I’m
afraid of losing my fiancée, that she’ll change and spoil my married life. She’s already been engaged to a
self-centered and ill-tempered man and she doesn’t want me to be the same.
I’m not like that, but when I don’t agree with her I’m afraid to
tell her because she might take it the wrong way, break out in tears and leave
me. As a consequence, I stay quiet, keep my frustrations to myself and
suffer. These days, she’s in a bad mood and I don’t like it. I
would like to see her happy and smiling all the time. I do everything I
can to make her happy but she is depressive and I don’t succeed. How
can I help her?
You described a very complex situation which would require at least a
few
counseling sessions in order to see more clearly in it. But in any case, here
is a brief explanation of what is probably happening between you and your fiancée.
In
general, when two people are attracted to each other while the relationship is
being particularly difficult and one of the partners believes that the relationship would be a
happy one ‘’if only the difficulty went away,’’ this is a cue that a childhood wound needs to be healed. The current relationship
becomes a
reminder of a psychological hurt experienced at an earlier time and, unconsciously,
the objective of each
partner is to find a solution to the difficulty which causes
the suffering. In doing so, each of the partners hopes to change the
situation so that previously unmet needs can now be fulfilled.
The
relationship you have with your fiancée is probably based on this kind of unconscious search for solutions to previous suffering. Furthermore, it
is likely that the solution you tried as a youngster was one in which you were
extremely patient, and did not express anger even though the situation may have
totally called for it. You kept your frustrations to yourself in the hope that
the other person would change, become happy and smiling instead of cross and bad-
humoured, and end up showing you love. You are trying the same solution
with your fiancée hoping that this time, it will work. By the same token,
it is likely that your partner has chosen you in the hope of healing her own
childhood wounds.
Unfortunately,
this kind of relationship tends towards deterioration over time. On the
one hand, each partner is caught in a double bind : to be like the person who
hurt the partner when s/he was a child (as this is what is unconsciously
expected following the childhood scenario) VS to be the person who will fulfill
the other person's needs and will heal him/her of past hurts (as this is what is
hoped for in order to "heal"). On
the other hand, it is impossible to maintain a relationship in which one of the
partners, or both, cannot express preferences, expectations, desires and needs
whenever they are contrary to those of the other person.
Eventually, you will reach a point where you won’t be able to take it anymore and all your pent- up frustrations will explode all at once, much to your despair, unwillingly "proving" to your partner that ‘’she was right all along’’ to fear your bad temper. When this happens, you’ll come out of the relationship with a profound feeling of failure and with a deeper wound. As for your partner, she’ll get the impression that she got another confirmation that men are bad-tempered, despite all the patience that you showed towards her for such a long time.
When
the situation becomes much too painful, the best thing to do is to get counseling
from a therapist working with couples. Such a therapist can help each partner become aware of these
destructive tendencies and patterns of behaviour.