Falling In and Falling Out.
A strong desire to intimate with another person physically and emotionally, when unreturned, becomes unrequited love.
Fulfilment in life involves romantic relationships as a crucial element for many people. In the absence of a romantic relationship, most people tend to become desolate and lonely. An individual’s narcissist needs start anticipating an ideal romance after finding a partner. However, as the relationship grows, a more mature and realistic relationship will evolve from a healthy partnership. This will be strengthened by friendship, inter-dependence, loyalty and companionship kind of superego related values. As I have written in my blog Hopeless Unrequited Love, a good relationship is where both partners feel the support of being pushed to achieve their best, yet being loved for what they are. Let your partner feel important in the relationship. Praise and encouragement can work better than power and controlling.
When a romantic relationship is terminated, it leaves one of the partners in unrequited love, leading to the beginning of a grieving process. This process causes a narcissistic injury of different levels in different individuals. It leads a person to regress into immature, maladaptive behaviour, even if the individual is known to have strong ego otherwise. On the other hand, people who are less capable of coping with the loss, tend to develop a narcissistic rage which is proportional to the degree of their narcissistic injury. This implies hateful feelings leading to verbal, physical or hidden hatred toward the beloved. My blog Return to Sender talks about how, unfortunately, persistence in spite of rejection, irrational and inappropriate behaviour are considered justified in case of unrequited love, which our cultural ideologies would not encourage otherwise. We mostly never worry about how uncomfortable unrequited love is, for the rejecter.
When an unrequited lover realises that the lost relationship has caused so much damage to him that he needs therapy, he normally seeks counselling. As I have mentioned in my blog Internal Karma, restore yourself mentally; even if it means taking therapy. Get rid of the love you feel for another person mentally. It often requires talking it out and acknowledging it. The therapist is mostly going to make you talk until it gets boring.
Now the problem with the clinical scenario is that it is unable to come up with a specific diagnosis in cases of love. The most common diagnosis includes adjustment or depressive disorders. When an individual is put on this kind of treatment, it does not actually target the specific struggles faced by the rejected lover. Lately, it has been advisable for the clinicians to make an effort to explore when the symptoms of the patient are more directly related to romantic disappointment; by conscious mindfulness of the case. If yes, help them shift away from damaging behavior and encourage healthier thought mechanism during the grieving process. This will ultimately help the patient develop healthier romantic relationships in the future.
Separation
This is a life event that all of us witness at some point in time. In fact, life starts with an individual’s separation from the mother’s womb. Understand this law that nature is trying to prepare us for, since the moment we are born. Separation, it is inevitable. It is also true that we do not realise the actual depth of our desire, love and dependability for an individual until we are separated from them. It is the profound longing towards our romantic relationship that makes us realise the strong attachment or ties that bind us to the other person. Pain of loss and separation is bound to happen in love, unless you decide not to take that path at all.
Munch’s paintings The Kiss and Separation illustrate the man’s sorrow at parting from his love. When studied carefully, the paintings are a representation of both past and present of human experience of separation. Many of Munch’s paintings embody the relationship between the two sexes, including Jealousy, Vampire and Towards the Forest. The death of his older sister from tuberculosis at the age of 15 years, transformed Munch and made him revisit this event again and again. He believed that art is capable of forcing its way out because of one’s urge to open his heart. All art, literature as well as music, must be inspired from one’s own life.
Please leave your experiences in the comments section and I will add them in my future blogs.