22/07/2023
Absolutely love this 🔥🔥🔥
As a couples therapist, I saw a clear pattern in relationships.
It went:
1. Emotional needs have gone unmet in childhood. Grew up with a feeling of loneliness and lack of belonging.
2. Fantasy begins (typically before age 7) where child develops a fantasy world. Usually around a family on tv, a desire to marry the perfect person, or a belief that someone will rescue them.
3. Culture reinforces fantasy through ideas there is “the one” or the “perfect person” or the “fairy tale”
4. Adult subconsciously believes there is one right person who will make everything fall into place.
5. Adult projects all of their unmet childhood needs onto partner. This is subconscious. They believe their partner should make them happy, cater to their wounds, and unconditionally love them in a way a parent could not.
6. Ultimately the partner cannot meet these expectations. There’s disillusionment, anger, and pain.
7. Person goes on search to again find the perfect person without properly grieving the romantic fantasy.
Awakening means we have to grieve the fantasy. We have to recognize that people are human. And they will bother us, annoy is, and activate us.
And more importantly, love is a practice. It’s not a feeling. It involves conscious choice and effort from BOTH people.
It involves waking up and saying: “we are in this together. I choose you. Through our relationship (even the difficult times) I learn more about myself. I develop more awareness and resilience. Together we build trust. Together we are not perfect, but I have matured enough to value the peace of security over the chase of the fairy tale.”
