How do you understand if you are experiencing the wrong love? Sometimes it is difficult and sometimes even if we sense it we struggle to face the situation, change, or end a relationship that brings us suffering.

We would like the other person we think we are so in love with to change so that we can finally live that long-dreamed relationship with that very special person.

Often relationships of this type are characterized by a lot of passion, strong emotions, and obstacles to overcome, in which there is some element of suffering, deprivation, and yearning. These typical elements of films and romance novels connote Love with a capital L in the imagination of many people, but in reality, they are not the main ingredients of positive, balanced, and healthy relationships. When these elements cease these relationships usually become normal.

What are the characteristics of a positive relationship?

A generally positive relationship 

• It allows you to receive and give care and support.
• It makes us feel respected.
• It makes us feel free to express ourselves and to share even weaknesses and fragilities.
• It allows you to share values, interests, and activities.
• It is characterized by predominantly positive emotions in the company of the partner.

Why do we enter into relationships that generate suffering?

Often when we find ourselves in relationships that generate suffering we tend to give responsibility to the other person, spending hours and days dwelling on his/her behavior and the suffering it causes us. In reality, there may be problematic aspects of our personality that fit into the problematic aspects of our partner.

I found the key to understanding given by Chiara Gambino and Giampaolo Salvatore in the book “Nevermore Indices” interesting.

The thesis supported by the authors of the book is that there are 2 main and interrelated reasons why relationships are entered into that generate suffering and they are:

• Lack of agency.
• Deep personality characteristics (schemas).

What is agency?

Agency is defined as the ability to understand one’s emotions, needs, and desires and to think that we have the right to try to achieve them.

Those with deficient agency have great difficulty understanding their emotions and desires and using this information to make their choices. He is a person who is often undecided on both simple and more complex questions such as “Do I want to continue to be in this relationship?” You have the feeling of being at the mercy of events and of never being able to put yourself in command of your life. Fortunately, agencies can be trained and developed.

What are patterns?

Schemata are the unconscious expectations we have regarding how others will respond to our needs and unconsciously guide us in interpreting the things that happen to us, in the way we relate and experience intimate relationships.

When I want to be considered and appreciated I expect that others will give me recognition or criticize me. When I want to be loved, do I expect that the other will love me or reject me? They arise based on our history, of the relationship experiences we have lived in the first years of life and if we have had negative relationship experiences they create an ever-looming negative and painful image of ourselves. For example, a person who in his life experience has experienced parents who have received criticism and rejection due to his need to be loved will develop an image of himself as unlovable and will spend his life trying to disprove this truth. It is likely that in intimate relationships he will focus on trying to prevent his partner from discovering this truth and will make superhuman efforts to deny it.

The 3 patterns that can make it easier to enter into relationships that generate suffering?

1. Perfectionism

A certain degree of perfectionism can be functional and push us to improve. But those with traits of clinical perfectionism experience life as an endless series of tests and always feel under scrutiny.

The perfectionist can experience the couple’s relationship as a task to be performed perfectly and a mistake is seen as something intolerable.

Those who experience a relationship as a task are extremely worried about being disapproved of by their partner. This type of fear may be also experienced in other relationships but with the partner, the possibility of making mistakes and the negative judgment that would result would mean losing the loved one.

This can lead to incessantly asking yourself questions like: Will he/she be happy with me? Will he judge me negatively? The perfectionist attitude will be triggered to a greater extent if the partner has complementary personality characteristics such as the tendency to be particularly critical. The partner can play the role of a strict judge.

In perfectionism there is a zeroing of agency, attention is focused on the attempt not to disappoint the other so there is no space to look at one’s desires and feel entitled to pursue them.

You may have difficulty ordering at a restaurant, choosing a dress, understanding whether or not to get married, or how to educate your children. Choices are often guided by the desire to avoid criticism rather than by one’s tastes and desires. Often these people consider themselves undeserving of love and have the right to it only if they are impeccable if they do not disappoint the other, and do not deserve their negative judgment.

2. Psychological Dependence

A normal addiction is distinguished from a dysfunctional one. Normal addiction is part of us. It is the mechanism that allows us to trust and seek the closeness of others and seek in times of difficulty.

Dysfunctional dependence is characterized by an extreme tendency to look for others without any regulation because ultimately there is a fear of being abandoned.

There is a feeling that abandonment is inevitable because you somehow deserve it. In dysfunctional dependence this tendency strongly influences life, the other is an absolute necessity that cannot be done without. This type of personality trait can be problematic if it fits with a personality profile in which the partner will tend to seek the type of gratification you offer him, he will feel special, and he will feel like a child who is cared for by his mother. People with this type of personality may fall into the hands of people who are only interested in using them without really entering into a relationship with them.

If the partner behaves badly, the negative image that the addicted person has of himself will lead him to read the other’s shortcomings not as abusive behavior but as confirmation of something wrong in itself.

This is how we forgive the other and justify him. Often at the base, there is an image of oneself as inadequate and not worthy of love while the other is seen as strong, valid, and superior. Having this idea of ​​oneself can lead to the idea of ​​not being able to do it alone and therefore doing anything to avoid risking abandonment. This can lead to being submissive, obedient, and devoted to meeting the needs of the other.

3. Narcissism

For those who have a pattern with traits of narcissism, what matters is personal value, you need to be special, superlative, to be admired. A certain degree of narcissism is normal because it pushes us to strive to improve and achieve results, admiration, and gratification of self-esteem.

Narcissism becomes pathological when it inhibits other parts of the self. The narcissist doesn’t know who he is and oscillates between two opposite positions: being special and on the other the feeling of being inadequate, inferior, a bluff, terrified of humiliation.

His self-esteem is very fluctuating and fragile and for this reason, he feels hurt and threatened by criticism. Those with traits of narcissism can experience couple relationships as a source of admiration without being able to create a true bond of intimacy. Life as a couple becomes very tiring because one is unable to draw comfort, understanding, and harmony from it. Even in a relationship, you cannot free yourself from the need to be the best. You may not feel involved in the relationship because the relationship only serves to fuel the grandiose image. If your partner reduces his admiration for you, you can feel anger, fragility, and a wound in your self-esteem. The need to be the best enslaves you and suffocates the most vital parts of you. The agency is lacking because the only desires that guide choices are those linked to the search for grandeur.

It can be difficult to ask for help when you need it and feel fragile because this is at odds with the grandiose image you have built.

What to do if you realize you are in a relationship that generates suffering?

We often think that when we find ourselves in relationships that generate suffering, willpower is needed to be able to stop it. I don’t doubt that in some cases it can be achieved but there is no doubt that if we do not address the reasons and profound mechanisms that are at the basis of becoming entangled in this type of relationship, we may relive similar situations and continue to suffer.

It is our right to be able to experience positive and satisfying relationships.

To conclude

If you have recognized yourself in some way in these profiles and find yourself in a story that generates suffering and/or you realize that you often experience relationships of this type, it may be appropriate to begin a process of psychological support that allows you to understand the mechanisms and gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the problem. The path may also be useful for you to be able to get in touch with your true needs and desires and learn to pursue them.