Falling In Love: Why We Choose The Lovers We Choose Part 17

Attraction Wife: He was like a rock, strong, someone you can lean on.

Husband: She seemed very sensitive, good "wife" material.

224.

Stress Wife: He is like a block, you can't convince him of anything.

Husband: She is too sensitive, too involved with the home and the children.

Attraction Wife: He seemed fatherly and wise, someone you can rely on.

Husband: She was like a little girl who needs protection, vulnerable, sensitive.

Stress Wife: His fatherly calm can drive me nuts, I try to shake him up.

Husband: Her childish tantrums are very hard to take.

Attraction Wife. He seemed very wise, mature, and knowledgeable about life.

Husband: She seemed full of life, loved nature, was open to the world.

Stress Wife: He tries to teach me all the time, and wants to tie me to the house.

Husband: She doesn't take care of the house, is not a housewife.

Attraction Husband: I was impressed by her. She seemed very competent and very confident.

Wife: He was adoring and tried to impress me. I liked it. It made me feel special.

Stress Husband: I feel put down by er. She doesn't respect my wishes, is withholding.

Wife: He behaves like an irresponsible child and forces me to be the bad mother.

Attraction Wife: He adored me. I was the center of his world.

Husband: She was beautiful and smart, all my friends envied me.

Stress Wife: He is jealous and possessive. His insecurity drives me nuts.

Husband: She criticizes me and puts me down. It hurts my feelings.

obvious complementarity between the causes of attraction and stress mentioned by the husband and those mentioned by the wife.

TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 225.

It is possible to argue that couples who come to therapy are a select group; they are more likely to experience this type of disillusionment; and unconscious, unresolved issues are more common among these couples. However, the experiences of people who partic.i.p.ate in workshops as part of their professional training, or as part of an enrichment program for employees, seem to suggest that this is not the case. Unlike couples in therapy, these people do not choose to learn about themselves and their relationships. Yet, to their great amazement, they, too, find the connection between what made them fall in love and what later became the focus of their stress, disappointment, and annoyance.

In my work on couple burnout, a work that involved hundreds of couples, I also found that the qualities that initially attract partners to each other eventually cause their burnout. A woman who was attracted to her husband because he was "the strong silent type,"

which she saw as "very romantic," later feels burned out in her marriage because "he doesn't communicate." A man who fell in love with his wife because of her strong personality, later feels burned out because she argues with him about everything (Pines, 1996).

Another possible criticism of the finding of the 100 "wise unconscious choices" is that they were not subjected to objective coding criteria; that, as a clinician, it is possible that I looked for evidence to fit the theory and influenced people to see a pattern that wasn't there. I have two answers to this criticism. First, when people hear about the connection between the qualities that attracted them and the qualities that have become stresses in the relationship, they are quick to agree with it. Second, as we will see next, seeing that connection has a very positive effect on couples.

VARIATIONS ON THE THEME.

Some people fall in love, marry the person with whom they fell in love, and remain happily married ever after. Some people repeat over and over again the same pattern of frustrating romantic relationships. They leave one partner because he or she is too suffocating, or too withdrawn and withholding, only to fall in love with another, very similar to the first. Other people, aware of their childhood deprivations and frustrations and determined to avoid them at all costs, choose a partner who is the exact opposite of the parent with whom they had an unresolved issue. However, choosing the opposite still means engagement with the issue, but in its opposite version. As we can see in the following two examples, even in such cases, things that were at first attractive later turn into frustrations.

226.

Gary was born to a large, close-knit Italian family on the East Coast. He felt suffocated by the family's constant pressures and intrusions into every aspect of his life, and hated the endless, never-ending, crowded, noisy family events. He moved to the West Coast to escape the family, especially his "suffocating" mother. He started dating women who were the exact opposite of his mother. While his mother was short, fat, dark, loud, as well as very warm and nurturing, the women he fell in love with were all tall, skinny blonds with long straight hair and reserved demeanors. They also didn't like cooking, the exact opposite of his mother whose kitchen was her acknowledged empire. Again and again Gary would fall in love with one of these "cool blonds," but after a while his enthusiasm would stall. The reason, in every case, was that the tall, skinny blond wasn't warm enough, wasn't loving and nurturing enough.

