The desire to patronize or control, strong passion or jealousy – often we mistake these manifestations of feelings for true love. But in vain – in fact, they rather destroy relationships.
Jealousy, overprotection, a sense of dependence, passion, the desire to possess another completely … All these features may be inherent in the feeling of falling in love, but they do not serve as an expression of true love – experts are unanimous in this.
Jealousy
A loved one looks at someone other than us, and it’s hard to bear. The more painful the bites of jealousy, the deeper the love seems. But although jealousy is inherent in love, it is far from its main symptom. In true love, two plots are played out simultaneously between lovers: between subjects (“I love”) and between objects (“I love”). But the jealous person first of all sees himself as an object of love: it is unbearable for him when the other takes his eyes off him.
“The one who does not value himself enough is jealous, doubting that for another he can be chosen, occupy a special place in his heart,” says Gestalt therapist Maria Andreeva. But does he love himself? Jealousy does not ask this question. She tells the jealous only about himself: about the lack of self-respect, about how difficult it is for him to see himself as an independent, acting subject.
In such relationships, the other is not taken into account, he is loved only because he serves as material for jealousy. “In addition,” adds the psychoanalyst Jean-Michel Hirt, “jealousy supports erotic desire, introducing into the relationship of two, at least in the realm of fantasy, a third – a rival.”
Hyperopia
I always worry about you, take care of you, protect you… At first glance, such love, expressed in care and even self-denial, is as altruistic and sincere as possible. “In fact, an overly caring person has little faith in himself, his strength,” explains family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova. – He doubts that he can be loved for who he is, and therefore tries to make a lot of efforts to be needed. This is also a lever of pressure to keep a partner: “If you leave me, no one will take care of you like that.” And the unconscious expectation of gratitude.
To be dependent on another means to be capable of anything in order not to face an unbearable inner emptiness
While it may not be easy to admit, “overprotective” love is not really directed to a partner, but to our own internal parental images, to which we seem to teach a lesson: “This is how you should have treated me as a child!” And such love says to the partner: “Now it’s your turn to show how much you appreciate me.”
In any case, it is clear that we are talking about an alliance in which people seek to heal the wounds of childhood – feelings of abandonment, memories of mistreatment … And sometimes they even achieve this goal. They do not seek to overcome the damage done in the past, and not even to forget about it, they want to receive its reparation.
Dependence
To be dependent on another means to be capable of anything in order not to face the unbearable inner emptiness that rolls in when the other moves away from us. So the baby feels safe only in close contact with the mother.
“Dependent is the one who is afraid of loneliness not so much externally as internally,” explains Maria Andreeva. “By dissolving into another person, he ceases to feel his separateness.” “Such problems do not arise if the parents really accepted the child, allowed him to grow up as an independent person, and not some kind of likeness or continuation of himself,” agrees Inna Khamitova. “Then he forms an inner core, the core of his personality, he is capable of open contact with another person.”
Love addiction speaks of love, but deceived, wounded, with a broken wing. At the very beginning of life, the child was not given this feeling – was the mother really close and sincerely loving to him? Having not received spiritual warmth in childhood, it is difficult to feel like a self-sufficient person.
This is why adult love addiction expresses a desire to heal the deep wound inflicted by the earliest failed fusion experience. But such an attempt at healing is doomed to failure, because permanent merging with another is impossible.
Too much passion
Such a connection is played out on a passionate tango tune. This is probably why they say about her: “This is real, great love”, bright emotions capture the soul so much. Time breaks up into a meaningless past, before the meeting, and a present full of greedy passion that devours everything in its path – because it is driven not by desire, but by desperate need, feeding on expectation and longing.
“Strong emotions fill the inner void,” says Inna Khamitova. “But they muffle the sensations of life.” And this love, having barely had time to be embodied, burns to ashes. This kind of love, in which words are a constant source of conflict, is characteristic of teenagers and all those who are afraid to expose their true self in genuine intimacy with another person. The thunder of passion drowns out all other sounds – both inside and around. This allows such love, at least for a while, to cover up the emptiness, misunderstanding or impasse in which the relationship goes.
Ownership
The desire to possess another is one of the essential components of love, but when it is constant and takes center stage, it is no longer love, but fear. To possess means to be able to love only what is at hand, before our eyes.
As soon as the feeling of control over the life of another person disappears, an irresistible fear breaks out of the depths of the psyche: “Beloved is a part of me, I can’t let go of him even a single step!” The owner, unlike the dependent, does not seek to merge: it is impossible to merge with someone whom you already consider a part of yourself.
“The sense of ownership is more archaic than jealousy, it is associated with the boundaries of the body, with an unconscious idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbit,” says Jean-Michel Hirt. “Therefore, losing control over another person, the owner feels that his very life is under threat, the receding partner seems to leave him bled, depriving him of vitality.”