Is your relationship based on bad chemistry?

Something I've been noticing recently:  bad chemistry between partners is most often the source of unresolved conflict in relationships!  What I mean by bad chemistry is that one can be seriously attracted to a person that is least able to fill your emotional needs.  Needless to say; it makes for some serious unhealthy dynamics.

 

What do I mean?

Say I'm someone whose parents were able to fill all my physical needs like food, a roof over my head and education.  But my parents were not able to fulfil my emotional needs.  We never spoke about emotions and nobody ever asked me how I'm feeling or how something affected me emotionally.  I then probably have a lifetrap of Emotional Deprivation.  I will constantly feel a sense of emptiness inside can only be filled by someone else.  Sometimes I'll comfort eat to try and fill that trench.  Or I can become clingy and over-demanding for attention.

My chemistry

Being loved to me thus involves being in an emotionally depriving environment.  It isn't pleasant, but it is familiar.  It is a common thing about us humans; we're more often revert back to the familiar instead of the healthy. 

So, I meet a boy.  Due to his background, he is not able to fill emotional needs.  He can't provide emotional comfort or emotional nurturance in a healthy manner.  Logic will tell me to avoid!  But my lifetrap chemistry recognises the familiarity in this relationship.  So, I'll be attracted to a person who can't fill my emotional needs.  I will be attracted to someone who is emotionally depriving.

Can it be true?

Yup, unfortunately.  There is obviously something in me that could trigger my boy's own lifetraps.  More bad chemistry.  Maybe I am emotionally very giving with the hope that it will show him how to give emotionally.  But, sadly, this hardly ever works this way.  Maybe he has a lifetrap that says he and other people are not supposed to show strong emotion.  I interpret that as strength and like it.  But, of course, it isn't strength.  It is resistance against giving emotional support and nurturance. More a weakness than a strength.

And then?

In the relationship, I will demand emotional support.  He will resist giving emotional support, interpreting emotions as "bad".  My inner trench gets deeper.  I get very emotional.  He tells me to "not feel that way" or "get yourself together".  Or simply stares at me with disapproving surprise the more I cry or rave or throw a fuzzy.  You get the point.  It is a self-defeating vortex.

Why do I do this to myself?

Of course, nobody chooses to enter relationships based on bad chemistry.  These bad chemistry attractions happen outside of conscious awareness.  Remember that we are more attracted to what is familiar than what is healthy.  And that euphoric in lurve feeling is so addictive! Hard to resist.

Dysfunction is the gift...

...that keeps on giving.  Yup, look back at your life.  Is there a pattern in your relationships?  Are you attracted to people with similar characteristics?  Maybe like I described above?  The thing you loved the most about the person you fell in love with, are usually the thing you end up hating the most about them. 

What to do?

I can't say anything else here except SELF-AWARENESS. Know yourself.  Know your weaknesses.  Look at negative patterns in your relationships.  These probably point to some of your lifetraps and your potential for bad chemistry relationships.  Depending on how destructive these patterns are, I would suggest either honest conversations with your partner or professional counselling.  You want to work towards a healthy way of avoiding these bad chemistry vortexes.  Not impossible, but will take some honest commitment from both of you to recognise the vortexes in your relationships.  Then, to be committed to stop the vortex as soon as it gets triggered. 

I've described on type of bad chemistry interaction.  What type of interactions have you found in your relationships that could point to bad chemistry? 

I Choose Us

I Choose Us is a 6-step programme for couples focussed on building a "love connection" in their marriages.  This program is based on both Biblical principles and schema therapy. 

It strength lies in addressing and breaking harmful cycles in already difficult relationships while equiping couples with communication and empathy tools.  For young couples or those planning to marry, the I Choose Us programme will prevent the creation of harmful cycles.  This internationally used programme also makes use of movie clips to illustrate principles and points in the movie. 

A marriage built on a "love connection" will thrive, not just survive.    

While undergoing training for this programme, I saw the benefits of the programme as some of the couples attending the training, had significant break-throughs with long-standing problems in their relationships.  Read some comments from previous participants to the I Choose Us programme:

"I choose us" has already changed my marriage! Through understanding more of the root of my behavior and why the negative patterns in my relationship to my wife is occuring, "I choose us" has given me a path to how to get unstuck and to how we can meet each other's needs in our marriage.

~ Ronny Yttrehus, Norway

"I choose us" Is an amazing opportunity to equip your marriage with useful tools that will work for a lifetime! I have already seen the benefits and will be watching movies with greater focus and enjoyment!!

~ Robin Barnes, South Florida, USA

   

I feel the analogy used within the course is really helpful in identifying where I am at in my marriage. The clear specifics on the core needs to be met in order to maintain a healthy marriage are a great toolbox for practical steps my spouse and I can take to actively build our marriage and make it flourish.

~ Fanney Frisback, Iceland

 It helps you to be more vulnerable and therefore get closer to your spouse. You also learn what triggers each other and how you can deal with that.

~ Marit Mulelid, Norway

 I loved how the movies brought the points to life. As young marrieds, I feel very lucky and grateful to have learned much about marriage. It has helped me to understand why my husband and myself act the way we do.

~ Erin Oluwalana, South Florida, USA

The older I get, the more I parent like my mom. Aaaargh?

Ja, so I went to Bangalore in December 2010 to be trained to facilitate two schema therapy based courses - Good Enough Parenting (about parenting, obviously) and I Choose Us, for married couples.  Wow, was that great!  I will talk about India another day, but I was freaking ecstatic about these two courses.  I've listened and been at so many parenting and relationship classes in churches, outside religion and ofcourse, during the 6 years at varsity training to be a shrink.  What I loved about these is that it helps one to go that bit deeper in self-awareness and, surprisingly, self-acceptance!  Ja, I know that I have turned into my mom with the kids - even though I vowed the 1st two decades of my life not to do it.  But now at least I understand WHY and I can stop beating myself over the head when I get grumpy with the kids.  You know the I-am-messing-them-up-for-life panic one strikes after being impatient with a hyper 6-year old.  Even better, now I also know how to NOT do what I don't want to do...or at least apologise for what I now know isn't functional.  What a relief.

So, Good Enough Parenting is all about being a good-enough, not perfect parent.  I use movie clips to show how to, and how not to during the classes.  It's fun and sometimes very intense.  It's actually quite amazing how many Hollywood movie scriptwriters actually purge their childhood pain and parenthood-angst through their craft.  I certainly have my pick and choose from many movies about disapproving fathers and frustrated sons! 

These two courses were developed in Singapore by John and Karen Louis and they have trained people all over the world to be facilitators.  Certainly a labour of love for this lovable couple.  But I saw marriage change in front of my eyes while we were being trained in Bangalore.  I certainly have learnt a whole lot about myself and my issues, oi vey.  Also started using Schema Therapy in my psychology practice and can call myself a schema therapy convert.  I'm sommer using the therapy on myself because it makes so much sense.  Ja, psychologists do analyse themselves and that's why, NO, I'm not analysing you(not for free, anyway)...a little shrink humour.