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

feeling the whole thing gave me, the sense of being able to take care of them.”
    Marc told his friends and family that he had finally met the woman for him. For her part Sally—a struggling single parent—saw Marc as a “gift from above.” It took very little for him to convince her to move into his house and quit her job and come work for him in the small video business he owned. A few days before Sally was to move in, Marc began to experience feelings of “pressure” and anxiety. His anxiety was so intense that he began questioning his judgment, wondering whether he was making a huge mistake. As he began to have these thoughts, he found himself thinking about another woman he had once known and loved, a woman who had rejected him in order to marry another man.
    “I had heard that this old girlfriend had gotten separated, so I called her. Coincidentally this was the day Sally was moving in. Two hours before the movers were due to arrive, I met my old girlfriend for coffee, and I realized that I was still attracted to her —very attracted to her. I realized that by committing myself so quickly to Sally, I wasn’t giving myself a chance. I had only been divorced four years, and I hadn’t explored all my options. All in all I was pretty miserable and confused. I went through the motions of helping Sally move in. She was thrilled; I was like the walking dead. I didn’t know what to do.”
    As you can imagine, it was only a short time before Marc’s mood—“withdrawn, distracted, and upset”—affected Sally’s happiness. Every time she asked him what was wrong, he replied, “It’s not you. Don’t worry.” According to Marc, Sally assumed he was having business difficulties he hadn’t shared with her.
    “It wasn’t Sally, but it was Sally. I had started talking to this other woman on a daily basis, and the sexual tension was unbelievable. Finally, when Sally and her daughter had been in my house for about two weeks, it got too much. I had to tell her.
    “I told Sally the truth, that I still loved her, but that I needed to see other people. And I told her that I still had feelings for my old girlfriend and that I needed to get some resolution in this situation. Sally was very disappointed, to say the least. Fortunately she was able to get her old apartment back. She wasn’t so lucky withher job, so she continued to work for me for several months while she looked for another job. We went to bed together a few more times, but even though I still cared for her, I knew that I was never going to make a commitment to her.
    “This was a very bad period in my life. I definitely wasn’t fair to Sally, because I still had feelings for her—you might even call it love. I was afraid that leaving her might be the biggest mistake of my life, and I felt terrible guilt about her daughter. As you can imagine, it wasn’t an easy situation. In many ways Sally was very good to me, very caring. I needed that, and I took advantage of her desire to give. It was hard for me to give that up.
    “It got very weird at the end. Sally and I would work together all day, then we would go home together, and she would make dinner for the three of us. I would eat, and then I would go out to see the other woman. I would come home to sleep with Sally. Sally would cry. Sometimes I would cry too, because I really felt that way. I mean I had feelings. I’m a very emotional person. As you can imagine, we started fighting. When Sally realized that we were never going to become the family unit she imagined, she was very jealous and very angry.”
    Now, here comes the part when Marc does some fancy footwork to rationalize his behavior and throws the blame on Sally for being less than perfect.
    “I think what happened is that right before the move, I began to see a side to Sally that I didn’t really like all that much. She got all tense about moving in and started getting insecure. She kept asking me if I was really certain about what I was