To him the word 'give' meant commitment and 'commitment' meant losing himself to another. He was very content enough with things being the way they were, and he was not about to open up and risk losing it all by letting another person in. To him, letting another person into his life was like handing over all his control and power that he held over his life – handing it over to that of another. Giving any of himself was not easy to him. Nor was taking. It all would boil down to fighting the submission -- fighting losing his sense of 'self'.

He viewed relationships of all kinds as 'mergers'. Where he blended into them and they blended into him – hence, a 'loss of self'.

So, he subconsciously started to evaluate and question every relationship he was in. He started to weigh the pros and the cons - and his phobia always ensured him that the cons outweighed the pros. He began to see that the relationship would require him to give up his 'free time' -- something he worshipped unrealistically. It would require his sharing and giving and taking -- all the very elements that were composed of 'losing' to him. He started to dread phone conversations as unnecessary 'warps' in his time, and he began to feel invaded by relationships, resenting the very person who demanded anything of him at all.

He then started to regret having even gotten in a relationship to begin with, and frantically searched for any reason at all to escape it, vowing to not make the same mistake again. Which only fed upon his phobia. Each and every relationship would become more feared and more suffocating.

What makes it so hard on the one who loves the merintho-philo-phobic is the feeling that they are constantly made to feel like they are the 'enemy'. In our relationship, ‘love’ became ‘war’ -- something I felt I must fight for, and something he was impelled to fight against. We became rivals instead of partners. Everything I said or did he twisted around as a direct attack against him - as if I were trying to 'suck the very life out of him'. Love is definitely a battlefield when you are with a merintho-philo-phobic!

The merintho-philo-phobic fights feelings of love. He denies his own feelings of love for another.

The merintho-philo-phobic will fight loving you.

Until the merintho-philo-phobic admits his phobias and confronts them, the best thing one can do is leave the relationship and find another lover who will not make them feel like the enemy.

~by Tigress Luv, the Breakup Guru