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You live with your loved one, are happy together, and there is simply no need for other people, right? No, not like that, says coach Kurt Smith. Attempts to replace other social connections with communication with a partner will not lead to anything good.
What is needed for a relationship to be harmonious and stable? There are many factors, and one of the decisive ones is the personal space that everyone in a couple has, an island of independence and freedom. Friends help create it. However, social ties with someone outside the union are necessary not only for this.
Opportunity to look at problems from a different angle
We can discuss burning issues with friends and find solutions that simply did not occur to us before. In addition, the social circle forms a kind of “mirror” in which we can consider our life and relationships with a partner “in different refractions”. It helps us grow and develop.
In addition, it is always nice to know that we are not alone in facing such problems: it gives both psychological relief and the opportunity to rethink a lot.
Self-confidence
Communication with friends and friends allows us not to fall into the trap of emotional dependence on a partner. The feeling that our world is wider than relationships with one, even the closest person, that we are important and interesting to others, makes us stronger and more self-confident.
Intimacy
Leaving each other the right to communicate with friends, we strengthen mutual trust, and energy makes leisure time with a partner more interesting and brighter. The presence of our friends also frees the spouse from the need to be our only “ears” and “vest”, to constantly listen and share all our experiences and anxieties.
Yes, the support of a loved one is very important, but the responsibility for our psychological well-being, which a partner is forced to bear alone, may not bring us closer, but, on the contrary, alienate us.
Relief from stress
Sharing with other thoughts, impressions and experiences, we get the opportunity to relive and appreciate the experience we shared with our partner, to turn the pages of our common history again.
Relationships with a partner should remain a priority, and if it is important for him to spend time with you, and not with friends, this must be reckoned with. The main thing is to find and maintain a balance, and then relationships with friends will bring new emotions to the union and make it possible to look at a loved one from the outside in order to realize how dear he is to us.
The myth of the perfect partner
Lev Khegai, Jungian analyst
At the heart of the refusal of external relations and «closure» on the partner lies the archetypal dream of connecting with your other half. It seems that if the feminine yin and the masculine yang perfectly complement each other, we will find the desired integrity and all our needs will be miraculously satisfied. This deep dream cannot be suppressed by any arguments of reason. People have been looking for and will continue to look for a partner who is perfect for them.
Any stable relationship is based on an often unconscious, hidden agreement that the partner is «the one, the only one.» The rejection of friends additionally confirms his significance and chosenness. The ability of both partners to distinguish between the real and the symbolic is important here. Within the framework of a relationship, they can play the ideal of the union, but at the same time it is important to understand that the partner is a real person with his own will and destiny, shortcomings and problems. «Shortcut» on it does not make us closer. Therefore, your unconscious deep need for a “destined soul mate” should be respected, but not succumbed to it entirely.
From the point of view of psychoanalysis, «closure» on a partner is due to a neurotic need for fusion and symbiotic relationships. Often in the history of such people we find childhood traumas that have complicated the passage of the stage of that special closeness that exists between mother and baby. The desire to make a partner the center of your life is a kind of attempt to return to childhood and get what was in short supply.
Sometimes this is defensive in nature: we seem to be running from responsibility for our own development. Codependency traits are present to varying degrees in each of us. An attempt to replace friendships with communication with one person is only a sign of their extreme severity and our insufficient maturity.
Kurt Smith is a coach and executive director of Guy Stuff Counseling & Coaching.