The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances,
- if there is any reaction, both are transformed. C. G. Jung
According to Native Americans each masculine side carries a feminine component; and each feminine side carries a masculine component. The ancient Greeks thought that lovers were like two halves of a puzzle--each incomplete without the other. Jung referred to these opposites as archetypes dividing them into the anima and the animus. Shakespeare referred to sex as "making the beast with two backs", and in Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes, spoke of the complete human being containing masculine and feminine attributes in one body. This being was represented by a circle having four arms, four legs, one head and two faces looking in opposite directions. In some marriage ceremonies, the ritual that symbolizes two individuals becoming one is the lighting of the unity candle. The couple lights one candle to represent their new union and then blows out their individual flames.
Relationships promise eternal fulfillment and completeness. Each person bestows on the other positive images and expectations for an ideal partnership that will be everlasting. These projections are typically unconscious and hold information about qualities that are underdeveloped or lacking in that individual. When the projections fail to materialize, the disenchantment gets magnified and the partner is left feeling betrayed. As the perceived perfection fades and flaws emerge, it's not unusual to feel that the very essence of their union has been shattered. Instead of feeling complete with the other person, they now feel dissatisfied, frustrated, and deceived. This frustration is the first sign of the erosion of the relationship. It gets expressed through blame, avoidance, criticism or infidelity and the trust, connection, and sexual enjoyment in the relationship spirals downward. One of the prime reasons relationships fail, again and again, is that we are unknowingly attracted to and fall in love with an image of what is lacking or is underdeveloped in ourselves. Until the unconscious motivation to select your mate becomes conscious, this pattern continues to repeat itself. Let me give you an example of this process:
Bethany couldn't believe she had done it again! Marriage number 2 was coming to an end just in time for her 33rd birthday. She was always considered to be attractive and had countless guys drawn to her beautiful face and great brain. She met and married her first husband during her sophomore year at Stanford when they were only 19. "He was so perfect", she thought, "Tall, educated, a nice guy from the right family."
Bethany didn't have very many happy childhood memories. She was an only child of seven when her father died of a heart attack. Mom was hardly ever around, working several unskilled jobs, and grandma took care of her after school. All the women in her family were critical and controlling and Bethany could never please any of them. Grandpa was a quiet man who didn't stand up to grandma's intense verbal tirades. He comforted himself with several daily shots of whiskey and a good cigar. For as long as she can remember, Bethany felt profoundly alone and unloved. Is it any wonder that she rushed into the safety of Raymond's arms the first time he proposed marriage? Nine years later, after two children and three moves with Raymond's company, she found herself with a quiet emotionally unavailable man, not unlike her grandfather, and she had become a critical castrating female like her mother and grandmother.
Bethany fell in love with husband number two before she divorced Ray. Patrick, 28, was their landscaper and had never been married. One hot summer day, she caught a glimpse of his tanned body through the dining room window. He had removed his shirt while mowing her lawn and the sight of his muscled physique took her breath away. It was such a contrast to Ray's pale thin frame. Sex with Ray had been dry and unimaginative. She never orgasmed and he never noticed. Patrick was different. He was a real man---powerful in a homespun workingman kind of way. She was drawn to his simplicity and honesty.
Ray's financial talents as a CPA had built them a nice nest egg, but Ray lacked passion. What's marriage without passion? Patrick was an incredible lover and gave her the best oral sex on the planet. She experienced her first orgasm with him and it was transcendent. She was certain that they were soul mates. She decided to leave her home, two children, and her Mercedes 500SL to lie in Patrick's strong arms.
Not long after their 6 month whirlwind romance, her divorce from Raymond was finalized and she married Patrick. But only three years later, Bethany was once again filing for divorce. She accused Patrick of being uneducated and boring. His appealing simplicity had faded rapidly into boredom and mediocrity.
Now she finds herself, once again, attracted to what she believes is the "perfect man." Colin is an artist and a college professor who combines the intelligence of Raymond and the simple forthright nature of Patrick. Sensing she may be heading down the same dead-end path, she decides to get some therapy before leaping into marriage number three.
Bethany's case illustrates a woman who unwittingly marries the same man in different forms over and over again. Although each partner is thought to be very different in appearance, socio-economic background, and countless other ways, they possess a similar essence that attracts them to one another "magnetically." What Bethany learned in therapy, is that she falls in love with partners who have the qualities she's seeking in herself. Once the initial projection wears off, she becomes disenchanted and moves on.