Joan met her husband after the painful termination of a stormy love affair in which she felt like she was constantly "swinging wildly, tied to a dragon's tail." Her husband who was "a wonderful person,"

the exact opposite of her father, promised her a life of calm security.

And he kept his promise. He was a doting husband and a wonderful father to their three children. Joan, whose primitive, violent father used to beat her and her brother viciously, appreciated her husband and his warm family who accepted her with open arms; she loved the home that she and her husband created for their children. Her husband believed in her and his faith helped build her self-confidence. Her new self-confidence helped her succeed in the world of business and her business success helped enhance her self-confidence even further.

With the increase in her self-confidence there was a decrease in her need for her husband's support and admiration. The calm and security he provided, so appealing and so significant to her at the beginning of the relationship, turned to boredom. The lack of drama and excitement that she craved after the excessive drama of her abusive childhood and previous relationship, so important to her at the beginning of her relationship with her husband, a calm that had helped build her sense of security and confidence, now became an intolerable deprivation.

There are cases in which people are able to resolve a childhood issue through a romantic relationship, through therapy, or through other significant life changes. As a result, they are ready for a truly different type of relationship. These are often cases in which the unresolved childhood issue was less traumatic and did not involve severe abuse, neglect, or rejection. George is an example.

George was the middle child in a large and very poor family. He had six brothers and sisters. His father, who was a hard working farmer, TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 227 was a gentle and kind man. His mother was a powerful dominant woman who constantly criticized the father for his incompetence as a breadwinner. While the atmosphere in the home was warm and loving, the economic hardship was oppressive. George remembers with great pain the times he was unable to attend friends' birthday parties because his parents couldn't afford to buy a birthday gift.

George fell in love with a woman who came from a wealthy middle-cla.s.s family. He admired her "cla.s.s" and superior manners and felt grateful when she agreed to be his wife. His wife's superior att.i.tude toward him and his family, which she expressed in such "little" ways as constantly correcting his language, helped reenact George's parents' marriage.

The significant life change that prepared George for a different type of relationship was his economic success as a businessman. The respect and prominence that he achieved as a result of this success, built George's self-confidence. While his wife continued her efforts to keep the status difference between them, George felt that her superior att.i.tude toward him was no longer appropriate. Indeed, his next romantic relationship started as a friendship based on deep professional respect. It was with a successful career woman with whom he had a business relationship. The woman adored George and saw him as a brilliant businessman and a very exciting man. Her perception, and the relationship with her, felt much more "right"

for the new George, the George who had freed himself from the feelings of inferiority and vulnerability that were a legacy from his childhood.

The a.s.sumption that unconscious romantic choices are inherently wise is most easily challenged in the cases of people, most often women, who suffered serious abuse in their childhoods, and who are attracted to partners who exhibit behavioral patterns similar to those of their abusive parents. Such a romantic choice seems, for obvious reasons, extremely unwise. It is possible to argue, however, that even in these difficult and, at times even tragic, cases, the attraction is based on an unconscious drive to overcome the early trauma, and in that sense is wise. Often times, in such cases, unless the abusive partner is willing to work on the issues at the root of the abusive behavior, the only way to avoid abusive relationships for a woman who was abused as a child is to avoid people she is extremely attracted to.4 At times, people who are aware of the destructive and frustrating patterns they have internalized, especially if they have had painful intimate relationships that repeated these patterns, decide to ignore them and choose a person who is a soul mate and a kindred spirit.

Such a person tends to be a close friend who comes from a similar 228 background, and has similar att.i.tudes and interests, someone who is kind and considerate and can be trusted. Typically, such a person is also not very exciting s.e.xually. Such friendship relationships tend to be very warm, very pleasant, very comfortable and easy, but lack "insane" pa.s.sion.

