Paradoxical Reasons Why We Are So Often Drawn to THESE Partners!
Why do we love difficult and complicated partners? Love hurts? Loving difficult people is a challenge not everyone is up to. Yet it is these very people that exert an almost magical attractive power over us. Women are fascinated by the lone wolf, the man who explains on the first date that he’s difficult and doesn’t fit social norms. When he also conveys that whiff of bad boy and seems cool and distant, many see in it a karmic task and their duty to save him. Men, on the other hand, love the hunt and a good challenge. A woman who’s not easy to attain and then also makes love difficult is, for many, more interesting than a loving, caring partner. Many books have been dedicated to “hard relationships,” but no one has come up with a simple solution. At best, we can summarize this phenomenon – very simplified and generalized – as follows: Women want to save and help, men want to win. Both will therefore find themselves in relationships that take a lot of fortitude, pushing them to the limits of their psychic endurance. Living with partners who leave you in uncertainty is like walking on thin ice. In this article we’ll take a look at the reason we sign ourselves up for this tight-rope walk without getting back the affection and confirmation we put in and why we’re so drawn to difficult people technically incapable of relationships.
1. We believe that love conquers all
It’s written in tomes of many world religions: Love is the strongest bond between people. The Bible even teaches us that it is unconditional and demands nothing in return. It accepts everything without ever running out. There is a passage from the letters of Paul to the Corinthians that is cited in almost every Christian church wedding, sometimes even by wedding speakers and town-hall registrars, because so many people feel so connected to these moving lines. This ballad is, in fact, a beautiful and perfectly formulated expression of our desire for the ideal love. Every woman and man wants unconditional love, longs for it. Yet most forget that love is not a one-way street; it’s about reciprocity. If one party gives their all without getting anything back, it’s a classic misinterpretation of the historic writings. No respected religious teacher in the world advises us to enslave ourselves to love until the last drop of blood and the last tear falls. To think that we must fight for love without expecting a fight in return is a false belief that manifested in our heads somewhere along the line. Love does not mean relinquishing oneself or completely neglecting one’s own needs. At the forefront, relationships are about what brings us together, not tears us apart. Love can indeed conquer all, but this is not the best approach to a fulfilling partnership. What is meant by the tenet is that during times of crisis and sickness, financial distress and other exceptional circumstances, love can pull us together and pull us through until times are better. The famous “in good times and bad” doesn’t mean that one partner always has the good times while the other constantly feels shorted.
2. We believe that we are the solution to all their problems
It is particularly women who feel consistently called to rescue men who’ve been disappointed by every one of their previous partners. Even when the man explains from the get-go that he doesn’t want a relationship and says he doesn’t want to get attached, women seem to grow a blind and deaf spot. Sooner or later, everyone dreams of being the one that saves this man from himself and the brutal world out there. She wants to understand him like no one else, will give him his space, reach out to him open-heartedly, as he must truly desire in his heart of hearts. This is an idea that comes from Hollywood in friendly cooperation with best-sellers of romantic world literature, an idea we haven’t parted from even now in the 21st century. Men say very clearly what they want and what they don’t want. Here, imagining oneself as the last oasis in the desert that can save a man from dying of thirst is not only naive. This perspective and the way it ignores the man’s clear statement opens the floodgates for co-dependency, but surely not for a respectful, fulfilling relationship.
3. We want to be needed
One aspect of the love for difficult partners is particularly tricky. Many people – women and men alike – need to be needed. Being loved, honored, wanted, or desired take a backseat to this central need. These people want a task in this life and their task is a concrete person. There are many reasons for this particular perspective on love and partnership. Perhaps we harbor a secret fear that we are replaceable if we aren’t needed. Perhaps we simply love the feeling of being needed more than we love the feeling of being loved. The implied message here is a fairly brutal “I want you to need me,” something like an emotional hostage-taking and the desire to rule and to own another.
Conclusion
Love makes a relationship. It is honorable, in fact, when we don’t simply abandon a relationship when it becomes difficult. That said, we can’t expect happiness from a partnership if we’re only drawn to people who might drag us down into their personal abyss from moment to moment. At a certain point, everyone has a history, a certain amount of baggage they carry into every new relationship. Those who want to fall in love, however, should not sacrifice themselves to this goal. Taking care of oneself is at least as important in life as caring for others. Those who find fulfillment in suffering and can only be happy in partnerships where self-sacrifice and going without are the order of the day can, of course, also create their joy in this way. But the fact is, in this world, in the here and now, we only have this life. There might be something next and there might not. Our obligation to life is to make it the best, really and truly the very best for us. If we see our karmic destiny in suffering for others, that's fine. If we have doubts that love without love in return may not be the real thing, after all, we should draw the concurrent consequences. The only thing worse than living without love is living in suffering for love, or whatever we think it is.
