Kingsley writes regarding Emotional Damage: Are Some More Prone Than Others?
I guess one would have to determine what “emotional damage” is! In reference to the word “damage” it would appear to have more severe repercussions with regard to relationships ending. It could be grief, scare – abandonment, physical and emotional symptoms such as anxiety, depression or anger. The feeling of hurt is really anger turned inwards.
Kingsley, I tried to define what I meant buy “emotional damage” when I wrote this:
“The criteria here is his experience in his prior relationships did not damage him in anyway that would impact his relationship with me.”
I thought that was clear but I’ll try harder!!
It is very common for people to report they cannot trust their current lover due their experience with the lover (or lovers) who came before. That would be an example of someone who has been emotionally damaged and the damage is unresolved.
Now the soldier claims to have not been “emotionally damaged” in his relationships even though he experienced things that most damage most. For example his first wife cheated on him non-stop throughout a 16 year marriage.
You don’t have to spend much time with him to know this is true. She really did not damage him in the least which is what grabs the attention, see? Because I would have been damaged by that. I’d have been deeply hurt, however I’d have also completely transcended and wound up in the same condition he’s in. That is, the past has no impact on how we relate to each other.
I think this is a very interesting topic with lots of angles. For example I imagine that carrying the hurts from past relationships into the present in some cases may be a form of control.
“This last guy did blah, blah, blah so now I am like this and you have to do this…”
If you think about living that way, it’s all pretty dissatisfying. You have a CAP on your happiness for sure and if you want the astrology… well, today’s Venus in Pisces speaks of love that is limitless but Saturn restricts unless you take responsibility! If you draw a line (Saturn/boundary) between this man and the last, you restore your access to love that is limitless.
Do you place a cap on your own happiness in relationship? Where is Venus in your chart?
No caps on my happiness. Venus in Aquarius in my 7th house.
I see clearly now that I have in the past, and how futile it has been—which is one of the great life lessons for me. Venus in 7th, square Saturn.
About damage as means of control: When my relationship with my ex started, he had all sorts of paramaters, i.e. “don’t ever use sex as a weapon, me ex did that”—at the time, I just didn’t know what to make of it mentally and emotionally. Because I was in love, I tried to abide, but truth is my stomach would tighten and looking back I now understand that was a powerful cue for me, a cue that I ignored. I felt controlled, you see, and struggled with that feeling the entire time I was with him.
I don’t fault him for the damage he was trying to process. I do question why I didn’t set boundaries for myself (Neptune retrograde in Scorpio??) and let him do what he needed to do to heal, before engaging with him further. I jumped in fast. Venus in Aries..
I’m learning, I’m learning.. thanks for this post.
I have been emotionally damaged, but for the most part I’ve always found a way to work around it.
One of the things I lvoe about coming here is you tilt things for me I’ll be in place at 10 degrees and you’ll nudge it fifteen more degrees and whammy! New frame!
This -> “If you draw a line (Saturn/boundary) between this man and the last, you restore your access to love that is limitless.” is already helping.
Thanks.
this is a really good point/topic and really speaks to me today. I think where I run into trouble is trying to understand IF the new person I am with IS different behaviorally than the people I have experienced in the past, because certain problems are so prevelent.
No, I don’t put a cap on my happiness in a romantic relationship.
I have Venus conjunct Mars in Aries (4th House) in aspect
to my Moon, Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn and Neptune. I’m basically a fecking love machine.
i did. but i think i fixed it. required a shift in perspective and, well, growing up a bit.
(venus/neptune/pluto/saturn/uranus all doing a messy tango together, let me tell you)
aries, 8.
Omie I think that is common to do that, and in fact can be really useful depending on what kind of relationship you reference and how you feel/trust yourself overall. I mean, it can be a great way of analyzing depending on your angle!
Eg. my ex was an alcoholic, so heavy drinkers leave me cold. I think some relationships/people interactions teach us invaluable clues to behaviours that we learn over time do not gel with us.
I like this topic. I said that I have been damaged by previous relationships. I don’t use it as control but I do sometimes notice that there is still scar tissue. I over react to my current partner over things that previous partners have been critical about for example. I am highly self aware though and every time I discover this scar tissue I work to transcend it and bring to conscious awareness the fact that my current situation is not the same as the past. It happens but not without some effort.
Venus in the 8th in Cancer, loosely trine Saturn in the 4th.
ugh…I believe I know what you mean satori…I guess my next question would be do you trust yourself that operating from your damage is not always a bad thing? (Thinking from the angle that the two can work hand in hand, even to your advantage)?