Every choice has advantages and disadvantages. A romantic choice directed by unconscious forces, in an attempt to overcome a childhood trauma, is characterized by powerful, electrifying, physical attraction, intense emotional excitement and obsessive love-the more serious the early trauma the more obsessive the love. A conscious romantic choice, in an attempt to ignore the past and build a relationship with a close, kind, and understanding friend a.s.sures an easy, comfortable, pleasant relationship with fewer highs and fewer lows.

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS AS OPPORTUNITIES.

FOR GROWTH.

The existence of a relationship between the original attraction and the cause of couple distress has an important and very practical implication. It suggests that an intimate relationship provides one of the best opportunities to work on unresolved family-of-origin issues.

When a couple realizes how the things that made them fall in love with each other later become the core issue in their relationship, feelings of guilt and blame are reduced. Breaking the "blame frame"

makes people much more willing to take responsibility for their parts in their relationship problems. This is very important, because issues related to the family of origin are almost always at the heart of a couple's issues.5 A couple's problems are very often repeated attempts to correct, overcome, cope, reenact, or erase old conflicts that originated in infantile relationships. These conflicts are transferred to adult intimate relationships. A couple copes with old anxieties and frustrations through their intimate relationship. The partners work to resolve their own intrapsychic conflicts (occurring within their psyches) through interpersonal conflicts with each other.

People cope with conflicts that originated in frustrating or threatening experiences in their childhood by shaping their intimate relationships to fit patterns similar to the ones they experienced in their families of origin. They typically do it in one of the following three ways. They fall in love with a person who resembles in a significant way the parent with whom they have an unresolved issue.

Or, they unconsciously push a partner to act the way that parent TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 229 acted. Or, they project an internal romantic image onto a partner and perceive the partner as similar to the parent even when no real similarity exists.6 The feelings generated in such intimate relationships, and in intimate relationships in general, have the kind of powerful intensity that is not usually found in other human relationships such as friendship, work, or neighborhood. A romantic partner who is capable of generating intense positive emotions at the beginning of the relationship is capable later in the relationship of generating equally intense negative emotions. A couple's conflicts, even when they are supposedly centered on trivial issues, are perceived as having existential significance. And, indeed, a couple's conflict is in the deepest sense an existential struggle.

Couple therapists describe it jokingly when they say that marriage is the battleground to which two families of origin send their representatives to fight a war that will determine which family will direct the couple's lives.

In therapy, couples learn to identify the errors they make in their perceptions of each other. A woman, after checking repeatedly with her husband, realizes that when she thinks he is angry, he is actually hurt. And they learn to recognize feelings they did not admit to in themselves but, instead, projected onto their partners. In the case of this woman, she recognized her own anger that she had denied. This recognition helps develop a more complete, integrated, and secure sense of self in both partners and a perception of the other as different, independent, and non-threatening.

Working on couple conflicts enables the resolution of individual issues. This does not necessarily mean that couples get over their infantile feelings and needs. In a mature and healthy intimate relationship they don't have to. In such relationships, partners can tolerate each other's infantile needs and are willing to make an effort to satisfy them.

Couples who learn to accept each other also learn to accept themselves, including those denied and suppressed parts of themselves which they had worked so hard to ignore. Total acceptance of the other, especially of infantile and needy parts, requires empathy. Empathy implies feeling what the other feels.

This can be very scary for undifferentiated individuals who don't have firm ego boundaries. Such a person does not feel a secure sense of self or psychological independence. Feeling what the partner feels means denying or giving up personal feelings. Here, once again, the ability to listen to an intimate partner and express 230 empathy not only testifies to the existence of a separated and individuated self but also helps develop it.

HOW TO TURN COUPLE PROBLEMS INTO.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH.

The first step is developing awareness. It starts with an exploration of the things that made the couple fall in love with each other, the things that are most problematic for them in each other, and the connection between the two. Both families of origin need to be examined, with an emphasis on the relationship each partner had with each parent, the relationship between the parents, the connections among these three relationships for each partner, and the couple's core issue. At the end of this step both partners should understand why they chose to be in the relationship and be willing to take responsibility for their part in their couple problems.

Awareness of the role they played by falling in love and taking responsibility for their romantic choice helps people better control its outcome. This taking of responsibility, or "self-focus," requires changing the direction of the flashlight of awareness to point away from the partner and toward the self; thus, it forgoes the far easier solution of blaming the partner for disappointments in the relationship.

