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You just broke up, and your ex is already happy with the other? It is pointless to deny: it is unpleasant. Why is it so difficult for us to survive an early replacement? Three experts help bring clarity.
Anna from Bologna, 35, admits: “Since Mario started a new romance, I console myself with the fact that it will not last long. I dumped him after two years of trying to be together, and now I suddenly feel liquidated. I am under pressure from being a single mother, I have an uncertain future, and it is very difficult for me to believe in a new love.
29-year-old Elizabeth, a lawyer, cannot bear the fact that her ex is in a perfect idyll, although she literally just slammed the door in his face. “I keep scratching my head endlessly, I’m worried … And now he’s all happy, and with him is a super-sweet girl, a natural blonde (I’m a brunette), who settled at his house three weeks after I moved out.”
There are many such stories. Is it possible to imagine an indifferent Cecilia Martin, while Nicolas Sarkozy was already thinking about his next marriage just two months after a seemingly painful divorce for him? Of course not, someone who has had a similar experience will answer …
So the child puts his doll aside, but he cannot bear it if someone else takes it to play.
“It’s difficult for men to be alone, both biologically and emotionally,” explains Lucia Chiarioni, a psychologist and psychotherapist from Milan. “They experience replacement as a social necessity, and they need a girl who would be there to carry around with them everywhere and, as it were, flaunt. Often men are content with the very state of the search or a completely superficial relationship. They immediately try to find another for themselves in order to make sure that they are still able to love and be loved.
But women prepare for a break for a long time and give themselves time. They will not start a new relationship until they understand what exactly led to the failure of the previous ones. They need to heal their wounds. And, on top of everything else, they do not survive almost instantaneous comparison with another woman.
“I wanted Alexander to stop suffering because of me, but when he introduced me to his new girlfriend Leah (rather plain and devoid of charm), I felt devalued. Did he really fall in love with that gray mouse after me? laments 39-year-old Irina, an architect. “Then I really mean nothing to him.”
When a man is left
He told her, “It’s all over.” She begged him to come back. Then, some time later, she meets another and falls in love.
“It doesn’t happen often,” says Marcello Bruognolo. “Women are wary of starting new relationships, but it’s easier for younger people to leave the breakup behind. But the replaced man can even react aggressively.”
“He can show both jealousy and resentment,” Lucia Chiarioni explains, “he can be cruel to children, commit major and minor economic repressions, limit personal freedom, refuse the idea that he has been “archived.”
“There are men who adhere to the psychology of the harem,” Bruognolo reflects. “Even if he left the woman, he still wants her to be attached to him, he has a childish claim to be loved, noticed, looked after, especially if this relationship was important to him.” The confrontation can get serious. If the suffering is great, it is better to turn to a specialist: it is very difficult to overcome this stream of feelings on your own.
The trap of doubt
Most often, women at the end of every love story are very depressed, even if they themselves insisted on breaking up. “We like to feel irreplaceable,” notes Chiarioni, “to imagine that we left an indelible mark on his life. If he swore in love and said that he could not live without you, we will not be able to appreciate and understand the speed with which he will try to console himself.
By showing interest in another woman, a man becomes desirable again. “However, attention is not love,” explains Marcello Bruognolo, a psychotherapist from Milan, “it is an infantile feeling of omnipotence that brings to the surface the idea of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbpossessing another person (it must be said, erroneous).
How many times do we say: “you are mine”, “I am yours”, and so on? A discarded item regains interest if someone else wants it. So the child puts his doll aside, but he will not be able to bear it if someone else takes it to play. During a breakup, childish selfishness comes out and the man, being weaker, needs immediate satisfaction.
Former or former, by the way, often doubt the choice made. “I could no longer understand whether I was right in divorcing Andrey,” says 32-year-old Arina, the director. – I put myself in the place of his new bride and asked myself: what was there in him that I did not notice? Maybe I was wrong? ..” Doubt is part of the gap, and it is present both before the final decision and after.
When you want to hurt your ex’s feelings
“One person leaves another when they begin to experience more negative emotions than positive ones,” says Sergio Marsicano, a psychoanalyst from Milan, “however, abandoning an ex does not mean completely parting with him.
First there is grief to be dealt with, some emotional clash to be taken first on yourself and then on someone else. Otherwise, the process is blocked. A loved one has been abandoned, but a certain unconscious part of himself remains attached to him.
“I only thought about Max,” recalls Lisa, 43, a jeweler. “Moreover, his new love-filled life seemed to capture, flood me. And at the same time, it was as if he did not exist for me. And this after what was the struggle to leave him. I was pathetic.”
Love that united two people breeds hatred, rivalry, anger
The situation becomes worse if the former begins to reveally take revenge. Everyone noticed that both Cecilia Marten and Carla Bruni wore the same engagement ring, a rolling proof of interchangeability. “What is so unique that a couple creates and observes? Bruognolo asks. “Shared values, of course, but first of all, rituals: gifts, places we went together, affectionate nicknames.”
The gap can be considered good if the psychological gap has already occurred and both partners are ready for a new relationship.
If a man changes a woman, but retains the rituals, then not only does he lack imagination, he demonstrates that he perceives a woman as an object. This offends both the ex-girlfriend and the new one.
“This is the desire to hurt a runaway girl through indirect evidence that she is still important,” the expert says. – A divorce can be considered good if a psychological break has already occurred and both partners are ready for a new relationship. If not, then it’s just another step. The love that united two people gives rise to hatred, rivalry, anger.
How to get out of this situation? Start from a simple consideration: destroying another person requires too much energy. It is better to turn it to your own advantage to create a new balance.
How to survive replacement syndrome?
Advice from psychologist and psychoanalyst Lucia Chiarioni
1. Avoid meeting his new girlfriend so you don’t despise her or yourself. It takes a little time alone to regain self-respect.
2. You have to face the pain. Do not deny it by plunging headlong into work or getting bogged down in casual relationships: we are too fragile for this. It’s better to accept this pain.
3. Discover the joy of independence, give yourself the freedom that loneliness allows, for example, a comfortable rhythm of life for you, focused only on your needs, a couple of whims … This is the path to recovery, it serves to evaluate your own and his behavior, committed mistakes and what we need now.
4. Gradually take your own life back into your own hands so that at some point start a new relationship, not like a wounded fighter, but like a woman born again.