Men with issues, cave men and lions

Two glasses of wine. One too many. I am attracted to men with issues. This is a problem. Accepting those issues are theirs and they may never deal with it is one thing, getting them out of your head, another.

On another, quite unrelated issues is something that I have had to grasp in the latest NLP. Control is a tricky thing to understand. When you finally realise the enormity of a controlling relationship you try to understand two things. The first is how you could ever have been so stupid and the second is why anyone would be so unkind. Then you realise two other things, the first is that being controlled is not about stupidity: it's divisive, it creeps up on you without announcement and truly successful control is achieved when the feeling of something not being right leaves you assuming that you must be imagining it or it must be your fault.

The second thing that you will hopefully conclude is that control is not necessarily about a malicious need to control someone else, but something often borne for the right reasons. Take an old fashioned marriage. Man works, woman stays at home'

Lets imagine that the man has subconscious issues with adequacy. He needs to feel like the provider, the caveman - earning money, providing roof warm and water to his family. This makes him feel good. This makes her feel protected and safe. Yet the caveman knows that the only way to retain that situation is to ensure that she remains dependent. The easiest way is by controlling money.

Before you know it you have a situation where caveman is in charge. Caveman restricts income and any ability for cave woman to earn her own. Caveman provides roof, water and heat. By restricting money, caveman achieves total dependency. By saying that he has to go out and club animals, he restricts cave woman's ability to club animals herself.

Occasionally, caveman offers cave woman and cave children a bonus, like a takeaway curried gazelle. Cave woman, due to restricted clubbing ability feels slightly demeaned by this and guilty of thinking it is a tad unfair. Caveman regularly treats himself to new clubs, new stone wheels or a new loin cloth - all apparently a requirement to club animals. Caveman then has to go out at weekend to clubbing contests. Cave woman knows that this is just fun but cave woman, when told it is necessary to perfect the art of clubbing, then feels guilty that she should question.

Then caveman, through his subconscious desire to be the big provider, creates a situation whereby the only way that he can ensure that he earns the title is by completely controlling cave woman. Cave children grow up thinking that Daddy provides baby mongoose to play with but cannot understand why cave woman mummy only gets to let them play with sticks in the mud.

Eventually Caveman twigs that cave woman no longer believes that there is fairness and equality and the feeling of supremacy is fading. In a bid to regain that feeling of admiration, Caveman seeks cave woman number two - another option who can make him feel that the loin cloth is well worn. No questions, no doubts, no demands for roof, food and heat - just admiration. Cave woman two needs a caveman to make her feel like a cave woman and shares in his behaviour that new clubs can make everyone happy. Club woman two has her own issues and needed to 'rescue' a caveman to feel of worth. This bit works well as both caveman and cavewoman two still need co-dependancy.

Then it turns out that Caveman borrowed lots of flint heads in a bid to club the family fodder. Feeling bitter that the adoration disappeared, Caveman claims that the flints were only borrowed to kill the fodder and not to fund the control, the new clubs and the clubbing weekends.

Cave woman, having had to do with bartering the toenails of dead lions to provide a nice cave and supply cave children with chalk for drawings - is understandably stunned that caveman now wants payback for the funding of his clubbing activities, when she never had any say in what clubs were brought.

The truth is quite sad. Caveman had good intent - he wanted to provide for his family. Where he went wrong was to ensure that Cave woman was kept in the back of the cave to allow him to achieve it. After years in the dark, asking her to pay back the flints from the clubbing weekends and the new clubs was one step to far.

Such a sad story.

Cave woman finally saw the light and Caveman got eaten by lions.

Sad, unnecessary but true,

On a positive note, Cave woman discovered that there was more to life than clubbing things.