Imagine that you just broke up with your lover. “What happened?”, you say. “When did we stop sharing ourselves with each other? How did this dream turn into a nightmare? When did trust break down between us? When did we stop looking forward to a long future together? When did he (or she) become controlling, possessive, hostile, dependent, commitment phobic, insecure, abusive, toxic, or a self-esteem terminator? I don’t know if I will recover from this breakup. I may never fall in love again.”
This is how we feel after a romantic breakup. But we do recover; we do fall in love again. It just takes the right person to come along to give us hope that this time we got love right.
We humans are remarkably resilient when it comes to opening ourselves up to romantic love again. Intimate relating is such a vital part of living that our lives do not feel complete or right without it. Yes, we can exist without finding our one true love, but most of us would feel incomplete.
Take for example my high school friend Maria who reconnected with me several years ago. Over 20 years had passed since we had talked. She shared with me all that had happened in her life throughout the years. The most remarkable thing was that she described each stage of her life by her successes and failures in love. In spite of her success as a journalist and her ability to learn and grow from her accomplishments and losses, she topped off the narration of her life by saying that she had never found true love.
I knew how important it was for her to find her romantic soul mate. Without that one true lover to share ourselves with–our longings, desires, joys and losses, we feel like ships lost at sea without sight of land.
No matter how many times love doesn’t work out well for us, we will try again and pray that this time we get it right; that we have found the right person to settle down with for life. But, to get love right, to anchor our lives with one true love, we have to choose well.
A Tendency To Choose Wrong
Some of us have a tendency to choose the wrong people to love that may involve the following three factors in choosing romantic mates.
Tendency One, the Lovability Factor: We tend to subconsciously pick lovers who confirm how lovable we feel as people. If you expect to be disappointed, hurt or rejected; you will find the person to fulfill this love scenario, no matter her name or face. Whatever it is that you expect, you will find him or her to fulfill it. Scripts for our lovability serve an important purpose for us. They fulfill a particular relationship drama that we’ve come to know and accept. If you feel unlovable, you will choose people whose behaviors reaffirm this feeling in you. The solution: Examine how lovable you feel. What is your lovability factor? If it’s low, you need to work on loving yourself more. Here is a Seven Step Prescription to Self-Love, to help you. When you truly love and respect yourself, you will stop attracting romantic partners who disappoint you.
Tendency Two, the Identity Factor: We may tend to choose lovers who fit with superficial, social definitions of ourselves rather than our deeper psychological and spiritual selves. If this is the case, we will attract romantic mates who fit with the superficial aspects of ourselves. Over time, when our true selves surface, we find we have chosen, wrongly, once again.
The solution: Seek intimate partners who resonate with more than your social persona. Be more open to dating people who fit you psychologically and spiritually.
Tendency Three: the Guilt Factor: This tendency in us is probably the most psychologically deep of the three, as it really falls outside of our awareness. We may feel attached to our families of origin on a deep emotional level, especially if one or both parents conveyed that they needed us emotionally to stay around. We may feel guilty if we get love right, because having a successful relationship feels like we are betraying our parents and family. Hence, we may subconsciously choose lovers who contrast so greatly with our family of origin’s values and ways of being that it becomes to hard to make the relationships work out. I have had clients throughout the years who choose wrong lovers out of this reason. Psychotherapy helps them to see what they are doing and to turn the pattern around.
The solution: Examine what it means to you to form a healthy romantic relationship. Do you feel torn between family and mate? How has this played out in your romantic relationships? Reflect upon your past intimate relationships. Do they end because you choose people who have a lot of psychological problems, addictions, or abuse in their past? If so, you may be choosing relationships that do not allow you to completely bond with them, as a way to stay emotionally attached to your family of origin.
You have a right to form healthy, independent relationships from your family of origin. Once you fully understand how the guilt factor has worked in your life, you will embrace your right to love freely and fully.
Remember that it takes courage to be happy. You have to get comfortable with the discomfort of going against these three tendencies, if you wish to start making choices in romantic partners that are healthy for you in love, work and play.
I hope you enjoyed my post today and have taken away something useful that you can use to get love right this time. If you liked it, please let me know by selecting the Like icon that immediately follows. You can also Tweet or Google+1 today’s post to let your friends know about it. Warm regards
