Cheating As A Way To Cope With An Unmet Need

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Childhood is when the trees have no branches, but hands, there are not leaves on the trees, but money, the month has eyes and a mouth, poplar fluff becomes a letter, and someone lives under the bed.

During my childhood there was such a game of "secrets". The essence of the game is to leave a small treasure underground and no one has ever found it. To do this, you had to dig out a small hole, put a flower or a beautiful pebble there, find a piece of broken glass and cover your treasure with it. Then bury a hole. From that moment on, you became the owner of a personal treasure and a small secret that can be extracted at any time. But more often than not, we no longer dug out our "secret", but forgot about it, along the way burying the next. Every day we became richer and richer in "secrets", but never again remembered that the treasure could be retrieved. We were more willing to look for other people's "secrets", as it seemed more fun. Now I am writing and thinking: how many "secrets" are left in the courtyard of the house where I grew up, where in the summer, all day long, I ran around in flip flops made with a kitchen knife from sandals and buried my personal treasures. Abandoned and forgotten.

Forgetting a child's "secret" is not scary. Much sadder is the situation with desires and such important needs that we dreamed of since childhood, but which were never destined to be realized. From year to year, the number of our unmet needs is growing.

We hide everything that is most valuable and truly important for our inner world inside, displacing it deeper under the pressure of life's tasks. Our senses are beacons that speak to our needs. Those that we once buried inside, promising to think about ourselves tomorrow.

But tomorrow never came. Each new day was today, with its own priorities and needs. An amazing thing happens: the more we hide our feelings from ourselves, the more we begin to be involved in satisfying other people's needs and desires.

Many desires have been lost on the paths of our life history. We tore away from ourselves a piece of our warmth and tenderness, threw it under the feet of those who could not always appreciate. Those who not only did not need to open the embrace of their souls, but not even close to themselves. We have so much mixed in ourselves that we have ceased to hear the voice of the soul, amidst the corrosive cacophony of mental noise.

On the surface, everyday life, family, children, work. Everything is strictly ordered in a tight schedule and task plans. Each new day is lived with an eye on its effectiveness and is equal to the best day. We compare ourselves with others, scold, criticize.

Relationships with a loved one cease to please, and we increasingly feel lonely in our families. Intimacy leaves, there remains a mutual exchange of functions and responsibilities.

Facade relations. For people, ideal, for each other, reminiscent of prison: we are serving time. The relationship piggy bank is overloaded with grievances, claims, growing tension and misunderstanding. There are no more personal meetings, where our I goes to meet the partner, and the partner goes to meet us. The distance between us increases, and we become emotionally deaf. To somehow change the situation, you need to shovel a mountain of feelings inside yourself, extract numerous splinters of resentment and pain, call many things by their proper names. Finally, unearth your "secrets", voice your needs and speak out loud about what prevents us from being happy and natural in these relationships. There is simply no strength for this.

We close ourselves in the shell of insensibility precisely when the soul cries out from pain and a passionate desire for a personal meeting with another. With those who will be interested in our "secrets", who will hear and understand, with those who can share our values with us.

But we are too far apart. It seems to us that we are connected only by everyday life and common experience. These are the hooks that still hold us together. The more such hooks (children, business, apartment, relatives, debts), the more they stop us from decisive action and radical measures in order to somehow change the current situation.

In the ever-increasing distance between partners, sooner or later someone or something arises where you can run away from problems. Plus, constantly frustrated needs for love, friendship, care, intimacy, create a situation where we begin to notice the growing tension and unconsciously create situations in which it will be possible to realize our deepest desires and needs.

There is room for the third.

It is very scary at first. Uncontrollable thoughts, emotional cheating on the side disrupt sleep and appetite. The Soul requires a personal meeting with another Soul. It seems to us that from this second on, every moment is the most valuable and more worthy of what came before. We are ready to put family relationships on the line for moments of happiness. We are in the power of falling in love: bright, exciting, overshadowing other experiences. It is like a trigger that starts a process that can no longer be stopped.

Why is this happening?

The "third" for our relationship is far from an accident. Rather, this is the most not accidental accident in our life. When we persistently and for a long time keep our needs inside and close our eyes to them, they try to "live" their lives, regain their rightful place in our experience, creating real situations that we must resolve. In this regard, C. G. Jung said that what we cannot bring into consciousness happens in our life as fate.

Cheating is a way to cope with an unmet need. Falling in love can reach our traumas of attachment and belonging from the depths of our psyche. Everything that we have tried for so long to give a shade of unimportant and insignificant. Under her spell, we project onto a real person and see the best qualities in him. It seems to us that we are halves of one whole. The state of happiness arises even at the thought of a beloved. It is supported by a hormonal surge and a distorted perception of reality. Most of our time we are in illusions and fantasies, the criticality of thinking drops sharply. The new lover seems to us ideal, the spouse is the embodiment of evil.

Emotional betrayals smoothly flow into real ones, and guilt is added to the stormy mixture of internal sensations. Now I am not taking the moral side of the situation, this is not the article about this. It can be said with absolute certainty that a toxic and destructive feeling is dangerous because the guilty person, explicitly or unconsciously, will always look for an excuse to atone for his guilt. There is a kind of sacrifice and forgiveness in behavior. Or, on the contrary, the tension in the family continues to grow, as the perpetrator will create situations that will help him get rid of the feeling of guilt and justify his behavior.

The current situation is a huge source of vital energy leakage.

With the apparent advantages of this situation, the following should be remembered.

one). At the heart of the love triangle that has arisen is a compensation mechanism.

When a person is in two relationships at the same time, he cannot give an objective assessment of the relationship that is with a spouse and with a lover. The secret presence of the third is reflected in the attitude towards the spouse and devalues him.

As a rule, both partners complement each other. Together they create feelings of wholeness and satiety within us. Because of this, there is a danger that the triangle will continue for a long time.

2). Even if the romance is kept secret and every precaution is taken against exposure, a lot of energy will have to be expended on maintaining it. The lover did not come into a relationship just to give us what we need. He also seeks to get what he needs. We come together in pairs according to an amazing principle: according to a similar injury, touching each other with the most painful places. Relationships are mutual satisfaction of needs. And since a love triangle is a double relationship, then you need to give twice as much, spend more personal energy, meeting the requirements and desires of both partners.

3). The reason for the emergence of a love triangle lies in the plane of violation of contact with oneself. This is facilitated by old traumas, clogged grievances, unfulfilled desires, inability to hear their needs, to trust feelings and sensations. Inability to directly and frankly ask for help, to live with one's own vulnerability. The inability to experience a state of happiness, replacing it with portions of short-term pleasure and pleasure. Inability or unwillingness to deal with the problems that have arisen and disclaimer of responsibility.

This is a signal that something we are doing wrong with our lives.

It is necessary to do a general cleaning of your consciousness. Regardless of what choice will be made (in favor of the family or in favor of the lover), personal issues will have to be resolved independently. Another person cannot give us all that we need.

A permanent relationship is difficult. But they make a lot of sense. They have the prerequisites to live and feel their value and experience of accepting another. This is not a functional relationship.

Permanent relationships are a big school of feelings. We have every chance to graduate from this school with honors, having learned to negotiate, listen to and hear each other's needs, show honesty towards ourselves and our partner, have the courage to be who we are, recognizing the same right for the Other. An important criterion for a permanent relationship is a developed communication and dialogue skill. All other qualities are layered on this base. If we learn to talk with a partner about everything that scares, what we need, without understatement, without depreciation and double messages, we learn to develop relationships through dialogue and meeting with a unique personality, we have a chance to find family happiness.