Some partners reveal the best qualities in us, while others seem to reveal the dark side of our nature … Why is this happening? Analyzed by psychoanalyst Andrey Rossokhin.
“Igor constantly kept me in suspense,” recalls 39-year-old Alla. “He always spoke to me, reproaching and judging. When I asked what he was dissatisfied with, he was offended and replied that I did not try to understand him at all. For almost five years we lived in an atmosphere of resentment.” Then Alla met Sergey, and they have been together for two years.
“Before, I knew only one type of relationship — wrestling,” she continues. — Today I understand what the word «mutual understanding» means. Sergey allows me to be myself — he does not condemn, does not evaluate. And I no longer need to defend or attack. If some relationships highlight the best in us — benevolence, tolerance, tenderness, then others seem to confront the aggressive, distrustful, cruel side of the personality. How does this mechanism work?
We choose relationships
“Choosing a partner, we choose between our own spiritual aspirations,” says Andrey Rossokhin. — Everyone has a lot of hidden internal conflicts associated with repressed childhood desires and emotions, teenage passions and the need for self-affirmation.
These conflicts are like a minefield, but they are also a source of personal development. Who will we meet: with the one who will become our internal destroyer or the one who will help open space for life and love? It depends on the unconscious choice.
Sometimes we look for someone who would help to block forbidden desires even more strongly.
A classic example is Adrian Lyne’s 9 1/2 Weeks. The main character meets a man who helps her discover femininity and sexuality in the complete absence of spiritual relationships. Despite the need for close relationships, in creating a family, she agrees to the adventure.
But the choice that later turned her life from pleasure to pain was made for her by repressed sexual desires and fantasies. It is naive to believe that this relationship caused her mental trauma and highlighted the «perversity» of the soul. Before this love passion, she managed to be disappointed in another infantile choice — a good, decent husband.
Having rethought both painful choices, she will be able to make another, more mature one in the future, she will be ready to meet a partner in whom sexuality and intimacy are harmoniously interconnected. Overcoming her own splitting into vicious and pure will help her to feel a holistic «I» in another person.
When one of the participants wants to get out of the unconscious game, the other may feel aggression
We often unconsciously choose a loved one not only to realize a hidden fantasy or desire. Sometimes we act with the exact opposite goal — to find someone who will help even more block the forbidden desires rushing out. A loved one becomes a lifeline. It is difficult to say whether he brings out the best in us or, on the contrary, cements the worst.
Sometimes we choose a person who is able to play the role of a kind mother or a caring father. Until the partner gets tired of this role, we will feel happy and experience only pleasant feelings. When one of the participants in the unconscious game wants to get out of it or takes a step towards a more mature relationship, the other may feel pain, aggression.
It is important that not only in choosing a partner, but also in the development of relationships, a mature “I” participates. Otherwise, we will succumb to one of the hidden spiritual aspirations. We will strive for unbridled sexual pleasure or, on the contrary, to block it, guided by the desire to humiliate another or be humiliated. Or we will look for someone who will take care, trying to avoid responsibility ourselves.
Adult, mature relationships are not only shared values, but also a look through slightly rose-colored glasses.
But from time to time infantilism persists in any mature relationship. We put up with something, tease something, depend on something, and reveal something in each other. All this can coexist harmoniously only with mature, holistic relationships. When a loved one does not demonize or idealize us, but sees a little better than we really are. So, a good mother already anticipates how the child will go, at the moment when he only makes the first timid attempts.
Adult, mature relationships are not only shared values, the ability to share emotional and sexual experiences with each other, but also mutual support, a look through slightly rose-colored glasses.