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More on unconscious Couples collusive fit dynamics of attraction

By ROSIE IFOULD, 1 August 2011

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2020944/Do-fight-like-cats-dogs-Or-half-pedestal-How-identifying-couple-type-transform-love-life.html#ixzz36JbJ34V9

Most of us take on set roles in our relationships whether we realise it or not. We like to think that every relationship is unique. Experts have identified six different ‘couple types’ that we all fall into.

Psychologists say, identifying the type of couple type we are — or would like to be — holds the key to a happy relationship and being able to understand our own needs and those of our partner.

The kind of couple we find ourselves in is largely influenced by what we’ve experienced growing up. We can’t help but take on board how our parents behaved.

Often, we recreate the roles of our mothers and fathers. If you grew up seeing your father worship your mother, you might expect the same from your relationships.

CAT AND DOG

This couple fight constantly. They can be screaming at each other in front of you and you say: “Why don’t you split up?” And they turn in unison and ask you: “Are you mad?”

They enjoy the cycle of fight and make up (often accompanied by passionate sex). If one partner has an affair or does something to disrupt the trust, this becomes the relationship from hell.

THRILL OF THE CHASE

The pursuer/distancer couple, in which one partner is in pursuit of the other, trying to secure their attention and affection. One pretends they don’t want to know and the other enjoys the thrill of the chase. They take it in turns to play the pursuer or distancer. Whenever one senses the other is losing interest, they will switch.

What drives this couple is a fear of being seen as needy. They can develop a dependency on one another.

PARENT AND CHILD

"I’ve three children … including the one I’m married to!" They feel responsible for nurturing their partner, who they regard as less capable. It may occur when one partner becomes vulnerable — for instance, after they are ill or lose their job.

The parent partner is attracted because they feel that in caring for this person, they have found a purpose in life. Parenting isn’t just about nurturing, it’s also about control.

IDOL AND FAN

Everything is black and white for this couple. One person is all good. Everything about them is wonderful and the other person worships them. One adopts the role of worshipper to boost the other’s self-esteem.

The idol may collude in telling the fan they are inferior and will never find anyone else to love them. This kind of relationship can be short-lived because there’s no room for either to develop.

BABES IN THE WOOD

These are two individuals who recognise great similarities in each other. It’s a pattern typically found in new relationships or where the partners may feel insecure. Perhaps they’ve been hurt in the past, so security appeals.

Often described as the best of friends, with a strong, united front. They can be so focused on each other that it’s difficult for anyone else to penetrate their world, including friends.

THE GROWN-UPS

This is a functional relationship between two mature people at ease with their differences and with little interest in conflict. They are sensible and accommodating. These two will never have to face

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Unconscious Couples Collusive fit - of attraction to each other. Identify with any of these dynamics in your partnered relationship - now or in the past?

Henry Dicks suggested that there are three areas involved in a couple fit: A public fit of social class, ethnicity and education between couples.

Each partner will have had different experiences from childhood. Both of the partners may have had attachment issues from childhood and have separation anxiety, but they may have different coping styles. One might be compulsive anxious attachment, one might have compulsive fearful avoidant attachment and both may struggle trusting an attachment figure.

Babes in the Wood: Cling together in the face of impossible odds. Unconscious rejection - repressed anger within relationship - expressed anger at people outside the relationship by partner one. Unconscious rejection - repressed against anger within relationship - expressed anger at people outside the relationship by partner two.

They often look the same and will behave in a likeable, affable manner. A couple such as this see all the bad things in the world as belonging in the outside world and not part of themselves. They keep anything bad out of their relationship. The world literally is a “big bad wolf” to them.

Net and Sword: The ‘net’ shows all the love & tries to encompass, control or placate the sword. Conscious rejection - deny need or yearning for other by partner one. Conscious yearning by partner two. The relationship works well until one partner owns up to their denied feelings & decides they will not be responsible for the others unexpressed feelings. There is Conscious rejection deny need or yearning for other the by partner two.