The second step, and the harder step for many, is expressing empathy. expressing empathy.

Couples can be taught to listen to each other and to express empathy, although the lower the level of differentiation of a couple, the harder this is. Mirroring-on Mirroring-on e of the most basic and important techniques in behavioral marital therapy-is a good way to start. Here is how it is done. e of the most basic and important techniques in behavioral marital therapy-is a good way to start. Here is how it is done.

With clear instruction to talk about oneself, without judging, criticizing, or attacking the other, each partner is asked, in turn, to talk about an important problem or issue. The other partner is instructed to listen, is permitted to ask clarification questions, but make no other response, and then "mirror," or reflect back in his or her own words, what was heard and understood. If it seems to the speaking partner that the listening partner "didn't get it," the speaker can explain again and again, until the listener understands.

Harville Hendrix (1992) adds to this cla.s.sic exercise the crucial component of empathy. In his version of the exercise, after it is clear that the listener understood fully what the speaker tried to say, all the aspects of the problem are raised and discussed by using such questions as, "Is that all?" or "Is there anything else?" Then the listener is encouraged to express empathy by explaining how the TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 231 personality, history, and experiences of the speaker, make the speaker's feelings perfectly understandable. The expression of empathy is wonderful for the person receiving it, and is a powerful impetus for personal growth in the person expressing it.

The third step is behavioral change. behavioral change. After both partners understand the deeper dynamic of their relationship and are able to express empathy for each other's feelings and needs, it is easier for them to give each other the gift of the thing each most desires (Hendrix, 1988). Given the special dynamic of couple relationships, the effort to grant the partner's wish is the most effective way to bring about personal growth. After both partners understand the deeper dynamic of their relationship and are able to express empathy for each other's feelings and needs, it is easier for them to give each other the gift of the thing each most desires (Hendrix, 1988). Given the special dynamic of couple relationships, the effort to grant the partner's wish is the most effective way to bring about personal growth.

After all, the partner is asking for the expression of parts in the self that have been repressed or projected onto the partner. And so, when a woman behaves in a more rational manner as a gift to her husband and when a man expresses his deep emotions as a gift to his wife, both the husband and the wife as well as their marriage grow.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.

From everything said so far in this chapter and throughout the book, it is possible to draw a number of conclusions.

* An intimate relationship provides one of the best opportunities for mastering unresolved childhood issues.

* Unconscious forces more than logical considerations dictate those with whom we fall in love.

* The unconscious choice is of the most appropriate person with whom the individual can reenact childhood experiences. Such a person combines the most significant traits of both parents.

* Negative traits have more of an impact on romantic choices, especially in obsessive loves, than do positive traits, because the injury or deprivation caused by them needs healing.

* The more traumatic the childhood injury, and the greater the similarity between the partner and the injuring parent, the more intense the experience of falling in love.

* In falling in love there is a return to the primal symbiosis with Mother, a perfect union with no ego boundaries.

This is why we only fall in love with one person at a time. The return to the lost paradise recreates the expectation that the lover will fill all infantile needs.

232.

* Since falling in love is dictated by an internal romantic image, lovers feel as if they have known each other forever. And since it involves a reenactment of very specific and very powerful childhood experiences, lovers feel that the beloved is "the one and only" and that the loss of the beloved is unbearable.

* When a couple falls in love, their unconscious choice is mutual and complementary, enabling both partners to express their own "core issues." Together they create their "core issue" as a couple, the issue around which most of their later conflicts center.

* Understanding the connection between unresolved childhood issues and later problems reduces feelings of guilt and blame, and helps both partners take responsibility for their parts in the relationship problems.

It helps couples turn problems into opportunities for personal and couple growth.

* Couples who listen to each other's feelings and needs, express empathy, and give each other the things they ask for, can keep the romantic spark alive indefinitely.

The reason for this is that expressing empathy and granting the partner's wishes that grow out of the connection between the couple dynamic and childhood issues, is the best way to bring about personal and couple growth. As the partners grow psychologically, their relationship grows. And growth is the ant.i.thesis of burnout (Pines & Aronson, 1988).

