He's Scared, She's Scared: Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships by Steven Carter Page B

the rest of my life with. That’s what I told him. But living with him was impossible. He was always asking me where I was going, and I just saw that he was different than I thought he was. At the beginning we were always having these romantic meetings because of his wife. It was different when we were in the same house day after day. He would watch football games, and he began to get this little potbelly. He would watch the evening news, and he’d want me to watch it with him. It was like living with my father. I don’t want an ordinary life. I don’t want to look over and see some guy scratching himself and eating chips. That’s not what I want. I know David doesn’t understand why I ended it. Of course I still have feelings for him, just not the kind of feelings he wants me to have.”
    Craig, a thirty-six-year-old high school coach who says that he recognizes both his inability to commit and his capacity for fantasy, told us the following story. It is an excellent example of the use of fantasy to sidestep intimacy.
    “Three years ago I met and fell in love with a woman who was all wrong for me. All of my friends told me, but I wouldn’t listen. I’m a very laid-back kind of guy, she was a very driven lawyer. I’m from a small town, she’s from the city. I’m Catholic, she’s Jewish. I don’t make much money, she makes tons. And money was very important to her. Nonetheless I decided that she was right for me, and I spent close to a year trying to convince her that this was the case.
    “You understand that even though there was an incredible physical attraction, she had thrown up a thousand barriers against our being together permanently. Her job, her therapist, her family, her friends. I decided that if I could just get her away from all that to a place where she could see me at my best, I could work magic in the relationship.
    “Years before, I had lived and worked out west. And I loved it. I always dreamed that when I met the woman I wanted to marry, Iwould bring her out to Glacier National Park, and we would spend an idyllic time camping and hiking. The years that I lived in Montana were very important to me. Living there was addictive. It was a part of my development, and I was incredibly attached to it.
    “I figured that she would be knocked out by the environment, by how much mastery I had of outdoor skills, and by my ability to get along in the great outdoors. I figured once I got her there, got her to relax, and got her to take a look at me in a different way, the relationship would move to a new plateau and everything would be all right. So I convinced her to take a ten-day vacation with me.
    “Well, to make a long story short, my plan worked. She was totally disarmed by the place, and the strange environment made her totally dependent. If there was a noise in the campsite, I was like the great white hunter—you know, ‘It’s nothing, honey-probably just a grizzly—I’ll take care of it.’ She said that having someone take care of her felt wonderful. She was transformed.
    “The second day we were there, the weather was perfect—not a cloud in the sky. We took a long hike, and she was thrilled by the mountain goats and the flowers. On the way back we crossed a little stream and there were all these elk standing in the water drinking. That night we went to this lodge overlooking a lake for dinner and we walked back to the campsite in the moonlight—probably not the brightest thing to do considering the grizzlies. I made a small fire and we toasted marshmallows and drank brandy. It was perfect. She was a changed woman—completely accepting and loving, and it was a changed relationship. As I went to sleep, I felt this incredible wave of relief. I was so happy. It was like bliss. That was the night I had ‘the dream.’
    “I spent the night dreaming about a woman in high school that I had been desperately in love with and that I had never been able to get to first base with. When I woke up,