One of the most gut-wrenching things that could ever happen to anyone is to have a partner who goes on and off; someone who is only consistent at being greatly inconsistent.
Many people are familiar with this relationship struggle, just like this young woman here,
who tells Pulse about how her relationship has so far been a
nerve-racking cycle of disappearances and reappearances by her
boyfriend. It must have been the same thing Simi was feeling when she composed her emotional song, “Gone For Good.”
Inconsistently great
With a partner that’s inconsistent, there are
momentary flashes of all the beautiful things that you desire and
treasure in a partner and in a relationship. They know how to give you
that thrill that borders on drug-induced ecstasy, and this is not just
in a sexual context.
An inconsistent partner could be the babe with
whom conversations are effortless, with whom romance is unforced; with
whom sex is always like well-rehearsed ballet – gliding beautifully from
step to step, from blissful level unto the next until a perfect
crescendo is breathlessly attained.
An inconsistent partner could be the guy who
does these same things and more. He weaves his life around yours so
delicately; drawing you in with a foretaste of everything you long for
in a partner. He's the gentleman you want. He's the broad shoulders to
cry on that you've always desired. He's the one whose face you see
beside you when you imagine your big, Nigerian wedding. He's so sweet, so nice, so charming and so... everything.
But that only tells part of the story with such people.
Eventual disappointment
Whether it is with the inconsistent male or
the female, what follows the gloriously affectionate moments are
dreadful disappearing acts that leave you dumbfounded, starved,
confused, crazy, empty and self-condemning.
Their attachment to you is in a way that makes
it easy for them to untangle themselves after making you open up,
trust, become tied to them, dependent on them for emotional balance and
mindlessly slip into love with them.
“It is the most frustrating thing ever,” says Inem, a Lagosian who was in a relationship with an inconsistent partner for about a year.
The first thing every inconsistent partner
does to you is to leave you in a perpetual loop of frustration. You know
what is obtainable. You know the amount of sweetness that partner is
capable of, you have seen and experienced in some measure, the levels of
romantic completeness that can be attained with that person but there’s
only so little of it being offered to you that it drives you so, so
crazy.
It’s like getting someone hooked on a drug and
then depriving them of that drug. In this context, one of the
withdrawal symptoms is frustration.
You cannot have them when you please. You only have them when they show up, and that is always at their discretion.
“I stayed too long in that relationship, I must say. But I knew I could no longer bear it when it was obvious I would never be able to depend on the guy.” says Inem.
iStock
They keep you waiting for so long, but Inconsistent partners
always come back.. or at least, try to. [Credit - Shutterstock]
Inconsistent partners always come back, most times when you are tired of their bull crap and have decided to move on.
They come with reasons and excuses and make
promises to do better. Most times, their reasons are really not reasons.
They glorify excuses that could be overcome with a little effort – like
being busy, or losing a phone, or not having credit and so on and so
forth.
Because they know you so well and know all the
buttons to push, you find yourself giving them one more chance. And
after that yet another chance, and another and yet another. You know it
is unlikely that they’ll do better as promised but they’ll sound so
convincing that you find yourself allowing them back in, even as
something in you screams.
“You fool!”
What this regular cycle of disappearance,
repentance, and reappearance does is that your mind becomes messed up.
It becomes so difficult to tell what is right and what is not.
“I was ready to move on but then he showed up again. I do love him a lot and I don't know what's right or wrong now," writes an anonymous Pulse reader to our agony aunt column – Relationship Talk With Bukky.
“This guy would disappear for days on end, and I’d be worried sick. He always came back with a different excuse all the time.” Inem says.
You find yourself wallowing in a pool of
self-condemnation at some point. You wonder if you are too demanding, or
whether you have too much of a chocking presence.
You’ll find yourself wondering if you are
asking for too much, you’ll find yourself settling for more and more of
their crap, losing self-respect just to get a little scraps of them
because, somehow, regardless of their on-and-off nature, they manage to
retain an incontestable ability power to feed your soul, excite your
mind and set your body on fire. It’s such a crazy place to be.
With different inconsistent partners, the
pattern may have little variations but you can be sure that
underwhelming moments of loneliness will be hot on the heels of divine,
giddy moments of true romance.
A [difficult] way out
“The good news is, it is never too late to turn things around,” writes Aja Baise for Elite Daily.
“You can demand to be treated a certain way and hold firm to expectations you have set for a person. You can stand by your relationship standards and wait for Mr. Right to come along, instead of trying filling a void with Mr. Wrong.
"Ultimately, you are faced with two choices: You can be the woman who wins and gets the incredible guy, or you can be the woman who keeps bending over backward for the inconsistent guy. That woman will always lose,” she adds.
Truer words on this haven’t been said.
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