Why are we drawn to people with whom we will ultimately feel bad and how to fix it

Do you often wonder if you have chosen the wrong partner? You were so in love, and now some basic things in the relationship are missing.

For this experience we can thank our subconscious, which, let’s face it, chose our partner.

Dr. Harville Hendricks, author of How to Get the Love You Want , talks about overcoming this phenomenon. He says that we are naturally drawn to people whom we know deep down will not meet our needs. In fact, he argues that incompatibility is the basis for marriage.

How can this be?

According to him, adults have an unconscious need to recreate experiences familiar to us from childhood. It’s like trying to heal old wounds. Without realizing it, we choose someone who has the negative traits of our parents because those traits seem familiar to us.

We reproduce situations from childhood by falling in love with people who will upset us. It’s as if our psyche is saying: “I want what I need from someone who cannot give it to me.”

There is a solution

There are ways to get out of the clutches of this phenomenon. Harville Hendricks developed a method based on his discovery called Imagotherapy. When partners help get what they lacked in childhood.

For example, if your partner wants something from a part of you that was suppressed as a child, he has identified your greatest growth point. If you agree to work on this, you will grow the underdeveloped parts of yourself.

By working on yourself, you give your partner exactly what you feel you simply cannot give. You’ll end up with a part of yourself that you never had before.

It is a process of mutual growth and healing. You don’t change yourself, but you become more of you than you were before.

Here is Imago Therapy’s approach to creating healthy relationships, which Harville Hendrix outlined in his book How to Get the Love You Want:

Start with an internal search

Instead of looking outside to see if you can get your partner to love you “right”? Find out what your childhood wounds, expectations and fears are. Master them and see them as opportunities for growth.

The bad that we see in our partner, that perhaps causes us pain, lives in us too. But we have a very good ability to close our eyes and not notice the obvious. If you notice this, then you have met your “Imago-pair.” (Imago means image, and is used to describe the subconscious imprint of the qualities of your caregivers).

“Don’t run away” (i.e. what we do to avoid intimacy) When you run away, turn a blind eye to something,” this can be a threat to relationships. Lead to overeating, sticking to social networks, avoiding communication with loved ones, etc. If you do something like this, try to get rid of it, even for a short time.

Create a shared vision for the relationship

Write positive statements about your ideal relationship in the present tense, even if it isn’t there yet. For example: “We have a fun weekend with friends and go to the park every Wednesday.” Write as many as you can think of, share them with each other, and create a shared vision using overlapping ideals.

The right thing

Make a list of things your partner currently does that you enjoy. Then write another list, a fantasy list of things you would like him to do for you. Share these lists and start fulfilling your fantasy list. Pick one day and try it. It may seem forced at first, but do it anyway. It works.

Couple dialogue

It is a communication technique that creates security. When you have a problem or experience, ask for dialogue. The main rule is that when one partner begins to speak, the other listens to him and only after he finishes gives him feedback.