Goodbye emotional dependency; hello affective autonomy
In his book The art of Loving, Erich fromm reflects on the difficulties that we encounter in couple relationships, among other reasons because we do not consider loving as an action (an art, according to him) that requires learning previous).
We get tangled up in tortuous and toxic relationships that end up causing us more pain than well-being because no one ever taught us how to behave within the couple. How to handle the whirlwind of emotions that our body generates when we fall in love, how to give space to the other person when what we want most is to be by their side 24 hours a day, how to handle the fear of breaking up or cheating... in short, how to get to love healthily, and not madly as society teaches us to do.
It only takes a few random songs to realize that the messages we receive regarding love are tremendously harmful, and make an apology for dependent, symbiotic and sickly. If we take, for example, The Police song “Every Step You Take” and read it instead of singing it, it is likely that we will be diagnosed with obsessive affective disorder or labeled as stalkers:
Every day, every word that you say
Every game you play
Every night that you stay
I will be watching you
Can't you see that you belong to me?
How my poor heart aches with every step you take
Emotional dependency and pathological loves
Considering that Hollywood movies, books or television series also promote this pathological love, it is normal for us to be involved in unhealthy attachment and dependency behaviors that take away all the meaning of being in a couple. We must aspire to a free love, for our psychological health and that of our partner, and because the only way to be happy is let go of fear.
Relationships move in the field of uncertainty, and not accepting or not wanting to see this reality we inevitably leads to fear, suffering and frustration, trying to control what uncontrollable. If we want to enjoy our loved one healthily, we have to be willing to lose them, no matter how much this thought hurts.
Affective dependence
Affective dependence is not "excess of love" but excess of fear. It is an addiction in which the individual literally feels incapable of living without the other (which is also well seen in our society, we have all heard phrases such as "you are everything to me", "I don't know what I would do without you", "without you I am nothing ...") and it has all the components of any other substance addiction: an urge to "consume" our drug linked to love, withdrawal syndrome when we are without it, irritability, compulsivity, feeling of incomprehension to around us, stop doing the things we previously enjoyed to be alone with our "drug".
According Walter Riso, the central scheme of all attachment is emotional immaturity, understood as a "naive and intolerant perspective of certain situations in life, generally uncomfortable or aversive." The most important manifestations of emotional immaturity related to affective attachment would be low thresholds of suffering, low tolerance for frustration and the illusion of permanence, that is, the inability and imagining the end of the relationship. The emotionally immature person (who may be mature in other areas of his life) requires the care of her loved one just like a child of her mother. Without her protective figure she feels lost, scared and unprotected.
How to learn to love healthily?
The first step is to be aware of loving as a verb and not as a noun., as action and not as feeling or thought. Loving is a behavior that we carry out when we carry out actions that affect the well-being of the other, when we rejoice in their achievements, when we respect their motivations, when we give them room to grow.
As we tend to be more focused on being loved than on loving, we live pending the demonstrations of love from our partner or the absence of them. This is totally unproductive, since we cannot step into the shoes of the other and behave in a way that meets our expectations. It is advisable to abandon receptive orientation and start having proactive behaviors.
Instead of complaining because our partner is not affectionate, we are the ones to initiate the approach, instead of complaining because he is not detail-oriented, we have some detail with her. Deep down the best way to start receiving is to start giving.
To begin to clean up our relationship we must get rid of the old patterns of pseudo-love that many of us have incorporated and that prevent us from enjoying relationships in their fullness. Go from emotional dependence to affective autonomy.
Achieving affective autonomy
What is sought with affective autonomy is not indifference or coldness, but a healthy way of relating independently, non-possessive and non-addictive.
Autonomy promotes anti-attachment schemes and produces healthier ways of relating, in addition to greater individual well-being. Autonomous people gain more self-confidence when they see that they do not need anyone to resolve their issues, thus increasing their feeling of self-efficacy and therefore his self-esteem. They become more emotionally mature and handle loneliness better, losing their fear of it.
It is worth learning to enjoy the times we spend alone as much as the times we spend with our partner, and not remain in a mummified state every time we part with her until we see her again. Maintaining the life beyond the couple: one's own space, one's friends, hobbies, moments of solitude. In a relationship it is much healthier to miss than to "miss more."
You don't have to be weak to be loved. If the couple loves us in a healthy way, they will be willing to help us develop an independent personality, which does not mean that we love them less, but that we love them better. People who have found their calling and their own way of living life make themselves immune to emotional dependence. The most positive thing is to focus on cultivating and caring for other areas of our lives. The key is always in the balance.