Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist who is considered the founder of Analytical psychology. What he once said was “To become acquainted with oneself is a terrible shock” This has to do with the ego of each person who can very rarely see the faults that he has as clearly as he sees the faults of others.
What he essentially meant was that we as persons really do not know our selves, and are quite lost when we are involved in any relationship that is close and full of emotion. Starting such a relationship brings in a lot of excitement and passion when it is in its first throes and can cause a person to get emotionally committed. Over time, however these relationships are beset with issues that are personal and can run into impediments that can cause your partner to treat you with a casual familiarity. Initially when the relationship is started, there is a feeling that life is fine and has no problems, because loneliness has been banished and that there is now a partner who will share our daily problems and upheavals in life. We are sure that we will never ever be alone again and that life will just be all easy and trouble free henceforth.
Once we have made these assumptions we constantly expect that our partners will continue to behave as they did during the initial days, and get quite disappointed when they do not. At that stage we are heavily dependent on the other person to provide us a sense of fulfillment and a measure of happiness, and thus we get sorely disappointed when the opposite happens and then tend to blame it on the other person. We are unwilling to look at ourselves and introspect whether it is our own shortcomings that have caused this situation. This is probably what Carl Jung meant when he said that getting acquainted with oneself can be a great shock.
Once, this sort of thinking enters a relationship, disagreements are bound to start. Even when the persons in the relationship do go in for corrective therapy, each of them starts the therapy with a firm belief that their other partner will change and no more be a starting point for the problems between them. This tendency of thinking that one cannot be in the wrong is what causes most relationships to founder on.
Relationships that have been going on over a long period then enter a stage where the partners feel alienated from each other. The initial euphoria and excitement goes totally missing and each partner starts wondering about it. Whatever passion, sexual intimacy and freedom that was there starts to diminish, and the feeling of being connected to each other goes way. The feeling of being in love is no more dominant, though either or both may feel that they still love each other. There is a feeling of strangeness in the relationship with each partner feeling quite lost and at sea.
The relationship reaches such a stage, that each partner feels that though they have individually given all their energy, attention and love to the relationship: in turn they have only lost their own personal identity by submerging themselves in the relationship. They would most certainly have made some changes to their lifestyle, hobbies and social friendships, that other wise filled their life, just so that they could concentrate fully on developing this new relationship. Most people do start isolating themselves from their social circle when they are about to form a relationship, especially when the new partner is not part of this group of acquaintances. This sense of loss of their old life and the freendom and fun that it had before the relationship was entered into, ultimately leads to some resentment developing towards the other partner.
Very well said and written!
ReplyDeleteThats is like generalising the relationship. However i personally have witnessed few couples whose love never fades, never diminishes. But yeah what Carl Jung is tryig to say is true to most of the relationships! hats off!!!