No cap. Venus conjunct Jupiter & MC in Aries.
This makes a lot of sense. Wow… then I must be severely damaged then – because every relationship, including the ones from childhood have messed me up so much!
Every relationship I had seems to get harder and harder each time – although this time around, I am dating someone who’s known me for years: one of my best friends!
But yes… I learned that I have to do a lot of “upkeep” to maintain a partner. I am always self-conscious about my physical appearance because an ex told me he’d dump me if I gained weight. Back then, I used to be the trusting, non-jealous girlfriend but now I’m CONSTANTLY paranoid that any guy I am with will leave me in a blink of an eye after finding someone “better!” Every time I’m in a relationship, my stress levels are so high and I couldn’t sleep 🙁
Working on transcending all this is HARD HARD stuff… So I’ll keep at it. Perhaps, like everything, I’ll get over it.
Well, since my Venus is conjunct Saturn and square Cappy Moon, I’d say that for me there is no love without limitations… hard to explain but if you’ve got significant Saturn, you should understand. It’s about responsibility.
Elsa, you’re right that all that restriction can be freeing. I don’t carry emotional baggage from previous relationships b/c I draw so many lines between them. Apples and oranges.
when i first started dating my husband, we had a few phantom fights.
i’d say “A-B-C.” He’d get all pissy. I was confused. “What’s the matter?” I wanted to know.
“Didn’t you just tell me X-Y-Z? Isn’t that what you were implying?”
“No! Where did you get that?! I said A-B-C because I meant A-B-C. X-Y-Z would have never entered my head in a million years!”
It didn’t take too long for him to figure out that I didn’t have the subtext critisism he’d become acccustomed to from his ex. After that, it was much smoother…
bew I bet you’re fun to roll with!:)
up there someone wrote about the guy who was ostensibly so ‘burned’ who is saying to her “Don’t use sex as a weapon, or don’t do this or don’t do that, my ex did it.”
I will run like hell from someone who is trying to drag all that baggage into an involvement with me. I am like “don’t bring your cliches that you made up to hammer your ex with and try to hammer me with them also.”
‘don’t use sex as a weapon’ just means the guy is saying “you give it to me whenever I demand it, whether or not you are really in the mood to have sex with me or not because I am stingy and self centered and probably not very good in bed either.”
I’d be staring at the guy saying “My God are we back in the 50’s or what?” I’d be telling the jerk “Oh you want to get fucked when you have been an asshole all day, do you? well you go get fucked, namely, you go fuck yourself.”
It is amazing, I have seen some people come in with me and it is like suddenly I realize we are not even on the same sheet of music and he is having the exact same fight he used to have with his ex, only he is having it with me, and he is not even listening to the fact that I am not saying the proper words. He is sometimes even not remembering I am not her.
If they mention the ex in the first month of dating it’s a bad sign, but if you take your chances don’t surprise one day when you are in an argument and he calls you by her name.
I have a HUGE F*CK*NG cap on my happiness and I have absolutely no experience in relationships. I cannot breathe in a relationship, but I want nothing more. I just sort of assume a lot and calling myself skeptical and suspicious would be an understatement. I have like all this baggage and I’ve been in only one actual relationship my entire life ( and it’s technically AMAZING ). So, I don’t think you have to have a background of emotional damage from relationships to be completely messed up. I don’t rest. I am constantly thinking, worrying, analyzing every move, every spoken and unspoken word, looking for signs of everything BAD.
Venus in Scorpio in the 5th house conjunct Pluto in Scorpio in the 5th house. Mercury (Sag) conjunct Moon in the 6th house, so I’m going to worry, especially about my feelings. ESPECIALLY, about my intuition and whether or not it’s right or wrong.
great reading everyone’s responces, so interesting! I have venus conjunct saturn so there is often a limit within my relationships, not the feeling,but usually just the curcomstances, or sometimes it just makes for serious reponsible(saturn) love.
My feelings are very limitless: moon square neptune, neptune in the seventh type deal…… I very much have transcendent love with people who are unusual(venus trine uranus,) and I love to talk about love (merury in leo sextile venus in gemini).
I had issues like that w/the ex…he expected me to be or act like a few of his exes, and I had to hammer it into him over the years (basically prove myself to him) that I wasn’t like that.
