Rescue Fantasies

of the many desires we might Harbor in
relationships few attract as much
mockery or suspicion as the rescue
fantasy according to this longing a
lover normally a man becomes unnaturally
concerned with finding a partner
normally a woman who is suffering and
unhappy while ostensibly interested in
wagering her grief the luffa is in
reality more concerned with exploiting
her vulnerability for what are assumed
to be nefarious ends he is excited
perhaps even sexually by her sadness and
far from rescuing her uses her sorrow to
aggrandize himself even before
mentioning the horse on which the
rescuer might ride into town this is all
meant to and does indeed sound properly
ridiculous if not outright sinister
however it’s arguable that the longing
to assist someone does in fact occupy a
legitimate role in healthy love for both
genders and that we should dare to
understand and recognize the appeal in
ourselves and our partners emotional
sanity may be wholly compatible with a
powerful intermittent attraction to
distress it’s normal if we’re sometimes
drawn to and deeply touched by what has
made someone sad what they find hard
what they have until now been very alone
with it is as we discover the fragile
sides of someone that we have a sense of
what separates them from casual
acquaintances and recognized with relief
and a sense of new loyalty how much they
share in our own confusion and pain we
can admire people for their
accomplishments their vibrant social
life or their buoyancy of character but
insofar as we love them it’s often
because of bits of them that have known
suffering because moments of their
childhood were difficult because they
can doubt themselves and are acquainted
with melancholy and isolation nor should
it surprise us if there can be an erotic
component to our attraction
sex being bound up with a desire to be
close intimate and nurturing unless a
partner allows us to see they’re
vulnerable core it may feel as if there
is nothing for our love to hold on to it
would be impossible to love an
invulnerable person only at best to feel
happy for them but that said there is a
way in which the desire to rescue
someone can go awry when the intention
is entirely asymmetrical when we want to
rescue but have a serious resistance to
being rescued it is for some of us a
great deal easier to fall into the
caring rather than the dependent role so
long as we are assisting someone else
with their fears insecurities and shame
we can keep our own collection of
vulnerabilities out of sight and mind
perhaps in childhood we didn’t have a
chance to come to a good accommodation
with our weakness we lacked reliable
nurture had to be strong before we were
ready and now flinch at the prospect of
opening up to someone who might betray
us in the way we were once betrayed in
such circumstances starting to look
after a lover can provide a
psychologically ideal scenario another’s
vulnerability enables us to get in touch
with our own while at the same time not
requiring us to show our weakness
directly with all the dangers involved
we can’t be vulnerable as it were by
proxy we can be weak via another while
at the same time shielding ourselves
from the risks of abandonment and hurt
this suggests that healthy love isn’t
one in which the desire to rescue is
absent it is one in which the desire is
honored as mutual in which both parties
have accepted the risks that come from
showing the other their needy
dependent and fragile sides it’s very
kind to want to help someone
it is more heroic and truly brave at
other points to let them look after us
to show them that we too are scared
small and ashamed and could be
desperately hurt by their indifference
or coldness a rescue fantasy isn’t wrong
it’s simply only ever one part and
should never be a one-sided part of what
love really involves please comment like
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