And finally, once again, on the many perspectives on love: As there are as many minds as there are heads, so there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

-Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina Anna Karenina As I noted in the introductory chapter, this book addresses only one of the many forms of love-romantic love. It addresses only the romantic love between two people who actually have a relationship and excludes those cases in which love is one-sided or unrequited.

And it only addresses one stage of romantic love-falling in love.

Only in this last chapter do we refer to problems that couples have later on in the relationships, but even this discussion ties the problems TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 233 to the falling-in-love stage. From the many perspectives on falling in love, this book focuses on the psychological perspective, with brief mentions of the biological, historical, social, and cultural perspectives. It argues that every experience of falling in love has a unique emotional and psychological dynamic based on an interaction between the conscious and unconscious, repressed and projected, parts of both partners. In a combination unique to each partner, those parts are influenced by two parents and the relationship between them. Because falling in love is such a unique experience, a definition of falling in love is never offered. Readers are invited to contemplate their own unique definition.

The emphasis on the unconscious influences on falling in love may leave the impression that the past, especially early childhood, has complete influence on romantic choices. This is definitely not the case. As we saw in the first part of the book, environmental, situational, dispositional, social, cultural, and even genetic factors also play a role in falling in love, even more so in mate selection. In addition, logical considerations, social and familial pressures, plans for the future, spiritual quests, and romantic ideals affect romantic choices.

Studies show that people's expectations of love relationships and their romantic ideals affect their experiences in romantic relationships (Morrow & O'Sullivan, 1998). People who believe in romantic destiny, that potential romantic partners are either meant for each other or they are not, have a stronger connection between their initial satisfaction with a romantic relationship and that relationship's longevity, than people who don't. They also tend to use avoidance strategies in dealing with relationship problems and take more responsibility for ending the relationship by describing it as wrong from the beginning. On the other hand, people who believe that successful relationships are cultivated and developed have more long-term approaches to dating, use more relationship-maintaining coping strategies, and, even if a relationship has ended, disagree that it was wrong from the start (Knee, 1998).

So romantic ideals and expectations about romantic relationships have an impact. But do they tell us the specific person with whom we are going to fall in love or why? The answer is no. The best answer to this most fascinating of questions about romantic love is offered by clinical theories that describe, each using its own terminology, the internal romantic image. The theories suggest that people fall in love with a person who reminds them of their parents, especially a parent with whom they have an unresolved issue. The more intense the unresolved issue, the more intense the experience of falling in love, with incredible highs when the infantile needs are 234 satisfied, and incredible lows when the infantile needs are frustrated the way they were in childhood.

Because parents are complex people whose traits are both positive and negative and with whom the relationship is multi-layered and complex, because our childhoods include a huge number of experiences some positive and some negative, and because our romantic images continue evolving throughout our lives-our internal romantic images are complex and applicable to more than one person. The same person creates with every romantic partner a unique pattern of interaction. At times, a person will fall in love with one lover who satisfies a core issue such as a need for security, but once that need is satisfied, the person will fall in love with another lover who will satisfy the opposite need for drama and excitement.

At times people don't see the beloved at all, but fall in love with the projection of a romantic image.

Despite the unique emotional pattern of every romantic relationship, all romantic relationships share one dynamic-a constant battle between forces pulling for symbiosis and forces pulling for individuation. The forces pulling for symbiosis are fueled by the longing to get back to the safety of the primal symbiosis with Mother.

The forces pulling for individuation are fueled by the desire to do something unique and significant that will give meaning to life. When people fall in love, the forces pulling for merging and symbiosis win.

But in most relationships, after a period of time that can be days, months, or years, the forces pulling for individuation become stronger.

When a relationship remains stuck in the symbiotic stage, the result is a suffocating relationship in which people have little sense of their individual selves as separate from the other (Bader & Pearson, 1988).

