Imagine a person with a broken heart. You see someone disappointed by their loved one. If I told you that even with the worst love wound there is a responsibility of your own to understand in order to move forward, what would you think?
The disenchanted
Among the regrets associated with love, the first that comes to our mind is disappointment towards the loved one by reprehensible acts, such as disinterest or disregard of the emotional, sexual or economic needs of their partner, violence of any kind (verbal, psychological, physical or sexual), acts, premeditated or not, that threaten the economic stability of the home, infidelity, among others.
Infidelity is usually considered one of the most painful disappointments and leads the causes of separation. Because it also produces mistrust, due to the use of lies to hide it, whether due to guilt, convenience or both. In other cases, it is used as a sign of contempt towards the couple with the intention of harming them, because they have serious conflicts or due to narcissistic personality traits of the person who committed adultery.
Another circumstance that generates disenchantment is when one of the members of the relationship manifests changes in their behavior, emotions or attitudes, which disappoint the other. These changes can be derived from factors external to marriage or dating, such as unemployment, bankruptcy, existential crises, the loss of another loved one due to death, etc.
In these situations, the responsibility that must be assumed is to make conscious decisions, understanding how they will affect one's life in general, the relationship of the couple and the children if they have them, for which the counseling of the psychologist can be used, who will be responsible for providing tools to clarify the situation and analyze the greatest number of possible consequences.
Deception
It happens when the loved one shows in the first encounters attitudes and behaviors different from those that he usually manifests, to convince who he is seducing who is the ideal person to establish a couple relationship.
This happens for different reasons, among them, people with psychopathic traits, are highly manipulative and take advantage of the needs of affection, inclusion and belonging of the other, to modify their behavior in such a way that they are desirable and charming on a superficial level. When the contact becomes frequent and more intimate, they display their impulsive and shameless behaviors, as well as their self-centered, callous and blameless attitude.
In this case the deception is consciously and deliberately perpetrated. On the other hand, those who experience a strong need for approval tend to act complacently to avoid rejection, which hooks dominant people, but also others with low self-esteem who are flattered by the care they provide. Sometimes, those who acted submissive begin to behave differently, because they have recognized that this attitude further deteriorates their self-esteem or because they suffer mistreatment from those who seduced, producing a conflict of
interest and that the seduced individual feels cheated.
The responsibility that corresponds is to take care of the own affections, to give them gradually and with caution. Previously identifying your own emotional gaps and treating them with the help of rational emotional therapy.
Self- deception
There are other reasons why we feel disappointed, which do not depend on the other person. For example, we did not give ourselves enough time in the right circumstances to get to know him, and when we are more committed, we notice characteristics of his personality that are undesirable to us.
This goes hand in hand with the excess of romantic love, because we allow our reason to cloud, the quality that allows us to realistically measure being loved. When the infatuation decreases we see more clearly the particularities of the person we choose and we may not like the image.
It is understood that we are responsible for the idealizations we make for the lack of control of our own emotions.
Another circumstance of self-deception is constituted by the irrational belief that our partner has the obligation to fulfill all our desires, generating displeasure when the other person does not satisfy any of our demands. This attitude towards love is usually accompanied by possessive behaviors, as well as intolerance that the other person has their own longings and autonomy.
We must take responsibility for evaluating our own beliefs about love, disregarding irrational ones, and strengthening those that are realistic. Psychological counseling sheds light on the subject and leads us to favorable results with the use of appropriate strategies.
Other wounds of love
Rejection, when someone is chosen to love him and that person disdains our affections, because he is not interested in having a relationship or does not find us suitable for this purpose. It is irrational to believe that all prospects are obligated to want to have a relationship with us and therefore we must be prepared for this possibility.
Also, when having experienced reciprocity in feelings for a time, one of the members of the relationship unilaterally decides to end it, because he is not prepared for a more stable commitment, feels emotionally tired, has other more significant interests according to his project of life or you are going through a complex personal situation that you do not want to affect your partner, among other reasons.
A special case of a broken heart is when you lose your loved one through death, a usually unexpected circumstance that becomes a forceful destabilizing factor. In this situation, a duel is generated that, if not handled properly, can become pathological.
conclusion
The condition of those who experience unhappiness in love, whether through disappointment, deception or self-deception, can be transformed by identifying the irrational beliefs that are held about the love bond, making conscious decisions and receiving psychological counseling.
In a future article I will address «Realistic love. Beyond infatuation »
_________________
References: Colgrove, M., Bloomfield, HH, & McWilliams, P. (1981) How to survive the loss of love.
New York: Bantam. Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. Among other texts.
Psychologist Gabriel López
Online Psychology That Transforms Lives
www.psicologogabriellopez.com
