Getting the Love You Want

Above all else, we seek (Location 156)

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connection—with parts of ourselves that we have repressed, with other people, and with the larger universe. (Location 156)

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When couples repair the ruptured connection in their present day relationship, they simultaneously heal the trauma they felt as young children. Their (Location 200)

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Heal in the present; heal the past; heal the relation to the whole. (Location 202)

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people cannot connect if they are defending themselves against a barrage of negativity or if they live in fear of being abandoned or overwhelmed by their partners. (Location 204)

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Removing anger draws couples (Location 217)

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even closer together. (Location 217)

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This evocative exercise instructs couples to cradle each other in their arms as they listen to each other’s childhood stories. By the end of the exercise, they can begin to see one another as being “full of hurt” instead of “hurtful” or “bad.” (Location 220)

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As it promotes safety, the Holding exercise also makes a major contribution to the healing process. (Location 222)

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Your partner is holding you tenderly as you talk about not getting enough physical affection as a child. Your partner is listening to you with full attention as you talk about being ignored by your caregivers. (Location 224)

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As you bring to mind the pain from the past, your partner’s attentiveness and compassion applies the universal balm. (Location 226)

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You begin to feel more intimately connected with your partner and less anguished about the past. (Location 227)

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Mirroring, the first step, is designed to help each of you understand what the other is saying. (Location 234)

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It involves listening to your partner’s comments, restating them without altering their meaning, and then asking for confirmation that you “got it.” (Location 235)

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Mirroring stops this destructive pattern in its tracks. When you mirror each other, you both get to experience what it is like to have someone pay close attention to you, understand exactly what you have to say, and honor your uniqueness. (Location 247)

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“Do you have more to say about that?” Or, simply, “Is there more about that?” It’s a wonderful feeling to have your partner’s full attention and to be asked to reveal even more about what you are thinking and feeling. (Location 254)

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Once you have listened to your partner and fully understood what they have to say, you then strive to see how their thoughts make sense to them. (Location 259)

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is important that you affirm the logic of your partner’s thinking—to see your partner as an “other” and no longer an extension of yourself: “You are not crazy. (Location 262)

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“Now that I really listen to you and understand what you’re saying, I’m wondering if you might feel threatened.” Or “Wow! I think I understand how much your new job means to you. You must be feeling thrilled!” (Location 268)

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“Love heals all” is a well known sentiment. And it can. (Location 272)

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In order to heal the wounds of the past, you need to (Location 275)

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receive love from a person whom your unconscious mind has merged with your childhood caregivers. (Location 276)

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Separate knowing is abstract. Connected knowing is concrete. (Location 285)

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They can begin to accept the fact that being in an intimate love relationship calls forth all the unresolved issues of their childhood, and that they can learn how to work together to resolve them. (Location 392)

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We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship. Indeed, we cannot be fully healed outside of a relationship. This is the idea that resonated with so many couples. (Location 393)

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Imago Therapy helps you use this transference as a source of healing. This is very similar to the psychodynamics of traditional therapy, only in this context, the transference is between you and your partner, not between you and a therapist. (Location 414)

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As you will see, marriage is therapy—provided (Location 446)

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You fell in love because your old brain had your partner confused with your parents! Your old brain believed that it had finally found the ideal candidate to make up for the psychological and emotional damage you experienced in childhood. (Location 680)

some reason, we enter marriage with the expectation that our partners will magically restore this feeling of wholeness. It is as if they hold the key to a long-ago kingdom, and all we have to do is persuade them to unlock the door. Their failure to do so is one of the main reasons for (Location 714)

our eventual unhappiness. (Location 716)

Without the child’s knowing it, (Location 773)

this fear of engulfment becomes a key part of her character, and in later years she becomes what I call an “isolater,” a person who unconsciously pushes others away. She keeps people at a distance because she needs to have “a lot of space” around her; she wants the freedom to come and go as she pleases; she doesn’t want to be “pinned down” to a single relationship. All the while underneath this cool exterior is a two-year-old girl who was not allowed to satisfy her natural need for independence. When she marries, her need to be a distinct “self” will be on the top of her hidden agenda. (Location 774)

what I call “fusers,” people who seem to have an insatiable need for closeness. Fusers want to “do things together” all the time. If people fail to show up at the appointed time, they feel abandoned. (Location 780)

