Early Deprivation: Can A Man Associate Intimacy With Annihilation If He Had A Smothering Mother?

Over the years, a man may have preferred to have casual encounters with women. If he were to think about why this is, what might enter his mind is that he only wants sex.

Then again, although he has had casual encounters, he might have dated a number of women and even had at least one relationship. If this is the case, he might see that when he stopped dating these women, or the relationship that he was in came to an end, it was primarily because he started to feel trapped.

Too Much To Handle

So, even if there were things that he appreciated about these women, he would have felt too restricted to stay with them. Once he cut his ties with one of these women, he was likely to have felt liberated.

It might have been as though he was in prison at one point and was released at another. After this, he might have had a break from being with a woman, or he might have soon had a casual encounter.

External Feedback

If he were to talk about this area of his life with a trusted male friend, his friend could say that this is just what women are like, or words to that effect. He could also say that women are controlling, and once a man gets close to one, he loses his freedom.

After hearing this, he could agree, with his own experiences being seen as a clear sign that what his friend says is the truth. Consequently, he could decide to keep women at a distance and only share his body with them.

The next Stage

However, if he does go down this path, he might soon arrive at the point where he doesn’t want to experience life in this way. The reason for this is that he might often feel emotionally malnourished.

Thus, just sharing his body with a woman and not allowing himself to become emotionally close to her is not going to be enough. Yet, due to how he usually feels when he is a woman, a big part of him won’t want him to get closer to a woman.

Inner Conflict

After reflecting on the part of him that wants more and the part that doesn’t, he can wonder what the answer is. It can be as though he allows himself to get closer to a woman and loses himself, or he stays single and maintains himself.

Naturally, neither option is going to be overly appealing, but as keeping his distance will allow him to maintain his sense of self, it will have the biggest impact. In other words, to a big part of him, this option will be seen as the only way for him to survive.

A Closer Look

But what if he doesn’t have only two options, and there is another option? What if he can be emotionally close to a woman and maintain himself?

After hearing this, he can say that this is not possible as women are smothering. Nonetheless, what if not all women are smothering, and the reason he ends up with smothering women is that this is what part of him feels comfortable with and is looking for?

Confusion

As he doesn’t want to be with a smothering woman, he could say that there is no chance that this is true. If he does respond in this way, what he will need to keep in mind is that he doesn’t begin and end with his conscious mind, or conscious sense of himself.

Along with this part of him, there is his unconscious mind or body, and this part has a massive impact on how he experiences life. At this deeper, emotional level, he can have the need to unconsciously re-create what it was like for him as a boy, so that he can resolve it. 

Back In Time

During this stage of his life, his mother might have been emotionally unavailable and out of reach on one hand, and overbearing and controlling on the other. So, he might have often been held and touched when he didn’t want to be, more or less constantly been told what he could or couldn’t do, she might have often entered his room without asking, typically talked for and over him, and regularly done things for him that he wanted to do himself, among other things.

She then wouldn’t have seen him as a separate human being who had his own needs and feelings and respected his personal space; she would have seen him as an object that she owned and continually walked over him. Feeling smothered, trapped, violated, enraged, helpless, hopeless, and as though he was dying would have been a normal part of his childhood. 
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The outcome

As for his father, he might not have been around, or if he was around, he might not have done anything to protect him from her destructive behaviour. To handle what was going on, he would have gradually lost touch with his embodied, connected, and fully feeling true self.

In its place would have been the creation of a disembodied, disconnected and not fully feeling false self. Of course, this wouldn’t have changed what was going on, but it would have stopped him from being consciously aware of how much pain he was in and allowed him to keep it together and function.

Another Element

Furthermore, to help him handle what was going on, he would have lived in the hope that, if he became who she wanted and behaved how she wanted, he would be seen and heard by her and be valued and loved for who he was. But, as his mother was probably in a traumatised state and couldn’t provide him with what he needed, as she herself had been greatly deprived and deeply wounded as a child, it wouldn’t have mattered who he became or what he did.

Yet, this hope would have allowed him to release tension and helped him to handle what was going on. Now, this stage of his life is over, but thanks to the pain and unmet developmental needs that he is carrying, along with the inner model that he formed of what a woman is like, he will continually re-experience what it was like.

Moving Forward

At this deeper, emotional level, he won’t have a sense of time and will be blind, which is why this part doesn’t realise that, as this stage of his life is over and another woman is not his mother, it is too late for him to receive what he missed out on. This is why his past has to be resolved internally by him, not externally by others.

For him to gradually change this area of his life and his inner model of what a woman is like, he will have pain to face and process, unmet developmental needs to experience, and beliefs to question. This will take courage, support, patience and persistence.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer. 

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk