Don't work on relationships, work on yourself

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Our own psychological problems often get in the way of building healthy and lasting relationships.

So everything went wrong in the relationship. The period of falling in love ended, and the hormonal storm stopped hiding the partner's flaws.

You often quarrel, your partner does not listen to you and does not understand, you do not respect each other, and in general it is not clear why you stay together. In such a situation, many see two ways out: to break up or work on a relationship.

Working means being more attentive to each other, looking for common interests and compromises. However, short-term changes for the better will very soon roll back - to mutual resentment, quarrels and suffering.

This is because working on relationships will not change your personality and will not solve psychological problems: it will not make you take care of your partner or, conversely, give him freedom in the long term, will not help you become a reliable partner and will not teach you to be interested in the inner world of your beloved.

As we work on relationships, we deal with the consequences without seeing the real reason.

So what is it, this reason? Let's take a look at two common psychological problems that lead to a dead-end relationship with any partner. And the first of them is mental infantilism.

Infantilism is a relationship devouring monster

Before talking about mental infantilism, I will give a few complaints about relationships that are typical for people with this problem. The list is provided by Galina Savchenko, a practicing psychoanalyst.

• I am offended because they give me too little attention.
• I am angry that my closest relatives and friends do not want to take part in my life and solve my problems.
• I envy my friends, partner, brothers and sisters, because I believe that they get everything in life for free, and they do not want to share it with me. So I'm thinking about breaking off my relationship with them and finding others who appreciate, love, and coddle me.

Do you have such relationship problems? If such thoughts have come to mind more than once, you may be suffering from mental infantilism.

Mental infantilism is the immaturity of G. V. Kozlovskaya. Mental infantilism / Pathology of mental development. Ed. AS Tiganova / Research Center for Human Mental Health, which manifests itself mainly in the delay in the development of the emotional-volitional sphere and the preservation of children's personality traits.

What is the difference between an infantile person and how does this problem interfere with relationships? Here are a few qualities by which you can define infantilism in others or in yourself.

The qualities of an infantile person

1. Egocentrism

An egocentric adult does not take into account the needs and desires of other people, everyone should love him, give warmth, love and participation “just like that”.

Here is what psychologist Elena Pervukhina writes about healthy relationships and infantilism.

Elena Pervukhina is a practicing psychologist, author of articles on child and family psychology.

The most important secret of healthy family relationships is the balance between "take" and "give." You give your partner support, emotional warmth, respect, and in return you receive care, respect, help. If there is no such balance in a relationship, it cracks.

Elena says that infantile people always only demand from a partner, but are never ready to give or share.

When a partner is tired of always only giving, without receiving anything in return, he moves away, and the infantile person says that the partner has stopped loving him, that the relationship is not the right one, that something needs to be changed.

At the same time, an infantile person is not at all interested in the problems of his partner, his inner world. According to the psychotherapist Sergei Gorin, an infantile person is alien to the manifestation of care, and not only independent, but even at the request.

Sergei Gorin is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, author of monographs on the manipulation of the consciousness of the masses.

Infantilism is noticeable when a partner is expected to show concern. For example, you are hungry, sick, very tired and told your partner about it. If he rushed to feed you, help - everything is in order. If he says, “Well, go and eat (get well, rest),” you do not exist in his world.

2. Dependency

Many infantile people - both men and women - happily refuse to work, transplanted from the parent's neck to the neck of a partner.

In addition, elements of dependency are found among working people. For example, when an adult cannot serve himself on his own: he refuses to put his things away, cook, wash the dishes.

When a person does not want to do basic household chores, his partner loses the lion's share of free time, and this is at least dishonest and leads to constant quarrels.

3. Inability to make decisions

An infantile person avoids difficulties, does not know how to make decisions and therefore most often does not succeed in terms of career. When such a person faces any difficulties, he chooses the path of least resistance.

Sergey Gorin

The most common symptom of infantilism, from which both its bearer and others suffer, is a feeling of confusion when faced with the difficulties of real life.

Sergei Gorin says that an infantile personality does not get along well in a work collective, has problems with performing household chores (calling specialists, obtaining the necessary information) and easily becomes a victim of scammers.

In terms of relationships, this trait can gradually grow into a chasm between two partners: one is constantly developing, the other is stuck in a comfort zone, not wanting to move forward.

If you find some of the qualities of an infantile person in yourself, it is worth going further and remembering how your parents behaved.

Why do people grow up to be infantile

Psychologist Galina Savchenko argues that infantile adults grow up in families where parents are very focused on public opinion, strive to indulge their beloved child in everything, so that he has a firm conviction that everything in the world around him exists only for him.

There is another model based on the trauma of rejection. If parents are too busy with their lives - work, personal life, raising other children - and do not pay attention to the feelings and psychological life of the child, he will have a lack of affection, love and belonging, which he will always make up in adult relationships with his soul mate.

As a rule, such a person is very suspicious and demanding, as he is unconsciously afraid of losing the love and attention of his partner.

In adolescence, during the crisis of 13 years, it is decided whether the child can grow up or retain his childhood qualities forever. But is it really forever?

