When Love Fails
My clinical experience in working with couples and individuals over the years suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of what it even means to have a truly loving relationship. In my previous article I referred to a specific type of struggle that arises in relationships when one partner is seeking to establish a more meaningful and connected type of relationship, but the other is unable or unwilling to reciprocate. This article looks more closely at some of the difficulties that arise under these conditions.
Two basic struggles arise when only one of the partners is seeking a more connected and deeper form of love from their relationship. On the one hand, the partner seeking greater depth tends to not even understand what they are looking for, and why they feel so unhappy. This creates much confusion and distress for that person as they may come to believe there is something wrong with them, something they need to fix, when in fact this is not the case.
As far as the partner in this relationship is concerned, they invariably believe they are already as loving as they could possibly be and cannot understand why their partner is not satisfied with the relationship. It is not surprising therefore, that when their partner complains about the relationship it leads to almost unresolvable conflict.
What I see in my practice is that invariably there is an imbalance between the two partners in terms of their comparative levels of current psychological development. The net result is that as one partner is pulling for the relationship to change, the other partner is resisting and often pulling for it to remain the same.
Typically, the central question seems to revolve around the ability of the resistant partner to come on side with the wishes of the one seeking change. If the initially resistant partner is able and willing to change, then the transition to a higher functioning relationship tends to be fairly smooth and very rewarding for the couple.
If the resistant partner is unwilling to change or unable to do so, then some very difficult issuse arise and it is here that challenges begin. The next article will look at this situation is greater detail.