This month I’m posting an excerpt from LoveSmart: Transforming the Emotional Patterns that Sabotage Relationships, by my late wife, Sandra Michaelson. If I knew of a better book on relationships than this one, I would honestly tell you.
This book of Sandra’s, one of three she wrote, helps readers understand that our resistance to feeling loved in a relationship is commonly, unconsciously, and irrationally associated with the sense of being placed in a submissive, passive position. This 390-page book (available here) also examines our tendency to repeat painful experiences with our partner that arise from unresolved hurts from childhood. These hurts, which include feelings of being refused, deprived, controlled, criticized, rejected, and abandoned, can be felt and acted out in our adult life even when we had decent, kind parents.
LoveSmart also explores in depth our tendency to chose partners unwisely, the compulsion to control, why women fear independence, compulsive defensiveness, the need to have one’s point of view validated, the causes and perils of codependency, the struggle to feel one’s authority, sexual fantasies and what they mean, fear of confrontation, and the sabotaging effects of self-centeredness.
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Excerpt from LoveSmart:
Though we claim we want love and struggle for it, most of us unconsciously are terrified of it. We sabotage our prospects for getting love or for keeping what love we have. For example, people repeatedly set themselves up with inappropriate partners. A typical inappropriate partner is a substance abuser, someone who lives far away, is married to another person, or is emotionally unavailable, egotistical, or corrupt in some manner.
With such a partner, a loveless relationship is inevitable. Real love is also sabotaged when a man or woman dismisses a genuine, caring person because that person is allegedly unexciting or sexually inadequate. Nice, caring partners do not provide the exciting though painful emotional dramas that many are addicted to. I have seen individuals divorce their partner after the partner has made positive changes.
“For years I pursued my husband for love and affection,” one woman told me. “He was so cold and distant. Then he went to a growth workshop and came back totally different. He was open, loving, and far more responsive to me. I have to tell you that it really frightened me. I backed off the relationship. We haven’t had sex in over a year.”
This woman’s parents had been emotionally distant. She said she had never felt wanted, that her mother especially regarded her as a burden. “When my husband began to show his love for me,” she said, “I realized that I wasn’t used to being loved. It made me feel weird inside. It just went against everything I’d ever experienced. So I’d make up some excuse or talk about dumb things to discourage him from getting close to me.”
Positive changes in our partner force us to consider whether we really do want love. To get it, we have to discard our emotional investment in neglect and hurt. The elimination of our partner’s opposition causes us to fall back on ourselves and come to terms with the lack of love for ourselves.
Carl and Rena had been married for twenty years. Both said their relationship was dead. Here’s how Rena explained their situation: “We’ve always lived through the kids or our work. That was the connection that held us together. I don’t know what we’re going to do with each other when all our kids leave home. We rarely communicate our personal feelings about each other. I know we both have a problem opening up our hearts to each other.”
Rena explored the origins of her fear of expressing her love more openly. “I felt that if I loved my father that would affirm his self-centeredness and affirm that he was okay, when I felt thoroughly disappointed in him. The only way I could hold on to my own identity was to not love, not respond to him, and not let him see how I was affected by him. Dad often gave hugs when he was drunk. I felt repelled by his love, as if he was exposing some perverse need with me. I had to give in to my father, keep my mouth shut about his behaviors and listen patiently to his self-centered prattle. Dad related to us kids through work. He gave us endless chores and, of course, we were to stand by to help him do things around the house. There was no other relationship with him. There was no interest in my opinions, needs, or feelings. Everything centered on him and what we could do for him.”
Rena became an emotional support for her mother, compensating for father’s neglect. Being loved by her mother meant sharing mutual pain. “The more independent and happy I would become,” Rena observed, “the less I would receive from her. If I was needy or having problems, Mom was right there ready to help. But I felt I had to be in a reduced or helpless position to get love.”
Rena grew up associating love with suffering and loss of pride. It felt that love meant being a resource for the satisfaction of other people’s needs. Like so many of us, she had never had the experience of simply being loved for who she was. Consequently, love terrified her. It was alien to her, a mode of expression that seemed out of reach.
Her husband, Carl, meanwhile, was intimidated by her. He saw her as strong and assertive, and took his cues from her behavior. For example, he wouldn’t approach her if he saw her in a bad mood. Things had to be just right before he would initiate anything. Carl didn’t want to make waves; he submerged himself for fear of being rejected or seen as inadequate. His mother had been strong and intimidating. She had run the household, insisting that none of her children had the right to complain or talk back. Carl kept his feelings to himself, burying them under endless chores and duties. Like Rena, he felt that loving his mother meant submission to her control, giving in to her agenda. If he loved, he believed he would lose himself in her domination.
Many of us associate love with giving up something of ourselves because our feelings of love are contaminated by our childhood experience. Although many of us know and feel that our parents loved us as best they could, we also feel that their love was conditional, based on our compliance and performance. Parts of us were denied or repressed, while only so-called appropriate behaviors were accepted and appreciated. No society has ever accepted a child in his totality and most likely never will. To accept a child totally is impossible. So, repression necessarily exists and everyone has to face at some point the parts he or she has repressed.
Feeling that we are wrong as we are, we start putting ourselves down, even hating ourselves. If you hate yourself, how can you imagine anyone loving you? Deep inside you believe that no one is going to love you. Even if someone tries, you can’t believe him. Something must be wrong with him if he loves you. So you find ways to prove that he doesn’t love you. And you relax only when you find the proof.
As we grow older, those repressed, denied parts of ourselves reassert themselves into our consciousness and we try to force them back down again. We become afraid to encounter ourselves because we will have to encounter everything we’ve denied. Relationships are intense and they bring to the surface those old, denied parts of ourselves. We perform some fancy footwork to avoid getting too close and too involved. The problem is that we can only become whole by exposing and then accommodating or assimilating our repressed or denied aspects.
To love sincerely means you are at peace with yourself. You have come to terms with the denied parts of your being. This is much different from narcissistic self-love which involves a preoccupation with an image rather than true substance. Narcissistic self-love is a compensation for feeling unworthy or inferior.
Genuine self-love means that you do not need anyone to say to you, “You’re wonderful, you’re important to me.” You do not need anyone to acknowledge your greatness or proclaim your skills and talents. Your meaning or purpose doesn’t come from others. You do not go around like a beggar looking for validation. This is a way of being with yourself, of loving and accepting yourself as you are, whether you are alone or in a relationship with another.
Love doesn’t mean something you give or do for others. Love is the quality of your being. When you drop the need to be needed, you feel grateful to be loved; but if love isn’t there, you do not complain. You can be happy with or without acknowledgment or appreciation. That’s because you have learned to live with yourself and be happy with yourself. Now your relationship becomes a sacred happening.
Think of it. Have any of you ever felt reverence for your partner? Are you able to feel reverence for yourself and the divine in your heart? When you connect with the divine nature that is your authentic self, you see the divine in your partner and in all life forms. A new doorway has been opened for you.
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LoveSmart: Transforming the Emotional Patterns that Sabotage Relationships is available here.
