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Why do some women stay lovers for years? What makes them wait and hope, compete with a woman they don’t know for the attention of a man? Is it the love of a lifetime or is it a childhood trauma? This is the story of the heroine and the commentary of the psychologist.
“So that I would not ask the child, he gave me a kitten”
Marina, 32 years old
I have been dating a married man for 10 years now. It’s not a conscious choice, but it seems to be fate. I can’t explain otherwise.
It all started when I was 22. I graduated from university and went to work as an executive assistant. He was 10 years older — mature, smart. I fell in love and blushed every time we talked. Once he took me with him on a business trip … It was this man who discovered the real pleasure of sex for me. I wasn’t a virgin, but I didn’t have much experience.
I didn’t have time to date guys. Mom never missed a chance to tell me I wasn’t good enough. And I tried to earn her love. But if I wrote an essay on 6 pages and got 5+, then she said that at my age she wrote on two notebooks of 12 sheets. When I brought a new friend, she found flaws in her and forbade me to be friends with her. My attempt to put on makeup caused a whole scandal — despite the fact that my mother always used cosmetics. And for a short skirt borrowed from a friend, she called me a whore. Therefore, I did not tell her or anyone else about our romance.
He rented me an apartment, and I moved out of my parents with a scandal. Mom did not believe that I paid for the rent myself, and tried to find out the address so that she could come to me. And dad just hugged me and whispered that I shouldn’t tell my mom where I live. He never argued openly with her.
So my new life began — at first I was happy that I had love, a wonderful man and amazing sex. But it was infuriating that his wife was holding on to him, although her feelings had long since cooled down, and she didn’t need him in bed either. But out of decency and for the sake of the children, he could not leave her. I dreamed that she left him herself and he moved in with me. I knew that I could make him happy. But as time went on, the situation did not change.
After 3 years, I became pregnant, but he said that he was not ready for this — and I needed to have an abortion. I must have shed all my tears. Until recently, I hoped that the child would change the situation. The pregnancy had to be terminated. But I left my lover … For three whole weeks. When I left him, he came to me every evening in the evenings — I was already working in another place. One day he wrote a message saying he was filing for divorce and wanted to talk to me. I answered. He arrived … And we were together again.
On the day when he was about to say at home that he was leaving, his wife’s blood pressure jumped. And he stayed with her. I said that it was manipulation — perhaps not so bad for her. But he’s too decent to see it. In the end, her «hypertension» stretched out for a long time and again knocked down all our plans.
So that I would not ask the child, he gave me a kitten. On weekends and holidays, I sit alone or try to unwind with my girlfriends, but I constantly look at the phone to see if there was a message from him. He answers for a long time — it seems that she controls him. Maybe she knows everything about us and mocks him? .. If they have not been close for a long time, why does she need him?
I saw her photos on instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) — I look much better. But I am forbidden to upload our common photos with him. I tried to break up with him more than once — but every time he returned me. Probably, he’s just the love of my life, and we can only hope that someday she will get bored, she will let him go and we will be together with him.
«The tragedy of this triangle is that victory will be defeat again»
Lidia Fedorova, clinical psychologist
Perhaps Marina’s problem is in her childhood. At the age of 3-5 years, every girl experiences the so-called Electra complex (for boys, the analogue is the Oedipus complex). Already at such a young age, she enters into rivalry with her mother for the love of her father. The daughter dreams of becoming her father’s only «princess» and excluding her mother from this relationship. And at the same time she is afraid of losing her mother, afraid of being rejected, of losing her love. This creates a conflict in the child’s soul, from which, it seems, there is no way out.
If love, mutual understanding reign in a pair of parents and they understand the experiences of a little girl, the mother gently but uncompromisingly makes her understand that this desire is not feasible. Then the conflict is resolved successfully. The girl renounces her claims to her father, leaves him to her mother, and herself turns towards her peers in order to build her couple in the future.
At the same time, the girl also identifies herself with her mother, because in order to find a man like her father, one must be at least as good as her mother, and this is the first stage in the formation of a female identity in the history of any woman.
But if there are conflicts in the family, the child is drawn into the disassembly of adults, if, for personal reasons, the mother is either not strong enough to tell her daughter a firm “no” or, on the contrary, is overly power-hungry and unconsciously jealous of her growing daughter, then for the girl and the future woman this situation becomes insoluble.
The relationship remains incomplete, the unconscious desire to take possession of the father does not go away. It is this that pushes her into long-term relationships with married men. A situation not resolved in childhood is restored in a new love triangle. There is a caring, weak and seemingly loving man, a girl in love and an imperious female figure (after all, it is the wife who interferes with the happiness of lovers), which must be defeated.
The tragedy of this triangle is that victory will turn into defeat again and everything will start all over again, only in another triangle — not necessarily love. For example, at work in competition with an older female colleague for the attention of a male boss. Working through a child’s unresolved conflict is possible in working with a psychotherapist, and then a woman gets a chance for a healthy, partnership relationship.