one of the odder phenomena of
relationships is the immediate certainty
that whenever things go wrong in our
lives it is first and foremost and quite
obviously a partner’s fault we get
furious with our partners because we
assign them such a deep role in our
lives we have faith that a person who
understands obscure parts of us who’s
present solves so many of our problems
couldn’t realistically also be someone
who wouldn’t be able to fix our whole
lives we exaggerate our partners powers
an exaggeration that’s an echo heard in
adult life down the decades of a child’s
or at their parents the partner inherits
a little of that beautiful romantic
dangerous unfair trust that we as
children once had in our parents at one
level the lover has learned how to
reassure the anxious child in us that’s
why we love them but that source of
strength also brings with it some very
serious problems for the primitive part
of us insist on trusting them a little
too much believing that they actually
control far more of existence than they
possibly could it’s also to do with a
permission that the partners love gives
us to moan in a way we cannot otherwise
the world is constantly mean to us it
rejects our creative endeavors it
overlooks us in promotions in rewards
idiots but usually we can’t complain we
can’t get angry with the people who are
really to blame for hurting us so we get
angry with those whom we can be sure
will tolerate us for blaming them we get
angry with the very nicest most
sympathetic most loyal people in our
vicinity the ones least likely to have
harmed us but most likely to stick
around while we blame them furiously for
having done so
the mean words and mad accusations we
mutter to our lovers undoubtedly often
sound horrible but let’s at least
remember that they are a curious proof
of intimacy a symptom of love itself and
in their own way oddly romantically a
detail indirectly acknowledged by their
frequent sexual conclusions we can tell
any stranger something reasonable and
polite but only in the presence of
someone we really trust can we dare to
be properly irrational and truly unkind
if we think of love as being in perfect
agreement all the time we will feel that
getting into fights must mean that a
relationship is winding down starting to
fall apart but crazy blame games are at
heart just a symptom of an intensity of
investment in another person we aren’t
simply nice with our partners because
we’re so close to them they draw us into
very private zones of turbulence and
distress from which absolutely everyone
else is excluded that’s one of the
stranger more unfortunate and yet from a
car mangle almost flattering gifts of love
relationships is the immediate certainty
that whenever things go wrong in our
lives it is first and foremost and quite
obviously a partner’s fault we get
furious with our partners because we
assign them such a deep role in our
lives we have faith that a person who
understands obscure parts of us who’s
present solves so many of our problems
couldn’t realistically also be someone
who wouldn’t be able to fix our whole
lives we exaggerate our partners powers
an exaggeration that’s an echo heard in
adult life down the decades of a child’s
or at their parents the partner inherits
a little of that beautiful romantic
dangerous unfair trust that we as
children once had in our parents at one
level the lover has learned how to
reassure the anxious child in us that’s
why we love them but that source of
strength also brings with it some very
serious problems for the primitive part
of us insist on trusting them a little
too much believing that they actually
control far more of existence than they
possibly could it’s also to do with a
permission that the partners love gives
us to moan in a way we cannot otherwise
the world is constantly mean to us it
rejects our creative endeavors it
overlooks us in promotions in rewards
idiots but usually we can’t complain we
can’t get angry with the people who are
really to blame for hurting us so we get
angry with those whom we can be sure
will tolerate us for blaming them we get
angry with the very nicest most
sympathetic most loyal people in our
vicinity the ones least likely to have
harmed us but most likely to stick
around while we blame them furiously for
having done so
the mean words and mad accusations we
mutter to our lovers undoubtedly often
sound horrible but let’s at least
remember that they are a curious proof
of intimacy a symptom of love itself and
in their own way oddly romantically a
detail indirectly acknowledged by their
frequent sexual conclusions we can tell
any stranger something reasonable and
polite but only in the presence of
someone we really trust can we dare to
be properly irrational and truly unkind
if we think of love as being in perfect
agreement all the time we will feel that
getting into fights must mean that a
relationship is winding down starting to
fall apart but crazy blame games are at
heart just a symptom of an intensity of
investment in another person we aren’t
simply nice with our partners because
we’re so close to them they draw us into
very private zones of turbulence and
distress from which absolutely everyone
else is excluded that’s one of the
stranger more unfortunate and yet from a
car mangle almost flattering gifts of love
Please follow and like us: