Archived Articles
Serious Love Relationships ...by Stan Hyman, PhD, LCSW
There are many reasons for getting into a serious love relationship (marriage). I think most would agree that humans need and want love and companionship. Choosing a partner to fulfill that need over the long haul however can be tricky.
Strong chemistry between a man and a woman is a wonderful stimulant. It can be the driving force for making decisions about the future. But chemistry alone does not necessarily predict the success of a relationship. In fact it can cloud one's thinking, especially if self knowledge is lacking.
Enhance Your Relationships By Understanding Your Motivations
When people are unaware of what really motivates them they are more likely to make errors in judgment about life partner choices. People are shaped emotionally by their early life experiences. Becoming aware of what emotional engine drives you can be quite valuable in enhancing your relationships.
For example, if a person’s early family dynamics created an environment where feelings of insecurity and unpredictability prevailed, that person might become unreasonably jealous or insecure as an adult in a serious relationship. Ironically, in fact, he might even choose a partner who makes him feel insecure because the feeling is familiar.
Understanding yourself and what you really need in a long term relationship will help you increase your odds for finding the right partner. You may choose the wrong partner as a result of not realizing your tendency to want to recreate situations in which you can experience old familiar feelings.
Enhance Your Relationships By Understanding Your Family Dynamic
For example, a family where conflict or disagreements were treated harshly, where anger and acrimony prevailed instead of respectful understanding or consideration of the other’s point of view, could produce a person who leaves or withdraws from a relationship at the first sign of conflict. That practice may have been the only defense available to him. However as an adult, that behavior can destroy a couple’s chance for intimacy to develop. How can a couple enhance their relationships and grow without working through the inevitable disagreements they will ultimately have?
Another example is a person whose family disappointed him by being unavailable emotionally when he needed them, creating doubt about the reliability of others. This doubt can translate into the inability to trust causing distance and insecurity between partners.
There are various examples of this type of partnering. Some would argue that partners choose each other to help them work out personal issues created during their childhood. In fact, a healthy relationship affords both partners a good opportunity for doing exactly that.
It may not be too late to examine the motivations that drove you into your relationship. When an individual realizes that he/she is in a serious relationship (or marriage) that is not going well, and still has strong loving feelings for their partner, it is time to become introspective. It is also time to make personal changes; changes that might help resolve those nagging issues once and for all.
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