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Emotional Fusion: “Whenever I’m in a long-term relationship, I lose all of my passions, desires, and goals in life, simply to make the other person happy.”

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“Sorcery” by Mimi Stuart ©

“I have always been very, very close with my mom. However, her constant complaining and negative attitude has always taken a huge toll on me. When I was younger I would have violent outbursts and hit objects because I became so frustrated. The concept of emotional fusion might explain my inability to be in real intimate relationships. Whenever I’m in a long-term relationship, I lose all of my passions, desires, and goals in life, simply to make the other person happy. I was wondering if you had any advice going forward regarding intimate relationships as it is something I crave yet am utterly and completely terrified to enter one again.”

Emotional Fusion

Yes, it sounds like emotional fusion may be the issue. When you are a child and dependent on a parent, especially when there is only one primary parent taking care of you or you feel very close to that parent, it is natural to focus excessively on tuning into and accommodating your parent’s needs.

As you grow up from childhood to adolescence and into young adulthood, it is natural and healthy to gain more independence, both in action and thought. A self-centered or unhappy parent is likely to feel threatened by a child’s natural drive for independence, and thus, become volatile and controlling. The child, as a result, will feel constrained or manipulated by the parent, while simultaneously needing the parent. These contrasting emotions create a great deal of inner conflict, which can lead to outbursts, tantrums, or depression.

Togetherness and Separateness

Both drives are natural:

1) the desire to accommodate and avoid disappointing the parent, and

2) the drive toward independence and attaining your own happiness.

But if these two drives are not allowed to coexist, the result will be great tumult and frustration. These drives will conflict when a parent unconsciously or consciously tries to suppress their child’s independence and need for emotional separation. The child senses that independence in emotions, thoughts or actions is risky and dangerous, which leads to feelings of resentment, anger, guilt, or depression.

Ideally, a parent balances rules with freedom, that is, having boundaries and guidelines with compassionately allowing their children to develop emotional and mental separation and autonomy. Of course, there is no such thing as an ideal parent. Some may tend to smother their children in some respects while others tend to neglect them, at least to some degree. The greater the parent’s emotional reactivity is to the child’s emotions and actions, the greater the emotional fusion.

Future relationships

A person who is emotionally fused with their parent while growing up will tend to become emotionally fused with others in future relationships. They tend to assume they are responsible for the other person’s happiness. As a result, they lose sight of their own desires and goals.

It is fine to want your partner to be happy, but when it becomes your primary motivation, you fall into a no-win trap. Your happiness and vitality become dependent on the other person’s happiness, which puts an undue burden on both you and the other person, because you cannot make another person happy. You are aiming for something which you do not control, and actually shouldn’t control. Also, there is often an unspoken expectation that the other person owes you, and should make you happy in return, which leads to further disappointment and resentment.

Advice

My advice is to start imagining specific past situations where you have either submitted to doing something you didn’t want to do, responded with anger, or felt a distinct loss of enthusiasm and vitality. Then think of a new way you could have responded using a calm and considered approach, while honoring your own needs. It is generally not good to dwell on the past. But by considering real examples, which tend to repeat themselves, you can practice and prepare yourself for the next time you find yourself in a similar situation.

The goal is to learn to speak up for yourself while still respecting the other person, but leaving it up to them how they will feel and respond. Let go of your desire to insure that the other person will be happy and pleased with everything you say and do. Be considerate without becoming responsible for their reactions and emotions.

Examples

Do you put up with ongoing complaints? Then practice your response. For example, “I’m so sorry you are unhappy. Let me know if there’s something specific I can do. But when you keep telling me how unhappy you are, it also brings me down, and it’s not helpful for either of us.” If that person gets angry, repeat yourself once, and then say, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” and drop it or leave.

Do you spend too much time together, or do you give up doing things you love to do? Then find a way to do what is important to you, and express yourself without feeling guilty. For example, “Thanks for inviting me, but I need to get some exercise,” or “I have a project I’m working on at home,” or “I have been out too much lately.”

