We All Love Romance

Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them: When Loving Hurts And You Don't Know Why
by Susan Forward, Ph.D., Joan Torres

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Romance makes you feel wonderful. Your emotions and your sexual feelings are at fever pitch, and in the beginning the intensity can be truly overwhelming. The relationship can affect you like a euphoric drug; being on "cloud nine" is the way many people describe it. The body, in fact, is producing a tremendous number of chemicals that contribute to the "wonderful glow" people talk about.

The fantasy, of course, is that we're going to feel like that forever. We've been told all our lives that romantic love has magical powers to make us whole and happy as women. Literature, TV, and movies help to reinforce this belief. The paradox is that even the most destructive misogynistic relationship starts out filled with just this kind of excitement and expectation.

Yet despite the good feelings experienced in the beginning, by the time Rosalind came in to see me she was a nervous wreck, and her previously thriving antiques business was on the verge of bankruptcy; Laura, the former account executive, became so demoralized that she was sure she was incapable of ever holding another job; and Jackie - who had successfully juggled teaching, graduate school, and raising two young children - found herself breaking down and sobbing over minor incidents. What had happened to the beautiful, exciting romance that had marked the beginnings of these relationships? Why were the women so hurt and disillusioned?

Whirlwind Courtships

I believe that when a romance moves as swiftly as these did, there's an underlying sense of danger in the air. The danger may actually add to the excitement and stimulation of the affair. When I ride my horse, a trot is very pleasant but not particularly interesting; the thrill lies in the gallop. Part of that thrill is the knowledge that something unexpected might happen - I might get thrown; I might get hurt. It's the same sense of thrill and danger we all experienced as children when we rode the roller-coaster. It's fast, it's exciting, and it feels risky.

Once the element of sexual intimacy has been added, the speed and intensity of the emotions becomes even greater. You don't go through the normal progression of discovery with your new lover because there has not been enough time. Your new partner has many qualities that are going to affect your life - qualities that cannot be seen immediately. It takes time for both partners to develop the openness, trust, and honesty that are needed for a solid relationship. A whirlwind courtship, thrilling as it may be, tends to provide only pseudo-intimacy, which is then mistaken for genuine closeness.

Romantic Blinders

In order to see who our new partner truly is, the relationship has to move more slowly. It takes time to see others realistically so that we can recognize and accept both their virtues and their shortcomings. In a whirlwind courtship the emotional currents are so swift and strong that they overwhelm both partners' perceptions. Anything that interferes with the picture of the new love as "ideal" is ignored or blocked out. It's as if both partners are wearing blinders. We become intensely focused on how the other person is making us feel rather than on who the other person really is. The logic goes: since he makes me feel wonderful, he must be wonderful.

Laura and Bob were swept up by the spellbinding chemistry they felt between them in their first meetings. This chemistry had very little to do with who each of them was as a person. The rapture that Laura described related not to Bob's character but to his eyes, the way he moved, and how he ordered wine in the restaurant. Never did she say, "He was a decent, honest man." Bob was fulfilling for her the role of the perfect romantic lover, and both of them were caught up in the seduction and infatuation of the moment.

The first indication Laura had that there might be trouble came soon after she and Bob had begun living together.

We were out together and he said, "I have something to tell you. I'm not divorced yet." I nearly fell off my chair, because by that time we were making wedding plans! He said, "I felt divorced, so I really didn't think it made that much difference." I was so shocked I couldn't talk. I just kept staring at him. Then he told me the divorce was in the works and he was taking care of it and I shouldn't worry. I realized that he'd lied to me from the beginning - I mean, he'd given me dates and all that sort of thing - but it just didn't seem that important then. Then, the important thing wasn't that he had lied but that he actually was getting the divorce.

Bob's deceptiveness should have been a warning to Laura that she needed to take a closer look at him, but she didn't want to see. She wanted to believe that Bob was the man of her dreams.

Jackie also received an early warning. In the beginning of her relationship with Mark, he told her a great deal about himself and his attitudes toward women, but his information was cloaked in flattery, so Jackie had not been alerted by it.

He told me that all the other women he'd been involved with only wanted to know, "What can you give me?" But what he found so special about me was that I was interested in what I could give to him. He said it was as if I had been born, shaped, and existed only to take care of him. All the other women had been taking and taking, all gimme gimme gimme, there for the good times but running from the bad ones. I was different.

Jackie could have heard that Mark lumped all women together and categorized them as greedy, selfish, and untrustworthy. But she chose instead to see his statements as further proof that she was the special one who would make his life better.

A warning that there might be trouble ahead came early for Rosalind, too, but she failed to notice the signal for what it was.

That first date, when he came over to my apartment for dinner, we went to bed together. He had a lot of trouble in that department, staying hard. It was disappointing, but I told myself that a lot of men have trouble like that with someone new and it didn't mean anything. Then the next morning we made love again and it was a little better, but still I could see that he had problems. I figured I could help him overcome this, and I told myself that sex wasn't that important. What was so overpowering to me about Jim was how close I felt to him and how much he responded to me as a person.

Copyright © 2001 by Susan Forward, M.D. and Joan Torres. Excerpted by permission of Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Susan Forward, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned therapist, lecturer, and author of the number one New York Times bestsellers Toxic Parents and Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, as well as Betrayal of Innocence: Incest and Its Devastation, Money Demons, Emotional Blackmail, When Your Lover Is a Liar, and Toxic In-Laws.

Joan Torres is an award-winning freelance writer with extensive movie and television credits.