Is falling in love the result of luck or of the calculated meeting of two people with many common points? In fact, chance has absolutely no place in love stories. They are sometimes built on a common history, a similar relationship with one’s parents or emotional wounds from the past.
Choosing a partner based on shared history
We are convinced that we will fall in love by chance. Then in the course of the relationship, we realize that we share the same secret history, adulterous relationships of parents, a hidden drama like the death of a brother or sister, etc. We may have had a difficult adolescence and are marked for life as rebellious children.
In fact, as soon as we meet, we each feel that we have similar backgrounds and experiences. We realize that we have a multitude of points in common and that our meeting is not the outcome of luck. There is a resonance of our experience in the other person and unconsciously, we find the same story in him or her.
Choosing a partner according to the parents
Sometimes we choose a partner based on his or her resemblance with the father or mother. This is known as Oedipal collusion. The relationship has a connotation of the forbidden aspect. It becomes more exciting because it is forbidden in any civilized society. It is absolutely unthinkable that a child could have sexual impulses towards one of his parents.
Without being aware of it, each of the partners falls in love with a person who has a lot of similarities with the father or the mother. They have completely internalized the profile of the father for women and the mother for men. If we are so attracted to him or her, it is because of the similarities that he or she has in some ways with his or her father or mother.
Another pattern may occur we look for people who are totally different from our parents. Well, that is still choosing according to them. We are still part of the Oedipal collusion.
Choosing a partner based on past wounds
Sometimes we choose a partner because we unconsciously want them to heal an emotional wound. This is a mistake. If as a child we were subjected to one of our parents’ attacks of authority, we may be led to choose a person who resembles him or her in the hope of gaining the upper hand. Something we would never have done as kids.
Thus, our couple will certainly be doomed to failure because we will suffer from the same bouts of authority. We will not be able to overcome this authority and will remain the same traumatized little child. At the same time, some women decide to live with a man their father’s age. They are looking for paternal protection. But trying to regain this feeling will not fill in the lack which was felt during childhood.
What we need to remember
Couple relationships are not only built by two people, but by three, even four or more. They are often the result of past traumas, parental roles and individual histories. We often think that our love stories happen by chance, but in fact, it is quite the opposite…
