Plate Spinning analogy

Cynthia's post about "how they operate" is so good, and reminded me of something my counselor told me that I'd thought I'd share.

When the "email incident" occurred about 5 - 6 months ago, and I was horrified that he had probably 6 - 8 full blown relationships going on at the same time (all different kinds of full blown), I started talking to my counselor again to try to understand what was going on, and how could I have been so fooled.

Of course, my first question to her was - "is this normal???" "do guys act like this at this age, and I'm just naive???"

She said:
- no, this is not normal behavior.
- I can't tell from what you are telling me if he is a sexual addict, but there is something very off here.
- It is like he is one of those circus acts, spinning a dozen plates in the air on poles. And he has to keep all of the plates spinning. So when one plate slows down, he has to pay attention to it and keep it spinning again. And occasionally a plate will drop, but it is not that big of a deal. He needs to forget about that one and keep all of the other plates spinning.

This is the best mental picture of how these men work.

It is also an interesting analogy because it reinforces that their women (plates) are just objects and they are all the same and they are all replaceable. When I found him out and confronted him, I was the plate that broke and he had to forget about me.

But then he tries to resurrect it (because I do provide value to him). He calls like he did the other night and talked to me for 45 minutes just about stuff and helping me with the issues I'm dealing with. Its like he just has to get that plate spinning again and once he is satisfied that I'll spin for awhile longer, he can move on to the next plate and get it going again. And ignore me until he feels like I am slowing down again. And then the whole crazy cycle starts all over again.