The thought of divorce fills them with terror. They crave physical affection and reassurance, and they often need to stay in constant verbal contact. (Location 782)

Underneath all this clinging behavior is a young child who needed more time on a parent’s lap. (Location 783)

Ironically, for reasons I will explore in later chapters, fusers and isolaters tend to grow up and marry each other, thus beginning an infuriating game of push and pull that leaves neither partner satisfied. (Location 784)

For the first time in her life, Sarah came home with a report card that was mostly As. She will never forget her mother’s reaction: “How on earth did that happen? I bet you can’t do that again.” And Sarah couldn’t, because she finally gave in and put to sleep the part of her brain that thinks calmly and rationally. (Location 812)

She couldn’t risk alienating her mother, because she was dependent on her mother for survival. It was dangerous, therefore, for Sarah to know that she had a mind. (Location 817)

some thoughts and feelings are so unacceptable that they should be eliminated, so he constructs an imaginary parent in his head to police his thoughts and activities, a part of the mind that psychologists call the “superego.” (Location 902)

This is so unpleasant that the child puts to sleep some of those forbidden parts of himself—in Freudian terms, he represses them. The ultimate price of his obedience is a loss of wholeness. (Location 904)

In a sense, he is right. His negative traits are not a part of his original nature. They are forged out of pain and become a part of an assumed identity, an alias that helps him maneuver in a complex and sometimes hostile world. (Location 926)

would restore their wholeness. Just like Plato’s mythical creatures, we, too, go through life truncated, cut in half. We cover our wounds with healing ointment and gauze in an attempt to heal ourselves, but despite our efforts an emptiness wells up inside us. We try to fill this emptiness with food and drugs and activities, but what we yearn for is our original wholeness, our full range of emotions, the inquisitive mind that was our birthright, and the Buddha-like joy that we experienced as very young children. (Location 952)

conviction that finding the right person—that perfect mate—will complete us and make us whole. This special person can’t be just anyone. It can’t be the first man or woman who comes along with an appealing smile or a warm disposition. It has to be someone who stirs within us a deep sense of recognition: “This is the one I’ve been looking for! This is the one who will make up for the wounds of the past!” (Location 956)

this person is invariably someone who has both the positive and the negative traits of our parents! (Location 959)

In literature, as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others. (Location 963)

But, no matter what their conscious intentions, most people are attracted to mates who have their caretakers’ positive and negative traits, and, typically, the negative traits are more influential. (Location 970)

Janice is an intuitive thinker; her husband, Patrick, is very logical. (Location 999)

marked in him, however, was his lack of compassion for her feelings, just like Lynn’s father. Lynn had frequent bouts of depression, and Peter’s advice to her was “Talk less (Location 1075)

and do more. I’m tired of hearing about your problems!” This was consistent with his own approach to unhappy feelings, which was to cover them up with frantic activity. (Location 1077)

Another reason Lynn was attracted to Peter was that he was so at home in his body. When I looked at the two of them, I was often reminded of the words of one of my professors: “If you want to know what kind of person a client is married to, imagine his or her opposite.” (Location 1078)

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Although his parents had accepted Peter’s body, they had rejected his feelings. When he was with Lynn, he felt more connected to his repressed emotions; she helped him regain contact with his lost self. In addition, she had numerous character traits that reminded him of his parents. (Location 1084)

how can people tell so much about each other so quickly? (Location 1089)

“unconscious perception.” We intuitively pick up much more about people than we are aware of. When we meet strangers, we instantly register the way they move, the way they seek or avoid eye contact, the clothes they wear, their characteristic expressions, the way they fix their hair, the ease with which they laugh or smile, their ability to listen, the speed at which they talk, the amount of time it takes them to respond to a question—we record all of these characteristics and a hundred more in a matter of minutes. (Location 1091)

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Our powers of observation are especially acute when we are looking for a mate, because we are searching for someone to satisfy (Location 1100)

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our fundamental unconscious drives. (Location 1101)

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if the primary reason we select our mates is that they resemble our caretakers, it is inevitable that they are going to reinjure some very sensitive wounds. But before we sink into this (Location 1117)

death. By attending to their unmet childhood needs, their partners are (Location 1208)

going to become allies in their struggle for survival. On a deeper level, this sentence reveals the fear that, if the lovers were to part, they would lose their rediscovered sense of wholeness. (Location 1208)

