I want to be with her, but you can overdo it - you can smother a person (main concern: demanding encroachment). I'm not the type of guy that wants to share everything (low reciprocity). I like to choose the time, the place, and the mood (limits attachment experiences). I like to be in control of my emotions. There have been times when I have felt distant from her. Times when say financial situations - I have to work out problems myself, because part of me wants to keep things private and personal (compulsive self-reliance). I like to keep my problems to myself until I've worked them out.

I want to be with her but I have to deal with some challenges. It's not natural for me to want to share as much as she wants to - so I find myself feeling like I'm compromising for things that come natural to her (meta - representational diversity). Like when we go out I make a hard-core effort to surrender my agenda because I find holding on to my need for control doesn't really get me much (aware of negative outcomes). It makes our time together a lot more enjoyable when I bring personal matters to her - go figure, I'd rather deal with them on my own, but compromise has it's payoffs too (restricted intimacy but valuing).

Excerpts from Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol 16(5); 571-590, 1999. Feeney, Judith; Issues of closeness and distance in dating relationships: Effects of sex and attachment style. Parenthetic comments & "Secure Revisions", Rob Phillips, 2002.