We long for an intimate relationship!
But few people understand that intimacy and relationship are different words: Maybe you have a relationship, but you may not have intimacy. What we want is an intimate relationship.
But having an intimate relationship is not an easy thing.
Many times, what we see in marriages and families is just a relationship model of interdependence and anti-dependence.
This relationship model can be referred to as: interdependence relationship.
What is interdependence?
Interdependence describes a presentation mode of close relationship, or relationship dynamics, that exists between two people who are psychologically dependent on each other.
Two incomplete people demand the love and needs they lack from each other because of their own incompleteness. This demand will lead to control, accusation and manipulation, which will produce many negative emotions and reactions in the relationship.
Another way of saying interdependence is the lack of true self, or lack of connection with the natural self. In order to survive, one constantly seeks things from the outside to try to cover up this lack.
Two people in an interdependent relationship, because their focus is on the outside, lack inner awareness and growth, and have not developed a perfect self-personality, they seem to be living in an illusion.
People in codependent relationships are unable to express their needs and feelings appropriately.
Whether it’s creating a fantasy plot or isolating and losing touch with our own feelings, either situation can put us in difficult relationships.
Even if it is not visible on the outside, people in interdependent relationships are suffering from stress, depression, anger, fear, distrust and a deep desire for love and approval. However, these people may function well in life and be quite leaders in business and social fields, but what is happening in their inner world is a completely different story.
Performance of interdependence in marriage: Interdependence is actually a combined concept, a general term for the relationship model presented by dependents and anti-dependents.
Dependents and anti-dependants
We first outline the specific manifestations of dependents and anti-dependants.
Performance of dependents:
Dependents have suffered from the pain of being abandoned since childhood. They experienced this when they were children. They have a sense of lack of love, a need for love, and always have the anxiety that "love will leave"! As a child, I would be very clingy. There is a fear of separation.
When a dependent person grows up, he will unconsciously ask for the love that his parents did not give him. The lover will feel that the dependent's needs will never be met.
Therefore, when children grow up and enter relationships, they will bring many unfulfilled expectations and project them onto their partners.
After getting married, I feel that I can't bear to be without love, and I can't be alone without love. I only want to ask for love, and forget that I still need to love others.
- has obsessive thinking, thinking about whether he loves me all the time.
- is always waiting, waiting for text messages, phone calls, and waiting for the person you love to express to him.
- It seems that if you don’t get this love, you will die. It seems that if there is no love, there is no purpose.
- I have great mood swings. I am happy when I am in love. Life is beautiful.
- When the focus of the person you love shifts and the energy is no longer there, states such as fear, aggression, and depression will appear.
Dependents need too much affirmation, and they need affirmation and reaffirmation. If the dependent is very unhealthy, he will be crazy, very intrusive, and will become an intruder who has lost his boundaries, suspicious and jealous. The hidden need is that you must give it to me, otherwise, I will make you sad.
The performance of anti-dependent people:
Anti-dependent people have very different experiences in childhood. When parents are in trouble in their relationship with each other, the children try to comfort their parents emotionally. In this way, the anti-dependent person often becomes an adult very early, which seems very heavy to a child.
When taking care of his parents, he often has to give up his own needs. He is angry about the needs of others. They don't know how to express their needs. But in my heart I wonder: You have so many needs, what should I do?
- The anti-dependent person clearly knows that they have needs, need a partner, and need intimacy, but they don’t need so much.
- The anti-dependent person cannot understand the dependent person's need to "be together every minute: eating, going to the bathroom, going shopping."
- Anti-dependants need to have these days: they need not to talk, just stay like this.
- Anti-dependency is really painful, TA needs to explain to the dependency why space is needed.
- Anti-dependants hate having to explain to dependents over and over again why they need their own space.
is anti-reliant on long-term intimacy, which will drive him crazy. They need connection, but not too much, they need intimate moments, but they also need space.
If faced with a lover's constant demands for love, they will be very anxious when they need to leave but cannot.
They will find many excuses to go away, such as having meetings, etc. Sometimes, the pressure to be close is too much and they will want to just run away without explanation. Internally, they felt like this, if they stayed there for a moment longer, they would die.
When they look at the dependent's request for love, they will feel like they are looking into a black hole, and the dependent will feel that they can never meet the dependent's needs.
Interestingly, codependents and anti-codependents interchange at some point in life.
In an interdependent relationship, when the dependent has had enough and wants to leave, an interesting thing will happen between the two:
The dependent says I want to leave. The anti-dependent person will feel frustrated, and then realize that he needs a dependent person and a close relationship, and then he will fight for it. But after the fight comes, the relationship between them will enter the next cycle.
About the establishment of intimate relationships
After understanding the concept of interdependence, we may unconsciously compare our lives.
In fact, the formation of a theory only helps us see our needs clearly. In a sense, we don’t need to label ourselves, because one person is actually both.
In fact, we are all dependent. Even anti-dependants are a little dependent, but they hide it better.
So don’t judge. When you see other people’s needs and your own needs, don’t judge. We just need to know that both have their needs.
It's true that codependents need a little more closeness than codependents, and anticodependents need a little more space than codependents... but both need love, and that's most important.
If you find a way to talk about your own needs and find your partner's needs...
If you have respect for each other's needs in an intimate relationship, you can express "this is my need, what is your need".
then have a boundary with each other to better accept each other's needs and meet each other's needs. Interdependence can turn into intimacy.