This degree of make-believe is quite common; most of us go to a lot of trouble in the early stages of a relationship to appear to be ideal mates. In some cases, however, the deception is more extreme. (Location 1238)

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Once a relationship seems secure, a psychological switch is triggered deep in the old brain that activates all the latent infantile wishes. It is as if the wounded child within takes over. (Location 1395)

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Says the child, “I’ve been good enough long enough to ensure that this person is going to stay around for a while. Let’s see the payoff.” (Location 1396)

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The change may be abrupt or gradual, but at some point they wake up to discover that they’ve migrated to a colder climate. Now there are fewer back rubs; shorter, more cryptic love notes; less lovemaking. Their partners have stopped looking for excuses to be with them and are spending more time reading, watching television, socializing with friends, or just plain daydreaming. (Location 1399)

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Your growing discomfort with your partner’s complementary traits was only part of the rapidly brewing storm. Your partner’s negative traits, the ones that you had resolutely denied during the romantic phase of your relationship, were also beginning to come into sharp focus. Suddenly your partner’s chronic depression or drinking problem or stinginess or lack of responsibility became evident. This gave you the sickening realization that not only were you not going to get your needs met, but your partner was (Location 1433)

destined to wound you in the very same way you were wounded in childhood! (Location 1436)

I suddenly realized what had happened to me that day on my honeymoon. When I had seen my wife so far away from me, so absorbed in herself, and with the same slump to her shoulders, (Location 1458)

had had the eerie premonition that my marriage was going to be a repetition of my early days with a depressed mother. The emptiness of the early days of my childhood was going to continue. It had been too much for me to absorb, and I had quickly drawn the curtain. (Location 1460)

He was her beleaguered husband, and he had just escaped from a torrent of criticism in the hopes of finding peace and quiet. His old brain responded to her attack—which in reality was nothing more than an adult version of the infant’s cry—with a counterattack. “Maybe I’d help you more if you weren’t so bitchy!” he retorted. “You’re always hounding me. Can’t I be alone for five minutes?” He seethed with anger, and Kathryn burst into tears. (Location 1483)

“I felt scared. It scared me that he wouldn’t talk to me.” For the first time she realized that she was actually afraid of his (Location 1491)

silences. (Location 1492)

“Really?” asked Kathryn. “You weren’t mad at me that day?” “No! Sure, I got annoyed when you kept criticizing me, but all I wanted to do was get away. I kept thinking about how nice it would be to be out in the garage working on my own projects instead of being nagged at all the time.” “Well, the way I see it, you’re always angry at me, and eventually you can’t hold it in any longer, so you blow up.” (Location 1498)

“I do blow up, but it takes about two or three hours of your nagging before I do! Anybody would get angry at that. I don’t start out being angry at you.” (Location 1501)

After half a minute she replied, “I don’t know. It’s just the silence.” (Location 1505)

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She didn’t marry a talkative, outgoing person—she found someone who had her father’s negative traits so she could re-create her childhood and continue her struggle for consistent love and kindness. (Location 1512)

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Kathryn’s father only superficially. He was silent because he was an introvert, not because he was depressed and given to anger. It was Kathryn’s constant nagging that provoked her husband. (Location 1513)

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In their compelling need to work on unfinished business, they project the missing parental traits onto their partners. Then, by treating their partners as (Location 1516)

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if they actually had these traits, they manage to provoke the desired response. (Location 1517)

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but when they grow up they also look for these traits in potential mates, for they are an essential part of their imagos. The imago is not only an inner image of the opposite sex; it is also a description of the disowned self. (Location 1534)

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Why don’t people simply tell each other in plain English that they want more affection or attention or lovemaking or freedom or whatever it is that they are craving? (Location 1568)

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world to respond to our needs: “When you are frustrated, provoke the people around you. Be as unpleasant as possible until someone comes to your rescue.” (Location 1574)

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First of all, we choose our partners for two basic reasons: (1) they have both the positive and the negative qualities of the people who raised us, and (2) they compensate for positive parts of our being that were cut off in childhood. (Location 1620)

We enter the relationship with the unconscious assumption that our partner will become a surrogate parent and make up for all the deprivation of (Location 1621)

our childhood. All we have to do to be healed is to form a close, lasting relationship. (Location 1622)

our partners are deliberately ignoring our needs. They know exactly what we want, and when and how we want it, but for some reason they are deliberately withholding it from us. (Location 1624)

