I can’t live without him because I love him! Surely you have heard this phrase many times in the movies, and you may have said it yourself. In fact, this is how many people understand real high relations and at the same time are very mistaken.
This is not love, but dependence - emotional in the first place. It replaces real feelings and disguises itself well enough, but it has one serious difference. Love is a bright, creative feeling, it is freedom. It is always mutual, because it grows only in relationships, it does not give torment.
Unrequited love is the wrong definition. There is no such thing in our world. If the relationship causes suffering, then this dependence - emotional, material or other nature - this does not change the essence.
Addiction is a substitute for love
Most often this is manifested in the relationship between a man and a woman. We are all looking for love, it is vital for us to experience harmony in relationships with a loved one. But it happens with a healthy person. If a person has a non-healing psychological wound, a gap in his emotional field, he will passionately need love, but is not able to experience it. All that is subject to him is to find an object for himself that will nourish him with necessary vital energy.
What is characteristic: the thirst for this love or energy (call it what you like) will never fade. It is as if a hole actually gaps in the soul of a person through which a feeling flows, and he eagerly clutches at its source, demanding more and more. This is called "emotional dependence." Your relationship is sick and doomed until you can heal yourself.
Manifestation of relationship addiction
If you want, you will find a large number of examples around you. The constant concentration of thoughts on the "beloved" person is exactly that notorious dependence. Emotional in the first place, because from now on these feelings determine the life of the addict, his relationship with other people, his ability to work, his emotional and physical condition.
The whole life of an addict is in this relationship. It would seem that the object of such “love” should be happy. It happens, but then it's a consumer relationship. You can give an example: young people decide to live together, while the girl devotes herself to her chosen one, puts aside all dreams and plans for this, works and provides for the family while he receives a prestigious education and builds a career, and then ... he leaves her.
What are the reasons
Why it happens? Because a person had not to rush into a whirlpool in a relationship, but to go to a center of psychological assistance. Instead, he, feeling that he is unhappy in loneliness, connects his hopes for happiness with these relationships.
But how could it be otherwise, because all mental suffering and self-doubt, all complexes disappear under one glance of a loved one! At first, it seems that this is happening. But this is only an illusion, which, unfortunately, does not last long. Gradually, conflicts and misunderstandings begin, dissatisfaction with the partner and himself.
A person, without realizing it, suffers more and more, and this inevitably leads to the collapse of relations, separation and even greater pain. And ahead, perhaps, new relationships in which a person will rush with even greater zeal, believing that he finally found exactly that one. It is easy to assume that the result is completely predictable.
Why it happens
What is the essence of this phenomenon? Dependent behavior is primarily an attempt to compensate for one's own inferiority. The meaning of such a relationship is that the dependent person tries to fill the void within himself with a partner. And this emptiness is pretty scary. It manifests itself as endless cold, like excruciating discomfort, the filling of which is a matter of life and death.
A good center for psychological assistance is what a person needs in such cases, but instead he continues his desperate attempts to find a soul mate and become happy.
The roots of psychological dependence
The reasons for constructing “sick” relationships are given above, but this phenomenon has its origins. To deal with the reasons, you need to return to deep childhood. When a baby is born, he is in a relationship with his mother. Ideally, they do not feel separate from each other. This guarantees the child care, a sense of trust and protection. If a person goes through this stage normally - receives a sufficient amount of love - he will be open to the world and normal relations. If the mother was detached, gave the child little love, he grows up with her eternal thirst, which will be reflected in dependent relationships.
The second important stage falls on the age of 18-36 months. Now the main task of the child is separation, becoming an individual. He is trying to do everything himself and should hear yes more often than no. The parent must ensure safety, but not interfere with exploring the world. The child must feel that he himself is valuable and the fruits of his activities are also valuable.
Right now the opportunity is born to feel full and to enter into deep, emotional contact with other people. If the development went wrong, if the child’s activity was suppressed, scolded, overprotected, then he will get bogged down in dependent relationships, the whole world will be poisoned by fear and mistrust.
Development does not end there, that is, the wounds received can be healed, but the older we get, the less chance it will happen. If a person’s need for love, acceptance and care was not satisfied in childhood, then he will “stick” to relationships with other people. The basis of addictive relationships is fear of life, self-doubt, a sense of inferiority, heightened anxiety.
How are addicted relationships built
The named relations are a separate topic that can become material for a whole dissertation. Dependent behavior manifests itself in the fact that a person is ready to endure anything, just not to be rejected and not to be alone.
As already mentioned, love in a dependent relationship is a way to compensate for your own failure. A partner is an object that is designed to complement it to a holistic self. As you can see, such a relationship is doomed to failure. The psychological state of both partners will only worsen, although the secondary benefits can maintain relationships for a long time.
The development of such a relationship
In fact, borrowed relationships are very limited, in them the psychological territory of one person completely dissolves in the psychological territory of another. His "self", sovereignty disappears, he ceases to live his life, completely dissolving in the life of a partner.
However, the psychological state under such conditions can only worsen. The task of filling oneself with another person is impossible, since internal integrity is achieved only as a result of the development of internal resources. Dependence is the staging of another person in the place of God. However, creating an idol and serving it to self-forgetfulness does not eliminate its own insufficiency. Dependence is a rejection of oneself.
