Why we seek to merge with a partner

To merge in love, to dissolve in each other, to turn the two halves into a single whole — all that poets have sung for centuries has become synonymous with a dead end today. Does it always destroy individuality and kill desire?

Confluence leads to increased anxiety

In psychoanalysis, the term «fusion» refers to two «merged» unconscious, when the boundaries of the personalities of partners are blurred.

Two people want to become as close and consonant to each other as possible, to breathe the same air. From here, one step to the desire to absorb each other, to turn into a single whole.

“Merger” is the term of psychotherapist Murray Bowen, says family therapist Anna Varga. — It means a very strong emotional dependence of partners on each other and the behavior built on this basis. Partners seek love, support, and acceptance, but at the same time fear rejection and conflict. They are constantly trying to pick up signals from each other and figure out how to respond to them correctly.”

Merging requires mutual desire. “If one partner aspires to him, and the other does not, they won’t even have an affair,” says the psychotherapist. “They won’t like each other, because the one who does not want to merge will seem cold to the other, and the one who wants to, intrusive.”

Partners who seek to merge have an extremely high level of anxiety. In order to prevent a mistake, they watch each other very carefully and literally get hung up on a partner.

If one looked wrong, the other immediately fears: “What if this happened because I did something wrong, and now they stopped loving me?”

Relations in a couple do not develop, and a person as an individual simply disappears.

“A partner who desperately watches how the other treats him ceases to understand how he himself treats his life partner,” notes Anna Varga. “It seems to him that he sincerely loves, but it turns out that he only adapts: he does what he really doesn’t like, only to be approved, they said words of love.”

Because of this over-adaptation, the rejection of oneself and one’s desires, relationships begin to deteriorate: a merger is inevitably followed by a break.

Conflicts and reconciliations can alternate for years. At the same time, the partners are constantly thinking about the correctness of the choice, considering the possibility of a divorce, and a constructive dialogue between them does not arise.

“If one of the two leaves the relationship, most likely, everything will be repeated in the next marriage,” says Anna Varga. — Partners need to understand where one ends and the other begins, but for them it is really difficult.

Obviously, the loss of their own «I» comes from the parental family: most likely, it was there that they learned to step on their throats, not to hear themselves, doing so that mom and dad feel good.

This is what happens at the dawn of a relationship.

The confluence is often inhabited by young, newly formed couples.

“Partners do not yet know each other very well, they are in captivity of their own fantasies and expectations, which they did not have time to give up. They have not yet accumulated information that confirms or refutes these expectations,” says Anna Varga. Merging is a very intensive process. There is an intense emotional exchange that makes the relationship very positive.”

This phase can last from several months to several years, but then the partners usually move on to another stage. They take each other off their pedestal and put them under more scrutiny. This helps to restore the boundaries of their «I» and return to what is important to them, to their individuality and freedom.

Relationships develop more successfully and more productively if none of the partners expects the other to become a bandage on his wounds, does not give up his own existence, and even more so does not try to “absorb” the other.

This is exactly what happens when we idealize the image of a partner. Contrary to expectations, the merger alienates partners from each other, but does not bring them closer.

“In a relationship, you can’t connect yourself into a “we” without leaving a single chance for the “I”, write family therapists Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson. “The starting point should be the recognition of our differences, the desire to preserve the individuality of each, which will automatically lead to the attraction, not the alienation of the other.”

Proximity without confluence

It turns out that couples who have been happily married for many years are not prone to merging?

«Of course no. These are just native people who are happy with each other, who see and know their boundaries, ”Anna Varga answers.

From the outside, it looks like a merger, but in fact it is the closeness of two people who do not dissolve into each other, but retain their own individuality.

They are partners who have reached a certain maturity, who simply go together in the same direction. They are close, they have a lot in common, but this closeness does not stifle them.

They are able to exist on their own, are not afraid of loneliness, have inner balance. They do not sacrifice themselves, do not become energy vampires, do not succumb to the temptation to control and possess, do not require a partner to become the meaning of their life.

They do not need dramatic intensity and they are far from the romantic idea of ​​the murderous power of feelings.

They are together because they have found their way to help the other be who he really is.