elise loved talking every day, but after six months Susan, an artist and entrepreneur, felt a need to shift her focus back to the projects she’d been putting on hold. A year into their relationship, Jerri liked nothing better than to show up at Lou’s place on Friday night and settle in for a weekend of cuddling and companionship, but Lou, an introvert, was used to spending good chunks of her weekend alone to replenish herself for the week ahead.

None of these women are right or wrong. They’re just different. And differences can be navigated, but they’re much harder to manage when they touch on our core needs and fears, and trigger physiological states of panic and distress. Often, this is what happens with issues of closeness and distance.

As infants, we all began life in a state of blissful connection with our mothers. But somewhere between age one and two, we began the important process of becoming fully separate human beings. We realized that we had feelings and desires different from those of our mothers, and we began to assert our independence.

If you grew up in an ideal world, your mother (or other relative or caretaker) was always there when you needed her, and always able to gracefully let go and cheer you on when you needed freedom. But few of us were actually that lucky. Maybe your mother was unavailable or even abusive when you reached out to her. Maybe she clung to you when you tried to be separate, or became angry or punitive when you acted like a normally defiant two-year-old.

Frankly, your mother probably didn’t receive ideal parenting from her mother, either. So even if she did the best she could, you likely ended up with some deep-seated fears around not getting enough closeness, not getting enough separateness, or both. Ironically, most of us find ourselves drawn to partners who “push our buttons,” women whose issues fit ours like a lock and key.

The fear of being abandoned is one of the most intense fears there is. It has to be, because it’s designed to ensure our survival. As infants, we would die if no one took care of us. So, even as adults, feeling abandoned – or even fearing abandonment – can trigger that same level of panic. Your rational mind knows that you’re a self-sufficient adult and your girlfriend is just across town, but meanwhile, your “reptile brain,” the part of your neurology designed to keep you alive, goes into high alert. That’s why Conscious Girlfriend calls this feeling PAP, or “Primal Abandonment Panic.”

Yet the fear of being taken over, swallowed up or suffocated is also extremely intense, and again, for good reason. Our psychological well-being requires us to experience ourselves as separate individuals, so when it feels as if someone else is engulfing us, we go into PAP’s opposite, PEP, or “Primal Engulfment Panic.”

All of us have the capacity to feel both PAP and PEP. Some of us are more prone to one than the other, and some of us are intensely susceptible to both. This can lead to a lot of confusion and pain both for us and our girlfriends, as we balance on the thin edge between one source of panic and the other. “Come closer, where are you? I miss you! Wait, no, that’s too close,back off! Uh-oh, where’d you go, come back! No, no, you’re smothering me, get away!”

Often, in a given relationship, one person becomes more identified with one need, and the other person with the other. This is the case with Elise and Susan. Elise always feels as if she wants more closeness, and Susan is constantly trying to get more space. “The funny thing is, in my past relationships, I was always the one who wanted more closeness,” Susan admits ruefully. “So I can understand the pain Elise is in. I just don’t know what to do about it. When she keeps calling and texting, I just start to turn off to her.”

“I grew up with a very abusive mother,” Elise reflects. “It’s a struggle for me to believe that I’m worthy of being loved. When Susan is too busy to talk to me, I can’t help but take it personally.”

“And my mother was invasive,” Susan explains. “Everything was always all about her. There was no room at all for me to have my own feelings or needs.”

It’s easy for Elise and Susan to understand where their PAP and PEP come from. “We get that these are feelings with very deep roots,” they both say. “But what do we do about them?”

Jerri and Lou are also relieved to hear about PAP and PEP. “That explains a lot,” Jerri agrees. And Lou adds, “I guess I always end up with women whose PAP triggers my PEP. But how can we get through this?”

Stay tuned for next week’s installment of “Lesbian/Queer Love Tips”: Healing PAP and PEP.

Ruth L. Schwartz, Ph.D. is the Cofounder of Conscious Girlfriend: Lesbians & Queer Women Creating True Love. Visit www.consciousgirlfriend.com/telesummit.html to register for
the upcoming Conscious Love telesummit, and hear 8 hours of free interviews with 11 LGBTQI relationship experts from around the world!

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