Faces Of Masochism: Love Threesome

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

If there are repeated betrayals of one partner in the family, and the other humbly continues to endure this state of affairs, this is a serious reason to think about the hidden, unconscious motives of destructive self-sacrifice.

The traitor also has a certain role, but this article will focus on the Sacrifice.

Otto Kernberg described pathological masochistic passion as an attraction to a person who does not reciprocate.

If, for example, a husband cheats in the family, and the wife continues a relationship with him built on self-abasement, and also speaks of her love for him, for someone who keeps her at a distance, at least emotionally, or deprives her of sexual intimacy all the time, morally saddens, then we can conclude about the masochistic orientation of her personality.

In the relationship of such partners, a sadomasochistic game takes place by default, although they may deny it, since the process proceeds unconsciously.

For example, a husband, knowing that his wife is having an affair with another, not only does not try to cut off her connection and get out of a destructive relationship, on the contrary, it spurs his passion, he begins to please his wife in many ways, give gifts, seek her attention, proximity.

Moreover, the husband may receive masochistic pleasure by observing the relationship of a partner with her rival. This situation may be a kind of echo of childhood trauma, reminiscent of the time when the child was forced to compete for the love of a parent with sisters, brothers or someone else.

For example, as a child, he could surreptitiously watch how a mother and father have sex, and experience jealousy, rejection, a hidden desire to be initiated into the game of adults.

Indirectly, in fantasies, the husband may develop a relationship with a rival, on which neurotic fixation may occur.

Along with this hidden benefit, the masochistic husband feels the moral superiority of the righteous man over sinful traitors, and gets the opportunity to control his wife with the help of a sense of guilt.

Since a person with a masochistic pattern has a prohibition on expressing anger outside, anger is directed at oneself in the form of self-destructive behavior (self-harm, overeating, alcohol consumption, depression, sleep disturbances, etc.).

A rigid internal censor suppresses aggressive impulses, which often becomes the cause of obsessive thoughts of indecent content and impulsive urges to violate internal prohibitions.

These impulses increase the feeling of guilt and lead to the commission of actions that symbolically cancel, expiate the guilt: doing charity, pleasing behavior, giving gifts, etc. At the same time, the person is convinced that he should be punished, and perceives the sadistic attitude of the partner as something deserved.

When, for example, a masochistic husband exposes his wife's betrayal, he experiences, on the one hand, suffering, and on the other, great inner relief and deliverance for a while from the feeling of guilt.

The period of infidelity activates in it the whole gamut of both negative and positive emotions.

The masochistic partner, as a rule, remains indifferent to those who want to gain his favor, to those who are available, with an endless derogatory craving for an inaccessible and narcissistic "ideal".