We Are Responsible For Those We Have Tamed ?

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

We are responsible for those we have tamed …

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We often hear different positions regarding the famous phrase from the fairy tale "The Little Prince" by Exupery. Most often they are polar.

The first position is accession

This position is held by addicts from others to justify 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. There is no way to part with another. You can live only by clinging to the other, merging with him. Not that the other is a value for the addict, rather it is just a necessity for his survival. There is no other as separate from me, and I am not separate from the other. We are. The codependent takes all responsibility in the relationship. Taking full responsibility, he deprives another of this function. There is a lot of arrogance in this - the very word "tame" suggests an element of another's weakness. To tame means to take full responsibility upon oneself, to make another dependent on oneself, defenseless. But then, in a relationship with another, you lose your freedom. If you abandon the one whom you have tamed, then you doom him to death, and yourself to the pangs of conscience.

The second is denial

Counterdependent on the contrary, they condemn such a position, defending their attitudes of irresponsibility towards those with whom they were in close relations. They, unlike codependents, do not even take on their part of the responsibility. The relationship to the other here as a means, a function, the other is already clearly devalued. This often manifests itself as cynicism about intimacy and intimacy. 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.

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, maintain a balance of responsibility and a balance of “take - give” in relations with another, then the relationship continues. In the same case, when 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.