Emotionally unavailable

This is a little long - sorry. It's just what's on my mind this morning. (of course, I'm long winded enough that most of my posts are a little long)

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine this weekend, in which she felt the need to point out to me that I am emotionally unavailable. That I keep myself emotionally distant in relationships. That I don't really have "friends" I only have "acquaintances."

I won't go into a litany of reasons why I may chose to not "reveal" myself and my inner feelings and emotions to this particular friend, the fact would still remain the same that I think her assessment is pretty accurate. It is something I have been concerned about in myself for a long time now, but have never really been quite sure how to go about changing it.

Historically, I have always changed "best friends" pretty regularly. In hindsight, I believe it is/was a defense mechanism I developed somewhere along the way. The "if I leave first, I won't feel rejected" kind of thought process. And yet, it was never a conscious thing. It just sort of happened. In fact, it wasn't until I was contemplating marriage that I actually started recognizing my pattern and became concerned about it. I worried, "How am I going to be in a marriage for ETERNITY, if I don't even have the capacity to maintain a close friendship for more than a year at a time???"

I did a Google search this morning in an effort to try to make some positive changes in this regard, and I would have to say that I found myself pretty well described. I read this:

"Emotional availability refers to the ability of a person to share feelings with another person. In order for this to happen, a person needs to be in touch with his or her own emotions and able to define them. This person would have a good working knowledge of his or her own feelings and be able to identify when he or she feels angry, afraid, hurt, sad, happy, or content."

PROBLEM ONE - I am NOT in touch with my own emotions. I will often feel an emotion, and not only do I have trouble identifying if I am sad, or angry, or frustrated, -- I honestly don't have a clue why I feel the the way I do.

Next quote "In addition to becoming familiar with your emotions, there are three other elements that are related to developing the capacity to be emotionally available - Good self-esteem, Healthy boundaries, and the ability to trust"

PROBLEM TWO - I have low self-esteem, no apparent ability to set healthy boundaries, and have always struggles with trust issues. No wonder there's a problem EH?

SO.... What am I going to do about it ???? I'm not exactly sure. I think for the time being it will be enough to PONDER more about it. You know what they say, recognizing the problem is half the battle. I'm not sure that in this case it's really HALF the battle, more like a trifle, but at least it's a start.

On a different - and more bragging note - I beat Tim in Scrabble last night for what I believe is the first time ever in our marriage. Even though I dare say I am probably the better speller and probably have a bigger vocabulary, he is MUCH more patient and spends lots of time figuring out exactly how to get the most points on every turn. (I usually go off and do other things while it's his turn, cause they usually take a while.) All I can say is that last night I got really lucky. I drew all the big point value letters - I got z, j, x, - and was able to use them all. (And I still only won by like 10 points, he usually wins by 50-100+)