One partner shows all the love in the relationship and the other all the rejection. One partner expresses all the denied emotions that the other cannot or will not express. This relationship works well until one partner owns up to their denied feelings and decides they will not be responsible for the others unexpressed feelings, often plunging the other into confusion or profound feelings of loss. (One of them has moved the goalposts).

Cat and Dog: Characterised by anger, rejection & other destructive emotions. Both are only conscious of the bad in each other. Conscious rejection - deny need or yearning for other by partner one. Conscious rejection deny need or yearning for other by partner two. They often will not separate because they fear they cannot or will not be able to find a relationship with anybody better.

Yet they fight. (Like Tom & Jerry cartoon). It is portrayed in Edward Albee’s play "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf", and is characterised by anger, rejection and a host of other destructive emotions. Both are only conscious of the bad in each other and their lives seem like a war zone. (Very similar to the relationship which Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor lived out). Intimacy is regulated by conflict and they often will not part because they fear they cannot or will not be able to find a relationship with anybody better.

In these relationship 'fits', the couple relationship is marked by parts of themselves that they are denying; counselling can help the couple “re-fit” their relationship.

Get some help from The Kairos Centre. See what you cannot see. Begin to change that which you begin to better understand.

Help is here for you: bit.ly/pornaddictionhelp

Key words: sex addiction, addicted, partner, porn addiction,

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Mate/Partner selection, Collusive/Couple fit and all that: Why did I choose you and not someone else on planet earth?

"I have never met you before or hardly know you, yet in a room of 100 people, I gravitate to you". How does that happen?

My reply as a Therapist: "Because you 'promise' (or hold the potential) to fix and supplement an aspect of me which needs what you have - but I am not going to tell you that and make myself vulnerable."

Say what? Yep.

"So you are saying that we gravitate to sameness (to compliment each other), as well as differenceness (to supplement my perceived deficits) - which I don't want you to know about and even I don't necessarily and consciously want to own that fact?"

All very odd. Yep - because most of that dynamic lives in the unconscious, which is what Therapy with The Kairos Centre helps you with - to move as much from the unconscious into the conscious; so that when it is now in the conscious, you get the opportunity to try to do something about it; but just because it is now in the conscious does not mean you will be able to change what is now visible - quickly. It takes take to effect change.

Why? Because you are going after patterns of behaviours set up in the childhood development period, where blueprints and templates were established and set in place and practised into adulthood.

"So my thoughts and behaviours are going down a predictable course because of repeatedly practiced patterns of behaviours which have become neural pathways and it takes time to change well entrenched and well established patterns of behaviours which have become neural pathways?".

Yep. You got it.

"Little wonder then that I set about trying to avoid getting it wrong again (by choosing that wrong type of partner) and to avoid that, I go to extreme opposite ends of the spectrum of attributes and blow me, I end up with someone where the same negative behaviours eventually show up again. Oh - yuk"!

Get some help from The Kairos Centre. See what you cannot see. Begin to change that which you begin to better understand.

Help is here for you: bit.ly/pornaddictionhelp

Gary McFarlane (BA, LLM, Dip, Certs), Accredited EMDR Practitioner.

Key words: sex addiction, addicted, partner, porn addiction, recovery, sex drive, therapy, sex therapy, podcast, relationships, relationship counseling, relationship advice, addiction, couples, couples therapy, sex therapy, emdr, love addiction, behavior, psychology, codependency, sex life, neuroscience, sex ed, sober, sobriety, sexual dysfunction, relationship issues, sex coach, sexual, trauma, ptsd, sex science, The sex porn love Addiction Podcast, The Singles Partners Marrieds and Long Time Marrieds Podcast, Gary McFarlane, porn addiction, what neuroscience says, neuroscience, young adults, sex, sex addict, porn, recovery, porn addiction issue, porn addiction in teens, sex addiction in teens, sex hormones,

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