Emotional dependence: Love, the couple and the need

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Emotional dependence

Emotional dependence is one of the most common ailments in couples. In my book “Mieux vivre à deux” I explain how to no longer depend on the other and how to find a beautiful complicity in his couple.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

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What is the couple?

Bernard Werber says “to build a couple, you have to be four: a man plus her share of femininity, a woman plus her share of virility”. The couple should not be seen as a place of concessions and restrictions, quite the contrary. If you live your couple as a pile of compromise it is already that there are eels under rock.

Imagine the couple as an empty space between the twoof you. It is this space that you must fill and nourish in order to make it exist as Your couple. I insist on the fact that the couple should not be automatically assimilated to concessions because it actually represents a great opportunity to develop you personally. We must see the couple as an accelerator of development: your partner knows you by heart and will help you to detect what you need to move forward, to develop you more and more. But for this, you must already become aware of your couple as such.

A couple, according to the dictionary, “acts in concert”, so this implies a common goal or vision. It can be a common project (setting up a restaurant, getting married, having children, wanting to travel…) or simply having the same ideal of life. In short, a couple is two individualities that form a third entity by their love and affection, it is the fusion, the mixture of two affectivities.

What is the need for love? (Emotional dependence)

Have you never criticized your partner for not giving you “enough love”, have you not already told him that you “need love”?

Le Larousse defines need as “A requirement born of a feeling of lack, of deprivation of something that is necessary for organic life”. All our lives, we seek in love as in friendship to find emotions and feelings felt during our childhood. This infinite quest pushes us to live according to some psychologists. This perpetual search tries to fill the gap generated by this first feeling of parental love from which we move more and more away as we grow up. But when we talk about the need for love we are mainly talking about a one-made solution to fight against the fear of loneliness or against the lack of self-confidence. And that’s where we’re wrong! Love is not a cure, the partner must not exist as a medicine!

To “need” love is simply to live in the expectation that someone other than yourself will give you what you cannot have alone. In other words, to need love is to be dependent on the other. You are then perpetually waiting for your partner to do something for you and, when he does not, you go into reproach mode (the worst kills the love that exists for Men!).

Why do you think love is a need?

Your parents, your friends, the books you’ve read, the movies you’ve seen, the media, the women’s magazines… have planted a small seed in your head and made you believe hard as iron in this (conspiracy) theory.

Have you ever noticed that this need for love was often the cause of distortions in your relationship when it should lead to an affectionate rapprochement? Have you ever observed your spouse’s annoyance when you tell him that he does not pay enough attention to you or that you have a great need for love?

Need destroys love (Emotional dependence)

The problem in this need for love is that you want at all costs to protect yourself from a possible loss (even if it is unconsciously) or abandonment. So, you react excessively: you impose your rhythm of life, you set conditions, obligations to your partner so that he meets your romantic expectations. You then consider the other as your protector who must absolutely guarantee your safety. But if there is this need for security and dependency, it means that behind it there is fear. And love cannot exist where fear lives, for the expression of love is found in freedom. This is an extremely important point that many are unable to take on board. Yet this is the basis of a healthy relationship.

By dint of wanting to feel safe, by dint of imposing your conditions, of emotional blackmail and of forbidding things to your partner, you will gradually begin to live a relationship without madness, without passion, totally anchored in the routine. You are really in this “give and take” pattern where you count the points: “If you go out tonight, then I would go out tomorrow” “If you don’t clean up, don’t count on me to bring your shoes to the shoemaker” “I tell you more “I love you” than you”… But if you work like this, your relationship is not lasting because you are in “having” while love is in “being”. You cannot live in perpetual fear of no longer being loved, of being loved less because then you only seek to satisfy your desires and become quite selfish within the relationship (although unconsciously).

How can we no longer “need”? (Emotional dependence)

Instead of waiting, take action. Do and become what you desire from the other. For example, if you want your partner to be more attentive to you, then be more attentive to him/ her, if you want him/her to be more respectful, be respectful…. Keep in mind that love is not and never will be a win-win/give-and-take relationship. If you do something to get something else in return then it is not love but once again expectations. Do not confuse the two, they are opposite!

Live as an individual and not as a “couple with”. Continue your personal activities, let your partner do what he likes (sports, video games, outings with friends .) as long as it is not excessive.