Intimate relationships that keep the romantic spark alive are characterized by a balance between the need for intimacy and security and the need for individuation and self-actualization. In these relationships both partners feel secure enough in their individuality and ego boundaries that intimacy and closeness are not perceived as threatening and dangerous. Experiences of fusion when they happen, for example, during o.r.g.a.s.m, are experienced as pleasurable rather than as scary. This type of relationship can be described by the metaphor of "roots and wings" (Pines, 1996).

In roots and wings roots and wings relationships, the relationships, the roots roots symbolize intimacy, togetherness, security, and commitment. The symbolize intimacy, togetherness, security, and commitment. The wings wings symbolize individuation, self-actualization, and self-expression. The togetherness supports self-actualization, and self-actualization strengthens the togetherness. But what is more important, in the context of a book about falling in love, is that in "roots and wings" relationships, couples TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 235 symbolize individuation, self-actualization, and self-expression. The togetherness supports self-actualization, and self-actualization strengthens the togetherness. But what is more important, in the context of a book about falling in love, is that in "roots and wings" relationships, couples TURNING LOVE PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH 235 manage to keep, indefinitely, the romantic spark of the falling-in-love stage.

Falling in love and having a romantic involvement have a positive effect on people's psychological well-being. People in romantic relationships feel closer to their ideal selves and feel better about themselves (Campbell et al., 1994). In other words, falling in love is not only a positive experience in and of itself, it is an important experience within the context of people's emotional life and within the life of their romantic relationship.

In Ethics of the Fathers Ethics of the Fathers (Mishna 15), it is said that "All is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is granted; and by grace is the universe judged, yet all is according to the amount of work." This Mishna (Oral Law) is usually inter preted as meaning that everything is predetermined by G.o.d, yet a person still has free will. As a psychologist I choose to interpret it differently: while our genetic makeups and childhood experiences are engraved in us, by influencing the way we look, our personalities, and our basic att.i.tudes toward ourselves, toward others, and toward love, we can still choose whether, or how, to follow the scripts in our romantic love relationships. (Mishna 15), it is said that "All is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is granted; and by grace is the universe judged, yet all is according to the amount of work." This Mishna (Oral Law) is usually inter preted as meaning that everything is predetermined by G.o.d, yet a person still has free will. As a psychologist I choose to interpret it differently: while our genetic makeups and childhood experiences are engraved in us, by influencing the way we look, our personalities, and our basic att.i.tudes toward ourselves, toward others, and toward love, we can still choose whether, or how, to follow the scripts in our romantic love relationships.

Appendix ATTRACTION DATA.

An a.n.a.lysis of a Romantic Relationship Dating frequency (7=non-stop dating to 1=never dated):____ Number of significant intimate relationships:____ Length of this relationship:______ Commitment to a/the relationship (7=happily married to 1=never was in a relationship): ____ Sense of security in the relationship (7=very high to 1=very low):____ Ability to be oneself in the relationship (7=definitely yes):____ Level of intimacy in the relationship (7=very high):____ Power in the relationship (7=the interviewee has all the power to 1=the partner has all the power):____ Pursuer/Distances (1=the interviewee is the pursuer to 7=interviewee is the distancer):____ Physical attraction to partner (7=very strong attraction):____ Friendship before romance (7=great friendship):____ Stereotyped s.e.x roles (7=very stereotyped):____ Frequency of conflicts (7=fighting all the time to 1=never fight):____ Ability to deal with conflicts (7=very high)____ How are conflicts resolved (fight/flight/talk):____ Ability to stand separation (7=very high ability to 1=very low ability):____ Jealousy is a problem in the relationship (7=a serious problem):____ Jealousy is a personal problem (7=a serious problem):____ Arousal played a role in the initial attraction (yes/no):____ Propinquity played a role in the initial attraction (yes/no):____ Similarity played a role in the initial attraction (yes/no):____ Partner's attraction played a role in the initial attraction (yes/no):.____ Physical attraction played a role in the initial attraction (yes/no):____ Personality traits of the partner played a role in the initial attraction (yes/ no):.____ Status of partner played a role in the initial attraction (yes/no):____ Is/was partner satisfying an important need? (yes/no):____ Is the partner described as the "best friend"? (yes/no):____ Was it love at first sight? (yes/no):____ 237.