This makes us angry, and for the first time we begin to see our partners’ negative traits. We then compound the problem by projecting our own denied negative traits onto them. (Location 1625)

our needs is to be unpleasant and irritable, just as we were in the cradle. If we yell loud enough and long enough, we believe, our partners will come to our rescue. And, finally, what gives the power struggle its toxicity is the underlying unconscious belief that, if we cannot entice, coerce, or seduce our partners into taking care of us, we will face the fear greater than all other fears—the fear of death. (Location 1627)

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Note: This is exactly how I felt before calling off the wedding

Your partner might then respond: “Yes, I am! I’m tired of all the wasted food around here. Next time be more careful!” And, still relying on new-brain tact, you could respond once again in the same nondefensive manner: “You’re right. Food does get wasted around here. I’ll get an extension cord and bring the waffle iron into the dining room, where we can keep a closer eye on it.” Your partner, disarmed by your (Location 1675)

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discovery: in most interactions with your partner, you are actually safer when you lower your defenses than when you keep them engaged, because your partner becomes an ally, not an enemy (Location 1681)

Paradoxically, you do an even better job of satisfying the underlying purpose of this automatic defense, which is to keep yourself safe and unharmed. (Location 1684)

definition: a conscious partnership is a relationship that fosters maximum psychological and spiritual growth; it’s a relationship created by becoming conscious and cooperating with the (Location 1687)

fundamental drives of the unconscious mind—to be safe, to be healed, and to be whole. (Location 1689)

You become more intentional in your interactions. (Location 1703)

You learn to value your partner’s needs and wishes as highly as you value your own. (Location 1705)

You embrace the dark (Location 1708)

side (Location 1708)

of your personality. (Location 1708)

You learn new techniques to satisfy your basic needs and desires. (Location 1711)

you realize that your partner can indeed (Location 1712)

be a resource for you—once you abandon your self-defeating tactics. (Location 1712)

You search within yourself for the strengths and abilities you are lacking. (Location 1713)

Note: I'm trying to figure this out through therapy right now

Therefore, being with your partner gave you an illusory sense of wholeness. (Location 1715)

a sense of oneness is to develop the (Location 1716)

hidden traits within yourself. (Location 1716)

You become more aware of your drive to be loving and whole and united with the universe. (Location 1716)

You accept the difficulty of creating a (Location 1719)

lasting love relationship. (Location 1720)

As you gain a more realistic view, you realize that a good relationship requires commitment, discipline, and the courage to grow and change; creating a fulfilling love relationship is hard work. (Location 1721)

in order to have a good relationship, you have to be willing to grow and change. (Location 1759)

If I had known this ten years ago, I would still be living with my wife and son.” (Location 1760)

Note: We have to work in this now so we can rescue our relationship

To become a lover, we must first abandon the self-defeating tactics and beliefs that I’ve discussed in the first five chapters and replace them with more constructive ones. We must change our ideas about love relationships, about our partners, and, ultimately, about ourselves. (Location 1765)

At this point God spoke to them: “Because you have no faith, and because you keep remembering Egypt, you have to wander in the desert for forty years, until a new generation arises that does not remember the old ways. Only then can you go into the Promised Land.” (Location 1829)

most of us go through our relationships as if we were asleep, engaging in routine interactions that give us little pleasure. Like the Israelites in their four hundred years of servitude to the Egyptians, we have forgotten who we are. (Location 1834)

The story also teaches us that we are prisoners of the fear of change. (Location 1838)

The final truth in the story of Moses is that we expect life’s rewards to come to us easily and without sacrifice. (Location 1843)

But it was only when the Israelites saw the Promised Land as an opportunity, as a chance to create a new reality, that they were allowed to enter. (Location 1845)

And it is only when we see love relationships as a vehicle for change and self-growth that we can begin to satisfy our unconscious yearnings. (Location 1846)

so that they came to each and every appointment. The reason I asked for a twelve-session commitment was that I knew from my own experience and from statistical surveys that a majority of couples quit therapy before their fifth appointment. (Location 1910)

Achieving their vision is the goal of therapy. (Location 1925)

The (Location 1943)

reason the fuser is relieved by the commitment is that the guarantee of a stable relationship—if only for three months—reduces the conscious or unconscious fear of abandonment. (Location 1943)