Do you focus too much on what the other person wants? Then become hyper aware of your tendency to neglect your own needs while focusing excessively on the other person’s needs. Express and pursue your desires with a matter of fact quality, “Sorry I can’t be there tonight. I need to catch up on sleep,” or “I was looking forward to practicing the guitar,” or “I need to rest and chill.” Anyone who easily disregards your needs is not someone you should lavish your attention on.

Do you feel that you have to fix things when the other person is sad, frustrated, or in pain? Be kind and compassionate, but resist your impulse to be responsible for fixing another person’s problems and moods. Use a firm, kind, calm voice, make no excuses, assign no guilt or blame. Wish them will while respecting your own space and needs. Use words like, “I wish/hope/want you to be happy/feel better/have a good evening,… but I need/would like/want to get some rest/see my old friend/catch up on reading….”

If the other person gets angry or feels hurt when you state your needs, then you may need to disengage from that relationship. A relationship that requires you to suppress your own needs to satisfy another person’s is not reciprocal or ultimately, sustainable. Alternatively, a relationship in which each person is primarily responsible for expressing and pursuing their own desires while being considerate of the other person fosters freedom, vitality, accountability, and long-term sustainability.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Becoming more whole: Discovering and developing your disowned selves

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"Lungta Windhorse" by Mimi Stuart ©

“Lungta Windhorse” by Mimi Stuart ©

As we grow up, we develop different parts of our personality as a reaction to our environment. Inborn personality traits, our culture and our family, all influence this normal, healthy development of the personality.

Specific life circumstances cause certain aspects of our personality to be strengthened. As a result, most people become a bit one-sided, for example, they become overly accommodating or self-absorbed. They might tend to withdraw, take charge, make people laugh, or be productive, and so forth.

When we develop certain parts of our personality, we tend to so at the expense of other parts. As we mature, we may encounter problems at work, in relationships, or with our children, who like to challenge these overly developed parts of our personality. Moreover, we often draw into our lives people with opposing qualities. Often our children or partner may trigger us and polarize from us into the opposite trait. For example, if one person is hard-working and always busy, another family member may unconsciously recoil and become overtly relaxed, even lazy.

Developing those disowned “selves” can help us become more whole and balanced, which tends to diminish polarizing relationship dynamics.

Ways to figure out your disowned selves:

1. Think about one or two people who really bother you, characters in a movie that you find despicable, or the traits of people that drive you crazy.

2. Write down these attributes that you can’t stand. For instance, greed, cruelty, manipulation, irresponsibility, spinelessness, lack of imagination, laziness. Pick one or two traits that really get under your skin and to which you have the strongest emotional reaction.

3. Now comes the hard part: Figure out what that quality would be if it were not so extreme, but a much milder, more reasonable version of that quality.

For example, a reasonable and mild dose of the following negative characteristics transform into a subsequent positive quality:

• greed » self-preservation
• cruelty » self-empowerment or the ability to assert boundaries
• manipulation » diplomacy
• irresponsibility » fun and spontaneity
• uptight » responsible
• spineless » kind or easy-going
• lack of imagination » following the rules

4. Verify the disowned self/selves by asking yourself whether having that quality would have helped you in your life thus far. For instance, if you loathe spinelessness, would you have benefited in your relationships or at work by being a bit more easy-going and understanding? If you can’t stand controlling people, would the ability to lead and direct people have improved past challenges?

The Development of the Disowned Selves 



Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone furthered Jung’s notion of “the shadow” with the notion of “disowned selves.” They write,

Disowned selves are energy patterns that have been partially or totally excluded from our lives. They can range from being angelically spiritual, creative, and mystical to being lustful, selfish, and even demonic. Our disowned selves can be detected by the intense, often uncharacteristic emotional reaction we have to others.

