Loosely translated/excerpted from: Narcissism and Intimacy; Love and Marriage in An Age of Confusion by Marion Solomon (copyright 1989)
The are two parts of intimate relationships. Separateness and Autonomy and Fusion. This means we want to be individual yet joined to another person. It works great when these are in balance, but when they are not, there are problems.
There needs to be a focus on the "self" but also a recognition of another as a separate "self"...
A Pathology resutls when one person has all attention on their own needs, robbing from the mutualness and resulting in either isolation or a false-appearance of there being a relationship between two, that is actually focused only on one person.
A person who longs for a relationship with another person, yet has a tendency to not tolerate "otherness" in someone, never fully experiences life. Many marriages end in divorce because this is the case...due to appearing successful, but actually being empty and boring.
It is normal for each person in a relationship, to want to regress into a childlike state at times. If both of the partners will meet those childish needs, a healthy balance will occur. If it becomes overbalanced to one side, pathology and termination often result.
If a person has had past lack of ability in to provide for emotional needs of the other, and has a need to self-protect, this can cause small arguments between the people, which can result in emotional fragmenting, destruction and rage or withdrawl.
More on
self-objects
if you all are interested
~Laura
