Psychologist Ekaterina Ogareva told how to get rid of unhappy love
Once I was at a psychological training where the participants were given the task of drawing an association to the word love.
Ekaterina Ogareva, director of educational programs "Psychology", "Human Resources Management" RANEPA St. Petersburg, candidate of psychological sciences told how to get rid of unhappy love.
Later, they arranged a kind of "vernissage". There were paintings depicting a passionate dance, rings, ropes, the sun and, on the contrary, a storm, clasped hands... and, of course, many hearts (including broken ones).
Even with the external similarity of the images, it turned out that each “artist” put very unique content into his creation.
For some, love was about partnership and support, for others, about scorching passion, for others, about pain and suffering... and not only now, in the moment, but in general, throughout life.
Why does this happen?
It is easy to assume that a person may have recently experienced (or is currently experiencing) some kind of love drama. But often, our experience of love begins long before meeting a real partner.
The model of the parental family, the scenarios accepted in it, the “ways” of receiving and showing love sometimes have a decisive influence on us in adult life.
Not all families have parents who are so mature, stable and “worked through” their personal traumas to constantly convey absolute acceptance and support to their child.
It happens that a mother, who is always tired and overwhelmed, reacts with irritation and rejection to the “whims” and “antics” of her child (who may simply be spontaneously expressing his natural emotions and needs), and he learns that he is “good enough” and worthy of love only when he is voiceless and unnoticed.
Even more difficult are the stories of growing up in a family with an aggressive or dependent parent. There, love often means constantly controlling, imposing one's will, or, on the contrary, feeling guilty, enduring, and sacrificing oneself.
The child observes, tries on what he sees, absorbs, and then grows up and loves, constantly checking this “picture”, as if with an invisible map. But, as we understand, the map can be simply wrong and lead “in the wrong direction”.
Therefore, if you find yourself in “unhappy” relationships time after time, it is worth figuring out what your “map” is and whose “paths of love” you are actually walking? Then there is a chance to pave a new, conscious, route of your own.
It happens that unhappy (read: unrequited) love overtakes even a completely healthy, successful person. Experiencing rejection, we seem to lose ourselves, or rather, the feeling of our own value. "I was not chosen.
"Am I not good enough? Not worthy? Not needed?" - the rejected person thinks and turns into a sad Cheburashka. "No, wait a minute. Now I will show what I am really worth. This is some kind of mistake!" - the strong ego rebels.
A person makes a new attempt to "win" the partner's attention and provokes a more aggressive refusal. It's offensive, painful, difficult, but what's happening is not so bad: after all, it's about the freedom to be or not to be together, to agree or refuse, to feel or not to feel love.
The possibility of choice also has a downside – the possibility of NOT choosing another.
Imagine what would happen if we were deprived of the right to refuse others who for some reason are in love with us? How many families would be destroyed, how many lives would be broken…
But still, living love, even if not as happy as we dreamed, we truly live, we feel, we realize ourselves in all the diversity of our spiritual manifestations and deeds (whether feats or falls...), we leave for ourselves the possibility of change and a real meeting with ourselves and others.
Remember how it was with Boris Zakhoder?
"There is no such thing as love
Unhappy.
Maybe she is
Bitter,
Difficult,
Unrequited
And reckless...
But unhappy
Love
It doesn't happen.
Even if she
Kills.
He who does not learn this,
And happy love is not worth it!
