You Left Me

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

You left me …

You left me, you left me

When you left, I was left alone

You left me, you left me

You told me that I was not needed

Group Arrows

I often hear from my clients who have experienced a breakdown of relationships the phrase: "He left me …"

This phrase testifies to the emotional dependence of its author. I believe that you can throw a thing or a child, but part with an adult or leave.

In my opinion, a good diagnostic test for determining emotionally dependent relationships is the famous phrase from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's fairy tale "The Little Prince": "You are responsible for those you have tamed!"

Depending on the position in relation to this phrase, three groups of people can be distinguished: Dependent, anti-dependent and psychologically mature.

I will describe these positions and the picture of the world of people who adhere to them.

The first position is people who share this phrase

This position is held by addicts from others, to validate their codependent relationships. In a relationship, they abandon themselves, making the other the meaning of their life. And then this phrase is a kind of justification for their picture of the world. At the same time, they have no opportunity to part with the other. You can live only by merging with him. “There is no other as separate from me, and I am not separate from the other. We are."

At the same time, the other is not in itself a value for the codependent, rather it is simply a necessity for his survival. It is needed, but not important! The codependent gives all responsibility in the relationship to the other. And then he loses freedom in relationships, becomes dependent on him and defenseless. In the event that the other leaves, then in the picture of the world of the codependent he “abandons” him, literally dooms him to death.

The second position is people who do not share this phrase

This position is adhered to by counterdependents, or otherwise. counterdependent. On the contrary, they condemn the position of responsibility and domestication, defending their attitudes of irresponsibility towards those with whom they have been and are in close relations. The relationship to the other, the partner is here rather as a means, a function. This often manifests itself as cynicism in relation to intimacy and intimacy: "I am on my own, I do not need others!"

In fact, counterdependents have no less need for something else than codependents. But they encountered the trauma of rejection in their experience and "chose" a safe form of relationship for themselves. They give up close relationships in order not to face pain. Not meeting with another, avoiding intimacy with him - you protect yourself from the possibility of being abandoned by him, to part. Not accepting responsibility, you avoid meeting with unpleasant feelings - guilt, melancholy, betrayal.

One might get the impression that people with the first mindset are not free in relationships, while the second ones are extremely free. In fact, both of them do not have such freedom. And if codependent people cannot leave, then counterdependent people can meet.

There is a psychological problem behind both positions. incomplete separation - inability of children to psychologically separate from their parents, and parents, accordingly, to let go of their children. Alexander Mokhovikov at one time sarcastically paraphrased the famous saying of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "We are responsible for those who have tamed …" as follows "We are responsible for those who were not sent in time …". It rather emphasizes the unwillingness of many modern parents to let their children go into adulthood. I described the consequences of this kind of parental position in the articles: "Abulic syndrome", "Lobotomy or under anesthesia of maternal love", "I will live for you", etc.

Marital relations of partners with incomplete separation are presented in the form complementary marriages.

You can read more about this in my articles: "Complementary marriage: general characteristics", " Complementary marriage: a psychological portrait of partners ", "Traps of Complementary Marriage: Phenomena of Emotional Dependency in a Couple", "The Broken Trough of Complementary Marriage: A Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish").

Partners for such a relationship are not "selected" by accident - everyone unconsciously seeks for himself that half that is most suitable for satisfying his children's basic frustrated needs. The partner for the emotionally dependent is used as a substitute parental object. Consequently, the needs of the child-parent spectrum - for unconditional love and non-judgmental acceptance - come to the fore in such relationships. The foregoing does not mean at all that the aforementioned needs have no place in mature partnerships, it is just that they are not dominant there, as in the case of the described relations

As complementary marriages are built on the basis of a psychological deficit of partners, then, due to this, they have a great power of attraction and emotional saturation. Partners in such marriages complement each other, fit each other like puzzles. The relationship between partners in such a marriage is inherently dependent.

However, a beautiful parable about two halves is nothing more than a myth. Of course, it is possible that people can be almost perfect for each other. But I think this is a temporary situation. Relationships in a couple are a process, not a stable state. And the participants in this process themselves are also prone to changes. Therefore, it is impossible to coincide with another all the time. It happens that one of the partners begins to actively change and then the balance achieved is violated: the halves cease to approach each other as before. This is a crisis in a relationship. But not yet death. The death of a relationship occurs when partners cannot agree. When they are unable to realize and accept the inevitability of changes and continue to stubbornly hold on to the old, already obsolete forms. It is in this situation that the famous can be born: "You left me!"

It would be wrong to describe a dependent relationship without sketching a "portrait" of psychologically mature people.

Psychologically mature people build relationships based on mutual responsibility. They take on their part of the responsibility and understand that the other person also has it. The other is important and valuable, but at the same time the value of one’s self is not ignored. If one manages to negotiate with another in moments of changes and crises, maintain a balance of responsibility and a balance of “take - give” in relations with another, then the relationship continues. In the same case, when it is not possible to agree, and the relationship is interrupted, such a person accepts his part of the responsibility and pays for it with regret. Regret that the relationship is dying, that expectations have not come true. But at the same time he himself does not "die" and does not ignore the importance of the other in his life.