Marcia

I am not sure we need to admire someone to learn from her or him.

We just need to accept that their way is better.

Admiration, as you say, requires a different level altogether.

Marcia,

LO #2 never said or even implied that she wanted to learn anything from me. She allowed me to influence her. She was complicit. Same for LO #4.

LO #2 liked the way I treated her. She ran off a list of things I’d done for her and how they made her feel special, attractive, and desirable. She said I was the first person who ever pursued her. She said that she was still a nurse because I was there at 0300 after she almost killed a patient. I didn’t cheat on her. But the nicest thing she ever said to me was, “You taught me how to stand up for myself and I’m grateful to you for that.” Score one for LE!

She knew exactly what she walked away from and explained it.

“I was afraid that one day you’d wake up and not want to be with me. If I gave myself to you and you left, I’d be devastated.”

So, for her to go back to her old ways of hooking up with guys who’d cheat on her or whom she could cheat with was kind of insulting. It wasn’t like she knew other types of men weren’t out there, she chose not to pursue them. She went right back to what she knew and felt comfortable with.

But, in those days, I didn’t understand Attachment Theory, Personality Disorders, and how deep those things run, so it didn’t make any sense then. At least now, I have a plausible possible explanation for how things turned out and that nothing I could have said or done would have altered the outcome. Getting that monkey off my back took decades but if feels great!

LO #4 said that I’d been “a rock” for her while all the crap was going down. She said that she’d always be grateful to me for opening her eyes and would miss my support and encouragement. Score another one for LE!

Some people will allow you to influence them and some won’t. We try to influence people every day for different reasons. Power is the ability to exert influence.

Most people don’t understand what power is and how it works.

LE,
“After all the time and effort I put into rebuilding you and this is how you pay me back?! 5 years together and you didn’t learn a G– D–d thing!”
I don’t even know how to process that. It’s disturbing.
For me to want to learn from someone, he/she has to have a quality or talent I value and be exceptional in terms of that quality/talent.
But as the student, I get to decide both of those things.

“But that would be counterproductive for him … pupil does so well, she leaves teacher.”

Yep,

But, I’ve known that since HS. If I ever succeeded in transforming them, either they’d lose interest in me or I’d lose interest in them. The goal was to leave them better off than I found them. Arrogant and narcistic, but true.

If you’re a DA, it’s not about the result, it’s about the process.

When LO #2 told me about my successor and when I later heard about her divorce, I didn’t want to get back together with her, I wanted to grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and say,

“After all the time and effort I put into rebuilding you and this is how you pay me back?! 5 years together and you didn’t learn a G– D–d thing!”

My friend, the LCSW, had a lot to say on this topic. It wasn’t complimentary.

LE,
“The thing about being Henry Higgins is that you have to find a complicit Eliza Doolittle, whether she knows what you’re doing or not. Pygmalion didn’t intend to fall in love with his creation, he just did.”
Don’t get this at all. Doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t want anyone to redo me and have no interest in redoing someone else. In fact, it kind of skeeves me out.
Unless a man has the power to transform me into a 25-year-old maneater! I could enjoy that for a bit. 🙂 But that would be counterproductive for him … pupil does so well, she leaves teacher.

Marcia,

When I said my “light went on at 25,” it was that I was looking for a serious relationship. I wasn’t actually looking to get married and start a family, per se. I’ve always been a “one woman man.” I can’t handle more than one woman in my head at a time. I tried it once and it doesn’t work for me.

I met LO #2 on a blind date set up by a professional acquaintance that I shared with her parents. The first real date I remember was her taking me to Hiram’s On The Locks for my 27th birthday. We broke up a week after my 31st birthday. I was married at 32. I was 40 when my first child was born.

I have to wonder that my first adult relationship turned out to be with an LO. The odd logistics of our relationship allowed it to develop and playout as it did. Had the logistics not been the way they were, I doubt the relationship with LO #2 would have ever gotten off the ground.

In retrospect, I wonder if LO #1 was a true LO as she didn’t elicit the same emotions in me that LOs #2- #4 did. LO #2 awakened my inner Henry Higgins and that stayed with me.

The thing about being Henry Higgins is that you have to find a complicit Eliza Doolittle, whether she knows what you’re doing or not. Pygmalion didn’t intend to fall in love with his creation, he just did.

LE,
“My light went on at 25. ”
25?! Good gravy! I remember having a conversation with a guy I was dating who said, “I am 24-year-old guy …” Meaning: he was all over the map. Some ex-girlfriend had reappeared, and she was a stripper. Mere mortal woman can’t compete with that. 🙂 I don’t remember meeting a lot of guys in their mid-20s whose lights were on.
“Ever see “An Officer and a Gentleman?””
Of course. It has Richard Gere. Although I prefer “American Gigolo.” More to see 🙂

I like the clip!

My light went on at 25. It wasn’t so much as I wouldn’t have dated more casually, it was that I was never in a place that had many options for casual dating. You have to encounter LOs somewhere. The more you date, the more you’ll find.

Ever see “An Officer and a Gentleman?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Qcz_WeP1s

I drove past those ships every day for over 20 years on my way to work. I dated a few “Puget Sound Debs,” none of whom looked like Debra Winger. The dating pool in Kitsap County, WA is limited and the competition is fierce.

LE,
“When I was available, I wasn’t in a market with many candidates for casual relationships.”
My bad. I forget there are people on your side of the aisle who don’t date casually. 🙂 I always think it’s the “men are like cabs” simile from “Sex and the City.” You drive around, dating casually, until you turn your light on one day and are ready to date seriously. 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=932518317226437
But, yes, someone 15 to 20 years younger .. I would keep it casual.

In response to your last post, the answer is definitely “No.” When I was available, I wasn’t in a market with many candidates for casual relationships. I was a slow starter in college and the Navy kept me pretty busy for the first two years after graduation. By that time, I think I would have engaged in a casual relationship but it wasn’t what I was looking for. I had to go looking for women in the big cities of Seattle and Tacoma.

There was a brief time in the mid-80s when Time magazine published an article saying that an unmarried woman in her 30s had a better chance of dying in terrorist attack than getting married. As an OK looking male with a college education and a steady job who could coordinate his wardrobe, I hit the apex of marketability. It helped some but, nothing really came of it.

If I ever did find myself back in the market, I don’t know what I’d do. I thought I did after the LE with LO #4 ended but as time goes by, I’m not sure.

As Tanya Tucker put it:

“Standin’ beside the ocean
Throwing rocks out in the bay
I should look for companionship
But it just gets in my way” – “Dancing the Night Away” (1975)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQVNvqoASjU

I just love that song.