I’ve pretty much transcended a lot of the crap he did to me…it’s hard sometimes…thoughts pop up from time to time that stop me in my tracks & make me think…but, if you want to be happy, then you have to give people the benefit of the doubt and treat them as the individual they are…
twins born a minute apart can have totally different personalities, so why on earth would I think “this guy” is going to be the same as “the last guy”?? 😉
Yeah, there’s a lot to say here. I’m like Lupa, in that I don’t try to control (I’m too self-aware) but I do overreact. I recently noticed this and asked my BF to be patient with me, as I do want to transcend this and I see his love as healing …
This is a lot to swallow, though, the soldier’s way … it is beautiful and when I think about it, especially in light of his cheating wife, it seems so freeing. That was her, right? No him, and certainly not you, Elsa.
I guess I was always taught – by self-help books, therapy, whatever, that relationships keep coming up in our lives to “heal” our primary relationships with our parents. I dated my dad a number of times, I’d say. But this theory really doesn’t accommodate that kind of thinking.
Anyway, this is what I’m going through currently – overreacting and trying to let go of the past – and when I see it, because it is finally in reach, it’s quite something.
Oh, yeah, satori – and a few people mentioned this; sometimes it’s so hard deciphering what’s coming from your gut and what’s coming from that place of fear from past hurts. I try to save the gut stuff for real big, recurring hit-me-over-the-head messages in regard to this. Everything else is probably fear.
Loonsounds – “My God are we back in the 50’s or what?” hahaha
I read that the same way. Total deal breaker for me too. Don’t tell me what I can/can’t do with my body. It’s 2009!! 😉
Stephanie-
‘I’d say that for me there is no love without limitations… hard to explain but if you’ve got significant Saturn, you should understand. It’s about responsibility.’
i liked what you wrote- i identify with that- i have venus conj. asc and she is opposite saturn on dsc.. and i am always trying to mix the energies- so as never to swing one way or the other…
“…especially in light of his cheating wife, it seems so freeing. That was her, right? Not him, and certainly not you, Elsa.”
That’s exactly right. And as I told a pal today, the fact he is like this… and I am like this via a different path or mechanism shows this is possible and makes us worthy of study for anyone who wants to find out how this is done.
There is not a “cap” on my happiness my venus is in cancer 2nd house square my libra mars.
I think I have had emotional damage from the past relationships or “situations” of life, but that hasen’t stopped me from racing headlong into relationhips,lol. I know the “issuess” and I am constantly trying to “overcome” them. 🙂
Every relationship I experience, every person I engage with has an effect of some kind on me Elsa. The experience of being with a person even if the the attachemnts are weak will mean something. Thank you for explaining what you mean by emaotional damage.
Perhaps the effect the Soldiers experienced with his previous relationship put him in a good position for the start of his relationship with you Elsa.
I hear a lot of guys saying “nah it didnt worry me at all finishing with …” “plenty of fish in the sea – I just move on” Some guys making these kind of comments are pretty tough and tend to supress other difficult feeling stemming from relationship endings. The soldier most likely didnt have this worry last time but many guys do become entangled in their emotions after separating.
kingsley
The distinction for me would be this: I can easily feel unconditional love without any limitations whatsoever. It is when it comes to living together that these the limitations of living with someone you love really make themselves obvious, maybe, for some, love is completely different than love plus living togeter full time. I feel this difference in a major way.
Fortunately and unfortunately for me, I am a Pisces to the hilt. Every time I love, I love completely and without regard for my heart. I open myself to the entire gamut of emotions that come with “love”, both the good and the bad.
I have been hurt badly. I will likely be hurt badly again. But, I feel every emotion waaaaaaaaaaay too deeply to half-ass “love”, it’s just not possible for me.
It’s just my gift/curse, I guess.
yeah anabanana, the old ‘don’t use sex as a weapon’ … perfect way to lay a guilt trip, very manipulative and totally bogus
Hey Luci,
I totally respect that. I’m not a Pisces, but I’m with one. He’s an amazing lover. Just radiates sweetness and love and strikes me as vulnerable and inspires me to open my heart.
I think some emotional “damage” is just inevitable if you’re someone who loves… you get hurt. I guess Elsa’s showing us a way to transcend and allow ourselves to be free to love anew!
Luci you are so blessed. I am that way too and it has not killed me yet. ;_0
What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, Loon!
Go big or go home, baby!
hm. an i do stillhave some sore spots… i just tend to be aware when they’re triggered… it’s such a noticeable quake it’s hard not to, so i can take account for that… and i guess aquarius detachment helps keep me from overreacting in the moment.
sometimes, though, i think i under react.
i know deep inside me i have been emotionally damaged. not only with my ex but with his group of friends as well who happens to belong in a religious group. my venus is in gemini. ive been harbouring that pain for the longest time until now when i finally had a chance to face them and free myself. you are right, elsa. we need to put a line between those men in the past and the man in the present.