It's easy to fall in love. What's harder to do is think about
why you fall in love. What's even more difficult is asking yourself the question,
is this person right for me? Often, the answer is
absolutely not. So why do we have such a strong tendency to fall in love with people who are completely, utterly wrong for us? This is an important question...maybe even the most important question.
The following exercise helped me understand several of the reasons behind the worst and most damaging decisions I've made. I might not have a choice about how I feel about someone, but I have a choice to think about it rationally. Feelings are not facts. I have to choose to cooperate with love. If it isn't healthy, I can choose to say no.
I hope this gives you some food for thought. I'm still chewing. Here's the exercise.
To begin with, take a sheet of paper. Draw four horizontal lines across it, making five equal spaces.
In the first space, write down three negative characteristics your parents share. Only three. You don't have to pick on a single parent; it's more about isolating the negative qualities they exhibited as a unit.
In the second space, write down three of the positive traits your parents exhibited. Same rules as above apply.
In the third space, write down a single thing - the most important thing - you wanted from your parents but did not get.
In the next space, write down the best feeling you got from your happiest childhood memory involving your family.
Finally, in the last space, answer this question: When I was frustrated/angry/upset with my parents as a child, how did I react?
OK, now look at your list. In this order, write the following statements at the top of each consecutive space:
Space #1: "I am looking for someone who is..."
Space #2: "To always be..."
Space #3: "So that I can get..."
Space #4: "So I can feel..."
Space #5: "And I stop myself from getting this by..."
OK, so...here's my list:
I am looking for someone who is...passively avoidant, angry, and physically/emotionally abusive.
To always be...honest, attentive, and loving.
So that I can get...physical and emotional affection.
So I can feel...safe and fulfilled.
I stop myself from getting this by...withdrawing into myself and isolating. - This is also what we bring into our relationships with significant others...and then wind up blaming on them.
I need emotional and physical intimacy so that I can feel safe and fulfilled. A man who is honest, attentive, and loving can give those things to me, but a man who is passively avoidant, angry, and physically/emotionally abusive obviously can't.
In the past, I've closed myself off from receiving what I've needed by choosing men who exhibit a confusing (but familiar) mixture of these qualities. I've coped with the inevitable pain of those relationships by isolating and withdrawing into myself (escapism to the nth degree)...and after I've withdrawn, I've generally blamed the men from whom I've withdrawn for "pushing me away" or "forcing me to withdraw".
It all seemed very convoluted...until I sat down and hashed it out. Then it made all kinds of sense.
The first two spaces - the positive and negative traits - are what we almost invariably look for in another person. Because our child-selves aren't able to separate the good from the bad, as adults we often wind up picking people who share traits that are nearly identical to our parents' strengths and weaknesses. We tend to navigate our emotional lives by feelings. Rather than searching for partners who display the good traits and rejecting those who carry the bad traits, we wind up choosing the people with whom we feel most comfortable - the abusive person who also exhibits moments of pure tenderness; the brilliant person who is emotionally cold; the honest person who avoids conflict at all costs.
More often than not, these are the people who will frustrate us, damage us, and make us despair of ever having a normal, healthy relationship.
Here's the good news: if we understand what it is that attracts us to another person in the first place, we can learn to spot dangerous qualities and reject the people who will very likely do us harm while actively searching for people who exhibit the qualities we need the most. We can stop chasing the bad and start seeking the good. We can also learn to defuse the self-defeating behaviors that prevent us from receiving the things we need the most.
The healthier we get - that is, the more we learn to use our heads to guide (if not precisely rule) our hearts - the less we wind up in the same situation over and over again. It's interesting how many of the relationships I've chosen in my life follow the same painful pattern. This test-that's-not-a-test helped me understand why I've picked the people I've picked...and it's helped me see how far I've come over the past several years, particularly after the last cycle of counseling I went through. I'm still drawn to men who exhibit those negative qualities, but I'm much more adept at recognizing the roots of that attraction and cutting the relationships off before they become dangerous.
Love isn't a puzzle to be solved, but I do think it can become a terrible trap if it isn't approached with a certain degree of rational thought, caution, and common sense. Being led along by feelings might be a heady experience, but in my life it's often led to a world of hurt.
This is a really thought-provoking little exercise here. Not only does it explain some choices I've made that I thought were out of my control, it gives me some tools to halt some very destructive behaviors.
My kickass counselor cheerfully admits that choosing to fall in love with a healthier breed of person might mean that some of the "butterflies" and typical "OMG I AM SO IN LOVE!!11!" feelings might not be as strong, but he likens those sorts of feelings to the rush of adrenaline you get before you do something very dangerous. It's easy to confuse actual happiness with the chemical warning shots you get before you jump off a cliff. (It's called "falling in love" for a reason. Isn't it better to think about "choosing to love" someone?) Romance is a good thing, but if an entire relationship is founded on a fluttery and unstable mixture of lust and adrenaline things can get ugly - if not actively dangerous - pretty fast. Sometimes being overwhelmed is just overwhelming.
(My kickass counselor also says that one of the most important hallmarks of maturity is the ability to delay gratification. Dammit, he's making me do actual work here.)
The best part is that all of this stuff is practical, rational, doable, and decidedly un-flaky. It's not easy to look at the ways I've gravitated toward people who hurt me, but it's an incredible relief to realize why I did it. It's an even greater relief to know that I have a choice in such matters from now on.
I'm hacking my life.