(For the fuser this fear is always there, but it is more acute in a troubled relationship.) (Location 1944)

why do men and women spend so much time avoiding intimacy? There are two very good reasons: anger and fear. (Location 2000)

Their partners seem to be Mommy and Daddy, doctor and therapist all rolled into one. Months or years later, when they come to the realization that their partners are committed to their own salvation, not theirs, they feel betrayed. A tacit agreement has been broken. (Location 2002)

barricade. In effect, they are saying, “I am angry at you for not meeting my needs.” Then they begin systematically to seek pleasure and satisfaction outside the relationship. (Location 2004)

The husband who stays late at the office even when he has finished the day’s work, the wife who spends the entire evening reading to the children while her husband watches TV—both of these individuals are trying to find pleasure that is missing from their relationships. (Location 2006)

needs, a part of you fears that you will die, and it believes that your partner is the one who is allowing this to happen. When a basic lack of nurturing (Location 2011)

but that of a terrified lamb running away from a lion. (Location 2015)

All that couples are aware of is a mild feeling of anxiety around each other and a desire to be with other people or to be involved in other activities. (Location 2016)

reason for staying away—you don’t want to feel depressed. Also, it would take a tremendous amount of courage to tell your partner how you really feel about being together. It is far simpler to stay late at work and avoid all the pain and the drama. (Location 2023)

But in order to have a satisfying love relationship, both partners need to draw their energy back into the relationship. First of all, it is very difficult to identify what is wrong in a relationship if the participants keep themselves distant and distracted. Even more important, two intimate partners cannot reconnect with each other until they are physically and emotionally available. (Location 2024)

Basically, it involves talking with your partner about your feelings rather than acting them out. (Location 2032)

question: “Is one of the main reasons I’m doing this activity to avoid spending time with my partner?” (Location 2041)

“One way I act out in our relationship (rather than put my feelings into words) is (thinking about suicide a lot; or fantasizing while we are making love) …” “The reason I do this is because (I feel I will never get your attention; or you are passive when we are (Location 2058)

making love) …” And then continue to talk until all the feelings are expressed. (Location 2059)

When they do this on a regular basis, the need to act out diminishes and is replaced with deeper feelings of connection. (Location 2061)

They begin to understand why they’ve been avoiding each other, and this is an important first step in therapy. (Location 2064)

to be resolved in one tidy package. They come to the surface slowly, usually the more superficial ones first. (Location 2071)

buried that it is only triggered by a crisis or the demands of a particular stage of life. (Location 2073)

partner. But unless they understand the unconscious desires that motivated their dysfunctional behavior in the first relationship, and learn how to satisfy those desires with the new partner, the second relationship is destined to run aground on the same submerged rocks. (Location 2080)

Perfect love means to love the one through whom one became unhappy. (Location 2092)

is to help them become allies, not enemies. (Location 2096)

People also need to learn how to let go of counterproductive behaviors and replace them with more effective ones. (Location 2118)

deprive their partners of pleasure. The Reromanticizing exercise prevents this downward spiral by requiring couples to tell each other exactly what pleases them, decreasing their reliance on mental telepathy. (Location 2180)

it.” The back rub has to come as a “gift.” (Location 2190)

This need to be “gifted” comes straight out of our childhood. When we were infants, love came without price tags. (Location 2190)

We want to be loved and cared for without having to do anything in return. When our partners grant us caring behaviors independent of our actions, our need for unconditional love appears to be satisfied. (Location 2192)

Although the presents may be enjoyed, they don’t carry the same emotional impact as a present that is given as a total surprise. (Location 2228)

curve ball needs to be thrown in now and then to pique their interest. (Location 2232)

A woman who causally mentioned to her husband that she liked a dress she saw in a store window might be delighted to find that very dress—in the correct size—hanging in her closet. (Location 2234)

When couples added unanticipated pleasures like these to their regular caring behaviors, the beneficial effect of the exercise continued on a gentle rise. (Location 2236)

When a husband and wife have been treating each other like enemies for five years, it’s going to feel strange to start writing love notes again. (Location 2251)

The only way to lessen (Location 2253)

this (Location 2253)

automatic resistance is to repeat a new behavior often enough so that it begins to feel familiar and therefore safe. (Location 2253)