Different dependency scenarios
There are a lot of scenarios for which the described relationships develop. We are all very different, and everyone is trying to get their own benefit. The more emotional a person is, the more passion he rushes into such a relationship and the faster he burns out. More restrained people, on the contrary, will test them for strength, hesitate, but as a result they will still not be able to take out from them what they need.
Let's look at the main scenarios of dependent relationships, none of which have a place for true closeness, responsibility and love. The emotional characteristics of people determine which option they will choose:
- Reflection in the partner. The benefit of the dependent person is obvious here: he chooses for himself such a partner who will constantly show him that he is extraordinary. It is difficult to say who is losing more in these relationships. A dependent person will constantly demand that his chosen one express his love, satisfy his desires, and every day would seek his favor. That is, he condemns constantly to prove that he is better than others and worthy of love. As soon as the partner gets tired of serving as a mirror, the relationship falls apart.
- Refusal of own sovereignty. It is the dissolution of one’s own world in another. The feeling of affection in this case is so great that a person lives on the interests of his chosen one. All responsibility for life is transferred to him, and with it for desires, goals and aspirations. That is, the addict plays the role of a child. Moreover, the more emotional the child, the more difficult it will be to build such a relationship.
- There may be a reverse situation when the dependent person seeks to absorb his partner himself, deprive him of sovereignty, and subjugate himself. An emotional-volitional person in this case plays the role of a parent. He leads him, based on the idea: "He can’t do it, I know better how best for him."
- Absolute possession and destruction of the psychological territory of the object of love. That is, the partner for the dependent person in this case is perceived as a thing, and full ownership of it allows you to feel strong and significant. Moreover, responsibility for the life of a partner is declared, but not carried out, they are simply used. On it you can test your own ability to rule.
The main symptoms of emotional dependence
Only at first glance, a strong affection (read - addiction) is a synonym for love. In fact, this is a destructive relationship that you must be able to see. How to see the addiction behind the many masks? First of all, in this case, the partners often conflict, sort things out, quarrel. At the same time, the dependent partner seeks to maintain these relations at all costs. Despite the insults, humiliations, beatings, jealousy and treason, he will find for himself hundreds of reasons to stay together.
It is noteworthy that the addict is constantly striving to save his partner, to change him for the better. This can be most clearly observed in the case of a chronic alcoholic and his wife. In this case, the addicted refuses to perceive reality, he continues to remain in the illusion that everything will work out. For him, the whole world narrows to a single object, he ceases to communicate with friends, ceases to do what he loves.
The internal changes of a dependent person depend on how emotional this person is. But most often, his mood changes to depressive and depressed. He is more and more convinced of his own unattractiveness, self-esteem falls before his eyes. The addict is inclined to hide from others problems in the relationship with the partner.
Moreover, he can simultaneously earn another or several types of addiction for himself. Not necessarily it will be alcohol or drugs - someone will become a shopaholic, the other will sit down for sweets. Finally, a list of symptoms of physical health problems completes. This is a sleep disorder and digestive upset, skin diseases and psychosomatic diseases.
How to get rid of emotional dependence
A qualified psychologist can help you get out of this situation. If you live in Moscow, you can contact the Gestalt Center, where the best specialists in their field are waiting for you.
In fact, any therapy is an appeal to oneself, a return to the origins, to early childhood, to healing oneself by the power of love, which was not enough then. This is what the psychologist will offer you.
The next step to do is very important - to recognize the presence of dependence. One sign of this is her complete denial. Until you stop and turn to face her, you will be doomed to run away from her all your life, pretending to just not see her. Only after this can we move on to a new stage, to study ourselves, to deepen our contact with ourselves, to feel our own desires, long atrophied and forgotten, our feelings, needs and boundaries. Now it becomes possible to work with self-esteem and the ability to accept oneself.
Experiencing strong emotions in addicted people is usually blocked. Often we become addicted precisely when we are not able to accept our anxiety and fear, shame and guilt.
Suppression of feelings is lack of freedom, and you already know where this path leads. Therefore, an important direction in working with a psychologist is the gradual discovery of the entire spectrum of feelings. You must allow yourself to live them, feel, change with them. Another path opens up from here - taking responsibility for one’s life. And this is at the same time a disclaimer of responsibility for the lives of other people, for their fate and decisions. This is the only way to establish healthy boundaries in relationships. This immediately resolves a huge number of problems, conflicts, grievances and pressure.
Deep healing
When all the previous steps are completed, the opportunity will open to move to a new level. The psychologist will help you regain the ability to feel vulnerability and attachment, the need for intimacy. The release of the inner child is a long and complex process. Usually, in order to complete this process, it is necessary to study the consequences of psychological trauma. Work with traumatic experience is the need to mourn and say goodbye to unfulfilled childhood happiness, with those dreams that have remained unfulfilled. As a result of such grief, we are growing up.
Finally, the last task remains - to learn constructive communication without manipulation. We need to learn to accept ourselves and the other, to withstand reality and its discrepancy with our expectations, to accept our own emotions, to accept and share responsibility. And while staying in touch with your inner child. Psychological assistance will be invaluable in acquiring new skills.