2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
An interesting and comprehensive article on addictive relationships.
Addicted people have some characteristics common to all of them.
The most striking feature is the inaccessibility of the personality of the whole spectrum - the pole of experiences, which can be conscious or unconscious.
Usually we are talking about the impossibility of experiencing both love and anger towards one person, a significant partner. They can manifest themselves only separated from one another: either aggression or love, extremely rarely - anger and guilt, guilt and indignation at the same time. This state is called intrapersonal splitting, it is more or less characteristic of any addiction. In dependent relationships there are split stereotypes, a pronounced emotional "pole" of one provokes a pronounced "pole" of the other.
They can complement each other complementarily (for example, aggression is available to one, and compliance is available to the other), and these are the most stable pairs, or they can compete with their identical "poles" (both compliant or both aggressive), which makes the relationship more conflicting (in the first case, passive - aggressive, in the second - openly aggressive towards each other) and less stable. People who chronically find themselves in dependent relationships, one way or another, feel their deficiency. Addiction is a pair “game”, only those who need this form of compatibility enter into it. Its main drawback is pain and suffering, constant anxiety, lack of perspective to change something.
But there is also a "win": the eternity of such a relationship. Moreover, in a partner, an addicted person discovers a part of himself, a function that he himself is in short supply. Thus, individually, each of them is deficient, but together they are a living, integral organism. Addiction is a tacit agreement: you do one thing for me (for example, show aggression), and I do another for you (I keep in touch with the world through warm affection). As long as everyone fulfills their part of the agreement, no division threatens anyone, anxiety remains under control and does not interfere with the mental and social life of everyone. This state is called fusion. Partners are "turned" to each other by their "good" poles, their relationship is strong.
Anxiety and displeasure, forced actions arise if one of the partners begins to “play against the rules”, wants some changes, or if life itself requires new interaction skills, sets new tasks. In this case, the “initiator of change” becomes “bad” and must be “returned to its original place.” The second partner takes openly or passively aggressive actions (accusations, resentment, anger or intimidation) to restore the status quo. Both partners are characterized by high anxiety and low tolerance for stress and frustration. For the “victim”, frustration is the rejection and ignorance of her partner in contact, for the “tyrant” it is an attempt to contradict him. But there is also a common frustration for them: the threat of a break in dependent relationships.
Accordingly, they behave oppositely and complementary.
The "victim" suppresses his manifestations, fearing to cause displeasure of the "tyrant". It is no secret that the main patterns of our behavior are formed in childhood on the basis of those relationship models that parents "show" to us.
The life experience of the “victim” suggests that only by blocking one's own aggression and obeying other people's demands, one can reliably maintain a meaningful connection.
The "tyrant", on the other hand, actively manifests its demands, suppressing sympathy and guilt. In his life, getting what he wants is possible only by firmly insisting on his own. However, it would be an exaggeration to say that the “victim” is all right with warm feelings, and the “tyrant” - with aggression. Each of them is unable to regulate himself independently, based on his needs and states: "victim"
In my video, I touch on the topic of addictive relationships from the perspective of the victim, since in practice this is exactly what one has to deal with.
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