By Dr. Nancy Alvarez
03 Sep 2023, 12:41 PM EDT
Many people, in some way, practice the dance of the “suffocated” and the “abandoned”. And sometimes with our partner or partner. The danger comes when we keep on that dance.
In every relationship between two there is what we call emotional distance. We must bear in mind that physical distance is not emotional distance. We can be physically far away from our loved one, and feel very close emotionally.
On the contrary, many times we sleep with the enemy, in the sense that we have someone very close to us and yet we feel him miles away. There is no greater loneliness than what is felt when we are supposedly accompanied.
In the couple, the emotional distance is complicated, since each member expects the other to understand their need for closeness or distance.
The abandoned one seeks emotional closeness. He loves to be together with the other. He wants to do all things together. If he is not attached to the other like chewing gum, he interprets it as withdrawal, lack of love or not being important. He believes that “losing oneself” in the other is true intimacy. Thus, the person who claims more closeness always ends up feeling more abandoned.
The higher the pressure, the higher the resistance; the more he pursues, the more the other distances himself. This yearns for the other to become more and more involved in the relationship. But, deep down, he doesn’t want her to get close, because he wouldn’t know what to do with that closeness. He acts like this because he felt abandonment and rejection in his childhood. He lacked affection, closeness and true intimacy.
The suffocated wanted to be loved and pampered, but does not like so much emotional closeness. Soon after, he no longer supports being persecuted so much. He runs away, he feels afraid, he feels that he is suffocating. And although he flees from closeness, when the pursuer moves away from him, it is he who asks that he return. “Neither with you nor without you have my ills a remedy. With you because you kill me and without you because I’m dying.
The greater the emotional distance, the more secure he feels, but deep down he needs someone to chase him. Both the abandoned (persecutor) and the suffocated (persecuted) need each other. The relationship is sustained by the dance… The suffocated seeks, yearns for his pursuer.
We’ve all been to that dance. Be careful when it is maintained, because that is where the dysfunction begins.
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