She married Raymond because she needed a family, love, a non-critical partner (unlike her family of origin) and financial security. She married Patrick because he represented passion, power, and masculine protection that was absent in her father and passive grandfather.
The pull toward complementarity and wholeness explains much of the attraction between couples. Each individual is drawn to the person who enhances their sense of self. "He completes me," she might say. He might confess that he feels more whole with her and laughingly refer to her as "My better half." To the extent that attraction is based on the fulfillment of something that is lacking in ourselves, we will be continually disappointed. No one person can make up for areas of personal deficiency. If we are, in fact, falling in love with a missing or underdeveloped pieces of ourselves, then as the reality of our partner's limitations present themselves, the sparkle of love fades and we become faced with our poor choices.
Discovering your attraction hooks:
- So how do we find our way out of this never-ending trap?
The first step is to identify our "attraction hooks." Attraction hooks are areas that may be out of our conscious awareness that grab us and hook us before we know we're being hooked. List all the lovers that you've been attracted to and find the common denominators. Don't immediately say that they're all so different. They're not. There are some unifying qualities that are eluding you. If Tom is quiet, and Dick is abusive, and Harry is self absorbed, they are all men who have difficulty expressing love. Search for the common thread and then ask yourself why you don't make more loving choices?
The next step is to see your partner as they really are and not as you wish them to be. Idealization is part of falling in love. During your first major couples' conflict, the "deep set blue eyes" you used to love become "beady little eyes," and the "strong nose" you admired is transformed into a "huge ugly proboscis." How does this happen? Love is blind and it colors many of our senses and perspectives. Ask a friend you really trust to give you their true opinion of Mr. or Ms. right. Sad as it may seem, our parents often see the problems on the horizon long before we do. In cultures where marriages are arranged, couples don't fare that badly. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating we forgo love and make a more "sensible" choice. What I'm proposing is that we temper idealization with a dose of reality. Instead of spending hours only listing his or her virtues, make an equally long list of your partner's flaws. If you can't find them, you're not looking hard enough. Love resists careful scrutiny, but don't be lulled into believing you've found perfection. Walking into romance with your eyes wide open will minimize the possibility of being blind-sighted down the road. Identifying and accepting your lover's limitations is a challenge.
After discovering your partner's predominant personality style, ask yourself whether those qualities are underdeveloped in yourself? Are you prepared to learn to be a bit more like your lover or do you plan to change him or her? If you picked the latter, be prepared for disaster. There's nothing wrong with selecting someone who is different from you. In fact, opposites can attract. Each time we select a partner, we have an opportunity to know ourselves better through them. The relationship becomes a vehicle for increased self clarity, personal growth, and contentment. Remember, the key to a fulfilling relationship, is awareness of our personal choices. As long as we remain unaware of our "magnetic" pull toward potential partners, we will be unconsciously drawn to unexpressed parts of ourselves and feel angry and confused when the promises for bliss don't materialize.
When our "ideal" lover inevitably displays his or her human frailties, passion is replaced with disillusion. The quest to change him or her back to what we thought they were when we met them is rarely successful. Therapists may be enlisted in this effort. Remember, one partner's change will destabilize the relationship and change the balance that had existed. You may think you want your partner to become more assertive, but unwittingly undermine the changes as it emerges. Unless the dynamics of this new fit are addressed, the relationship may be jeopardized.
Making the choice to face this together. To produce the desired outcome, both partners must examine their motivation and investment in self-change. The way out of this trap is for each partner to lift the veil of idealization that shrouds their romantic attractions and take a long hard critical look at the person each selected. If you tend to be passive and are continually attracted to overly controlling partners, perhaps you have to reexamine the power dynamics in your own background. If you're work-driven and have difficulty relaxing, chances are you are drawn to spontaneous fun-loving types who despise list-making. These selections may be great in the short run, but can you go the distance with them?
By understanding what qualities we're attracted to, we get a unique insight into what's lacking in ourselves. Once you've identified the parts of yourself that you had expected the other person to provide, instead of struggling to change your lover, you can learn from them and develop a more varied and richly textured self.
In Shel Silverstein's children's fable, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, he writes:
"The missing piece sat alone waiting for someone to come along and take it somewhere..." Through its journey it discovered that as its shape began to change, it contained all that it was searching for.
Author: © Sandra Scantling, Psy.D.