The disowned self is an energy pattern that has been punished every time it has emerged. These punishments might have been subtle – a raised eyebrow, the withdrawal of attention, a “that’s rather unattractive, don’t you think?” – or they may have been powerful punishments such as beatings or public humiliation. Whatever the nature of these repressive environmental forces, the result is the same: A set of energy patterns is deemed totally unacceptable and is, therefore, repressed but not totally destroyed. These energy patterns live on in our unconscious.

In Jungian terms, our disowned selves are a part of our shadow. When we see them reflected in others – when we see someone unashamedly living out an energy pattern similar to one we have disowned – we feel this disowned pattern resonate within ourselves. However, this pattern has been associated with pain and punishment in the past, so we want it to go away as soon as possible.

In order to quiet our internal discomfort we must rid ourselves of the corresponding external stimulus. We must kill off the person who is so audaciously living out our disowned self, whether we do it literally – as in a Jack-the-Ripper-style murder or symbolically – such as sitting in judgment of someone.

by Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone</p align=”Right”>


Developing your disowned selves

Developing your disowned selves is usually best accomplished in stages, and not at the expense of your primary self. The ultimate goal is to have a choice as to how to interact rather than to react involuntarily.

For instance, if you want to become more self-empowered, don’t feel you must give up being accommodating. First of all, the change won’t stick, because you won’t feel comfortable swinging to the opposite and you probably won’t be effective with such a dramatic change. More importantly, you need to be able to choose what’s appropriate from both personality traits for any given situation. You need to develop your new personality trait of self-assertiveness while maintaining your ability to be accommodating when you so choose.

To develop a disowned personality trait, it helps to think of a person who embodies the trait you want to develop in a way that you find attractive and that is feasible for you to adopt. Practice emulating that person’s tone of voice and manner. Get feedback from someone close to you. Imagine situations that are likely to come up in your life and prepare for them ahead of time. In time and with practice you will gain more choice in how to deal with challenging situations, and thus more wholeness and balance in your life.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD Psychology

Recommended book: Drs. Hal and Sidra Stone’s “Embracing Our Selves.”

Read “The Persona and the Shadow: ‘I’ve always been accommodating, but at times I find myself saying very mean things.’”

Read “Inner Struggle: ‘I’m tired of giving in.’”

“At first he was the pursuer, but now he’s the distancer. When I asked him whether this relationship was going anywhere, he told me that for him our relationship has not developed into anything special yet, although it might in the future but it also might not….”

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“Fire ‘n Ice”—Mark Wood & Laura Kaye by Mimi Stuart ©

“Fire ‘n Ice”—Mark Wood & Laura Kaye
by Mimi Stuart ©

He is clearly telling you that he is not in love with you, while at the same time keeping his options open. Someone who says after nine months that “it has not developed into anything special yet” is saying that he is in this relationship for his convenience until something better comes along. You are selling yourself short by staying together with someone who views his relationship with you so lackadaisically.

A fulfilling relationship should be based on mutual desire and respect. Despite the intermittent fun and exciting dates together, mutual desire is replaced here by apathy and ambivalence. This is clear from his own words, his lack of curiosity about you, and the scarcity of his efforts to talk to you when you are in town, out of town, or out of the country.

His lack of desire for a deeper connection with you is likely to leave you feeling more and more frustrated and disappointed. Unless you are satisfied with a perpetual feeling of unrequited longing, I would get out of this relationship now before your self-esteem deteriorates. Stop seeking his occasional validation and hoping that he will change.

Beware though, when you do back away, he will probably re-double his efforts and start saying things that you may enjoy hearing. Although you might take pleasure in his pursuit of you once again, if you go back to him every time he pursues you, his pattern of avoiding intimacy by distancing himself will probably become more exaggerated.

In the future, beware of the person who pursues you hotly in the beginning and then loses energetic interest. People like that often are drawn to the chase, but retreat from emotional intimacy.

When someone’s interest in you becomes lackluster, it’s time to let go.

by Dr. Alison Poulsen

Read “Pursuit and Distancing: Intimacy vs. Needing Space.”

Watch “Seven keys to a great relationship.”

Should you work on yourself before getting into a relationship?

