Demand creates supply. And what is it that you, my dear readers, want to hear from counsellors and other relationship experts? You want to hear about the "magic pill", about "5 easy steps", about "how to build a good relationship in 3 months", "how to make a man/woman fall for you" and so on. And of course the market duly dumps a pile of rubbish information on you, just to satisfy your demand. And you nod along, pleased and happy, and gladly hand over your money to be fooled one more time! There is, however, a truth about relationships.
If you are reading this article, it means you finally want to build a harmonious relationship. This article will not coo over you, will not tell you about romance, will not put rose-tinted glasses on your nose. The information I am about to give will land on you like snow on your head — in the hope of sobering you up! If you have no use for the bitter truth, better stop reading here!
About being fooled.
A test of attention.
A harmonious relationship that will bring you joy and happiness to the end of your days is possible only between two mentally mature adult individuals!
Natallia Nechai
Let us start by going through the information you have come across again and again on the internet, and only at the end of the article will there be a description of the kind of relationship you long for and somehow never quite reach! Enter some text ...
Neurotic kinds of relationships.
1. Mummy and son.
This is a relationship between an infantile man (a neurotic) and a woman playing mummy (a neurotic). Neither of them will be happy in it. It is a perfectly ordinary neurotic relationship in which a wounded psyche tries to cover its neurotic needs, which mostly come down to finally getting a loving mother. Is the trauma clear? Or shall I spell it out?
The catch is that these needs cannot be satisfied, even if you live together for fifty years!
2. Daddy and daughter
The same catch, seen from the other side. This is a relationship between an "I am a real man" and an eternal girl, a little nymphet. He believes he must pity her, look after her, spoil her, provide for her and so on — that and only that makes him a real man. She believes: "what luck, I have found a resource" that owes me everything, so I need not grow up at all and can stay a little capricious princess for ever, as I was on daddy's lap.
The man volunteers as a resource: of money, or of strong feelings, or of care (in all its forms), or of children, or of……………. it all depends on the "girl's" traumas.
If he fails to provide something, we either go to another one or make him feel guilty and carry on using him.
3. "We are one whole, we look in the same direction"
Relationships like this are fine in your teens, but they carry consequences if you consider them normal for people over thirty.
Ooooh! We are so good together, we love the same food, the same music, the same clothes, we have the same interests, we do everything together and generally we cannot live without each other.
The catch begins when, after a while, she or he fancies "different food, a different book" and so on, and the partner reacts with "thaaat's it, you do not love me any more".
And then there are two options: either you stop growing, or you split up, because I am bored with everything being the same and I want to try something else.
4. "We complement each other"
Right — two vampires sucking resources out of each other. Let me explain. One partner has a neurosis we shall call "something is missing", and the other has plenty of that "something", and vice versa. That is why we are together! We complement each other and fill each other to the brim! We fit like a key in a lock!
The catch begins when one of them is not given enough of that "something", or does not get it in time.
You know, like in the joke:
Two tortoises find a gingerbread biscuit and wonder how to share it.
One says: "listen, let us play shop".
The other thinks: "what a fool, I will just walk in and buy the biscuit off her, and it will be mine", and answers: "let us!" The first one says: "Well, crawl off a bit, so it is like the real thing, as if you were going to the shop."
The second crawls off, crawls back into the "shop" and says: "one gingerbread biscuit, please".
The first one, chewing loudly, answers: "the biscuits, om nom nom, are all sold out".
So a relationship like that will soon turn into an accounting exercise: who gave how much and who fell short?
4. "We are completely different and that is why we are together!"
At first it all looks just like point 4. Two people, completely different, are together because each likes what the other has and they do not.
In fact these are two psycho-types (more on that in another article) who have chosen a partner who is "their Shadow".
In practical psychology the Shadow is the name for the state in which a person gets the maximum amount of resource. Reaching your Shadow takes enormous and lengthy work on yourself; without long work with the right counsellor you will not get there, and do not be taken in by trainings that promise to teach you to jump straight into it.
For those in the back row, let me explain. The Shadow is the state you unconsciously strive for and where you will feel unbelievably good. For example, you have always wanted some solitude, but even when you managed to get it you felt out of place (that is, if you have not worked it through), while your partner allows themselves that almost every day and feels wonderful, so wonderful you cannot drag them out of it. Staying in the Shadow for long is not healthy, though: you go into the Shadow, recharge, and come back out.
The catch begins with envy, because you constantly see in your partner what you want so badly yourself and cannot reach — without a guide you will not get there!
I think that is enough kinds of relationships — the main ones, so to speak; there are sub-kinds, there are mixed ones and so on. The point is that all of them are perfectly ordinary neurotic relationships, of which there are more in the world than of any other kind. And if you have read this far, it means you are not satisfied with what you have now and you want to know the truth. Let us go on!
A healthy, harmonious, happy relationship is daily work on yourself and on the relationship.
Frightened? Were you waiting for the "magic pill"?
Then stop reading and go and look for something like "a harmonious relationship in 5 minutes"!
Everyone else, read on.
To build a harmonious relationship you will first have to build a healthy person!
A healthy person is someone who is in harmony with themselves and with others; whose mood and attitude to the world are neutral to positive 95 per cent of the time; whose age in their passport matches their psychological age; who has passed all the initiations appropriate to their age; who has worked through their neuroses and goes on working on them; who lives in actual reality; who knows their Inner Child (and is at peace with it) and their inner parent; who knows how to bring out their Adult in time and how to come to terms with their inner saboteur; who………………. shall I go on, or is that enough?
How do you do that?
That is a long song, so I shall sing it in other articles. One thing I will say now: without a good guide you can dig into yourself as long as you like and even dig up the "dog" — and then what? What do you do with that dog? That is why we go to a specialist. Speaking for myself, I adore clients who have already dug something up: it means they are ready to work!
And since this process — building a healthy person — lasts to the end of our days, we look for a partner who is also working on building a healthy person.
And here is what we get.
Two people who have understood that a person makes themselves; that it is never too late to have a happy childhood (by which I mean that however bad the past was, it can all be worked through and looked at from another angle, thereby creating new neural connections — that is, replacing the negative feelings attached to memories with positive ones, and not merely replacing them but growing them and turning them into a skill); that self-development has to go in every direction and that it is a fascinating process. They walk that road together, helping each other, making each other better, gradually shedding traumas and neuroses and freeing up a great deal of energy, which they direct at living happily, in harmony with themselves and with others!
© Natallia Nechai
Time, work, sweat and awareness!