Can a thirty or forty-year-old infantile person grow up? Yes, but for this he needs to realize his problem and undergo psychotherapy.

What to do about this problem

If you want to change in order to build better adult relationships or to be successful in another area, it will take a long time to improve yourself.

You can find a psychotherapist who will guide you, help you understand in what areas work is required. If you want to develop on your own, you need to work on several points at once:

• the ability to serve oneself independently;
• the ability to plan your finances, think about the future;
• restraint in desires, when the next "Wishlist" is first comprehended and only then fulfilled;
• the ability to force yourself to do unpleasant work;

Sergey Gorin

The surest way is to force yourself to do unpleasant physical work. It can be not only classes in the country or breeding rabbits: even systematic classes in a fitness club are quite suitable for this purpose.

the ability to take care of others, to be interested in the inner world, desires and needs of other people

Will your relationship change for the better if you get rid of infantility? Not necessary.

It all depends not only on you, but also on your partner. If he wants to see next to him not an adult, an established person, but a child who needs to be looked after, your “growing up”, most likely, will not please him.

And this is the next big problem that is quite common - codependency in relationships.

Codependent relationship - dissolving in a partner

As in the example with infantilism, before moving on to describe the psychological disorder, consider the common complaints of codependents.

• My partner does not appreciate what I do for him, despite the fact that I often sacrifice myself for him.
• The partner is addicted to alcohol, drugs or games and does not want to change.
• I cannot part with my partner, because I feel sorry for him - he will disappear without me.

Codependent relationships arise when one of the partners has psychological trauma and low self-esteem and needs a person who would help compensate for the lack of self-esteem, self-sufficiency, and self-love.

Elena Pervukhina

Codependent personalities, unlike infantile ones, always control their partner, they always only give, always “from above”, as in the popular expression “I will love to death”. Codependents can't take. They are victims who don't need anything.

Elena claims that codependents do not live their own lives, but the life of a partner, thereby preventing their partner from living the way he wants. From such excessive pressure, the partner, as a rule, goes into dependence (alcoholism, workaholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, and so on), and the codependent begins to save him.

So, a person abandons himself, devoting his life to a partner and making him the meaning of his life. How does this codependency destroy relationships?

The habit of always putting your partner first leads to the fact that you gradually lose your personality. You get bored, so your partner justifiably stops paying attention to you.

In addition, excessive pressure from the codependent creates discomfort for the partner, depriving him of the opportunity to live a full life. As a result, the partner either leaves or escapes the discomfort of dependence.

How codependency arises

As in the case of infantilism, the tendency to build codependent relationships is laid in childhood.

Galina Savchenko listed the main reasons for the emergence of a propensity for codependent relationships.

• Parents praised little and always focused on the shortcomings, and not on the success of the child.
• Parental love directly depended on the child's success and good behavior (“I love for A's, but I don’t for C's”).
• Cold parents who were busy with their lives, careers.
• The parents divorced, and the child was left alone with his pain from the divorce (“no one needs me”).
• For some reason, parents paid more attention to other children (“we must try to be the best in order to win love”).

Galina Savchenko says that such people, having become adults, usually do not have problems in social life. These are such early adult children who are doing well, except for love and relationships.

The formula “In order to be loved and wanted to build a relationship with you, you must / must pay with a part of your life” is the leading scenario of relationships. Therefore, for codependents, life for the sake of an object of love is the norm, as it fits into this formula: give yourself - you will receive love.

Without changing yourself, you cannot build a healthy relationship, no matter who your partner is.

The habit of sacrificing yourself for love and acceptance will prevent you from living a full life and enjoying relationships in which partners care about each other, value both their own and others' interests, and are self-sufficient so as not to depend entirely on the partner: his mood, success or failure.

How to get rid of codependency? As with any childhood psychological problem, there is a long way to go.

How to get rid of codependency

Elena Pervukhina

It is difficult for a codependent person to admit to himself that his whole life is empty, that he does not live his own life, that he closes his eyes to his own problems, that he has dissolved in another and that he does not exist as a person.

Psychologists agree that the main thing is to realize the problem and face the truth, and then take concrete steps. If some of the qualities of codependent people seemed familiar to you, this is an occasion to think and start working on yourself.

And here are several directions for such work.

• Learn to say "no", if you are uncomfortable and unpleasant to do something, stop helping everyone in the hope of their good attitude and acceptance. Most likely, many just use you.
• Learn to love and accept yourself. You can only live your life, so make it interesting.

In general, work on getting rid of codependency requires working through childhood memories and attitudes. Therefore, ideally, you should find a therapist who will analyze your case and help you correct your self-esteem.

Someone may notice that a partner can suffer from infantilism or codependency, and at the same time you will be a mature and healthy person who is simply unlucky. But a healthy, self-respecting person will not be able to withstand a scarce partner for a long time.

If, despite unhappy relationships, quarrels and scandals, you continue to cling to your partner and cannot imagine life without him, you should look at yourself and ask: do you love and respect yourself so much?