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"Copland's 'Appalachian Spring'" by Mimi Suart ©
Live the Life you Desire

Is it better to be alone or in a relationship? Should people work on themselves while by themselves or while in a relationship?

The answer differs from person to person, and changes depending on individual circumstances and within different stages of life. There are many ways to live one’s life.

For many people, the best way to develop relationship skills and learn more about themselves is within the context of a relationship — as long as the relationship is not oppressive or abusive. When they are in the world alone, everything may seem to run smoothly without complication. But they may not be challenged. Moreover, they miss out on the many rewards of relationship.

Relationships can enrich life tremendously despite their complications and difficulties. Moreover, it is while involved in a relationship that people get triggered and thus learn to view themselves through the eyes of others. How else would you discover that you are inconsiderate, overly serious, or play the victim without someone close to you pointing it out.

Relationships thus challenge us to view ourselves from someone else’s point of view. This can drive us to improve how we move in the world and relate to others.

However, for some people — particularly for those who are too easily influenced by others or anxious to please others — being alone can be a valuable growing experience. Solitude and the freedom that comes with it allow them to find out who they are rather than merely what other people want.

For instance, someone who has been brought up in the shadow of a powerful or controlling person may have learned to become so tuned into the desires and expectations of others for the sake of survival that they actually have not considered what they themselves want in life. In such cases, it’s often helpful to enjoy solitude and avoid having someone else’s opinions and demands intrude upon their quietly developing sense of self.

Ideally we learn to consider others while maintaining a sense of ourselves. Whether we are in a relationship or not, learning to have a multi-faceted perspective helps us to balance our own desires with those of others.

In a great orchestral suite, the distinct movements are arranged to create a whole, which is greater than any individual movement. At times we hear the individual instruments or sections while at times we hear how they blend together to create unique and awe-inspiring music.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read ‘Loneliness: ‘I’m all alone.’”

Read “If ONLY I found the right man to love, then I would be happy.”

Read “Inner Struggle: ‘I’m tired of giving in.’”

Dysfunctional Parents:
“My parents were so dysfunctional, I don’t even know what a good relationship looks like.”

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"Harmonic Resolution" by Mimi Stuart
Live the Life you Desire

Whether or not you can or like to dance, dancing together is a perfect metaphor for the many interactions that occur in a relationship.

Ask yourself the following questions about your relationship: Do you do the dance of relationship to enjoy and connect with your partner or just to look good in front of other people? If you’ve ever seen the Australian comedy “Strictly Ballroom,” you can clearly see the difference between the dancers with an authentic connection and those who are trying to impress the crowds with flashy smiles, choreographed moves and peacock-feathered outfits.

Are you dancing WITH your partner or just dancing nearby, hardly ever looking at him or her? Are you critical or embarrassed of your partner’s moves? Are you more concerned with your own clumsiness than with having a good time together? When one of you makes a mistake, do you move on light-heartedly, or do you crucify your partner with an angry look?

The question at the heart of this metaphor is “How can two autonomous people desiring love and intimacy sustain their passion without becoming controlling, needy, bored, or reactive?”

The “dance” in the relationship remains most sustainable when the partners do not dance in lockstep nor in their own separate worlds.

Some dancers are lost without a partner who leads or follows as expected. They are incapable of being alone and independent, and as a result, try to control the other through heavy-handedness or critical looks. Similar “symptoms” develop in a relationship. Rather than simply adapting when their partner tries something new or independent, partners afraid of autonomy tend to react with anger, humiliation, or embarrassment.

On the other hand, partners who are focused primarily on themselves and remain excessively separate may never make a true connection at all.

When we dance together we embrace a paradox—we connect with our partner while honoring each person’s individuality and letting mild miss-steps slide. It’s the same in relationships, not just romantic ones. We have to embrace the paradox of responding considerately to our partner while honoring the music within ourselves.

by Alison Poulsen, PhD

Read “Pursuit and Distancing.”

Read “Emotional Intimacy.”