Are You Still Waiting for Prince Charming? Are you attached to him?
Sometimes, some people need to hope and believe that falling in love will solve all the frustrated needs experienced before. The assumption is: "this person will be in my life, and all my needs for support, companionship, sex, and emotional stability will be covered...."
We find this hidden assumption as the core theme of love stories; of plenty of histories where the other person is seen as the source of all comforts.
Nothing wrong with considering your loved one the only one who can repair you and make you happy....this is the core belief we all have when life is just starting teaching lessons to us.
In short, it's OK to have this magical belief in our teen years, our adolescence.
I'm concerned now about the question: why, as grown-ups, do we still need to imagine the total solution for our love hungers to be one and only one: our beloved.
And from lots of research on psychological development, there is only one answer...Sadly, we keep searching again and again for the missing secure attachment from our childhood. We never stop searching for the magical relationship that can make us feel accepted, beloved, protected, and forgiven. Exactly the relationship that we never had.
This is a painful issue: I have to let you know that Santa Claus doesn't exist, that some Prince Charming are impostors dressed only by our projections to look like complete solutions, that our hopes for the only person who can make us feel so good are putting an extraordinary burden in any other person near us...and that our happiness is not a project able to be outsourced completely to others.
In short: if you really want to tackle the wounds of any insecure, anxious, or avoidant attachment you developed while growing up in the family received through life's lottery, you need to befriend them, make a wholesale acceptance of whatever challenge life gave to you, and move on. We can give you a plan to heal your "love scarcity mindset" before you start out to search for Prince Charming again.
Perhaps you are curious enough? Let's begin:
- Look at your abandonment issues: the fears you have about being left behind, ignored or rejected, and think: where are they coming from?
- Examine your feelings about not feeling worthy of a close relationship; your fears that if your partner really gets to know you, he or she won’t want you and will eventually reject you.
- Have a conversation with your inner child, and say to him/her that you are never going to abandon him/her.
- What can you do to treat yourself as the safe parent you needed way back? Make a list of your frustrated needs now, and include solutions;
- Look at the expectations you have of your partner, and ask: am I delegating on this person my own happiness? what can this person give me and what not?
- If you were going to make your current relationship work, what would you have to do differently?
If you are still looking for the ideal person who will fulfill all your needs, this post will be a disappointment for you. If you realize that here and now, the best solution for those cravings from childhood are inside your reach, because now you can adopt that child, respect and love him, and give your inner self the best respect you can develop...then this post will find a way to help you.
Just let me know, will you?
CoachNora
PD. Of course, there is always help, like here:
The Silent Marriage: How Passive Aggression Steals Your Happiness