Love is not a zero-sum game

Love is not a zero-sum situation--loving your mother-in-law, for example, does not detract from loving your mother. But when we are jealous, we feel that love is a scarce commodity and there's not enough to go around. I've thought a lot about how this plays out when our children grow up and develop other relationships. One of these situations that I've written about elsewhere is competition for love with adult children's in-laws.

For more of my thoughts about competing for love, you can check out my article on Psychology Today by CLICKING HERE.

Is Your "Inner Parent" Voice Calm or Sadistic?

              I'm such an idiot!

Did you ever notice how people talk to themselves when they’ve made a mistake? I am always amazed when I play tennis to hear people’s outbursts when they hit the ball into the net or over the fence. Some people throw their rackets and shout, “You stupid idiot!” Their inner parent is speaking. Psychoanalysts call it an “introject.” It’s the voice of someone, usually a parent, who was vital in our development. It’s Mom’s voice, or Dad’s voice, or maybe Grandma’s voice. It’s the voice of someone who responded to our mistakes when we were young. Sometimes it’s a sadistic voice, “Stupid!” 

If a parent was good-enough and able to love and support (most of the time) when her child made a mess (literally or figuratively) then he/she is able to internalize a calm voice, a reassuring voice. Those people can console themselves, “Okay, calm down, I’ll get the next one.”

Tolerating Ambivalence

Not being able to tolerate ambivalence is a major problem for the majority of my patients. But tolerating ambivalence is crucial for being able to maintain intimate relationships as well as for making decisions. In close relationships we always have a mix of feelings--loving feelings and angry feelings, satisfied feelings and disappointed ones.  

Similarly, when we make a decision, there are pros and cons. It's rare for a decision to be all one way--if it were, we would not have to make a decision! Many people think that they can’t make a decision if they feel ambivalent. But it is normal and healthy to make decisions while feeling ambivalent. The crucial issue is the valence of the positive and negative feelings.

For more of my thinking about living with ambivalence, CLICK HERE or on the image above to read my article on thirdAge.

Old Grievances

A friend just told me a story that made me realize, once again, how an emotional hurt can become central to your identity and paralyze you. John was in elementary school, they separated the boys into two groups—those who would be in the choir and those that were “squawkers.” John thought he had a good voice and was angry that he was labelled a “squawker,” but he never sang again.

He played guitar as a hobby, but never sang. He insisted he was just a “squawker,” until he was retired and started playing guitar with a friend who sang. His friend encouraged him to sing along—and John discovered he was not a “squawker.” Indeed, John and his friend played and sang together and started playing gigs in bars and clubs. 

John’s story made me think more about holding on to old grievances. CLICK HERE or the image above to read more about it on thirdAge.

Repeating Patterns That Do Not Work

I just played tennis with a man who stands too close to the net and I kept lobbing him and he would curse each time. It made me think of the quote: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” We have all heard that quote at one time or another, but it’s not clear who said it. Anyway, it’s wrong. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of a repetition compulsion and it’s much more common than insanity. But it does cause us a lot of grief—more in life than in tennis. 

For more discussion of this problem you might want to check out my article on thirdAge by CLICKING HERE or the image above.

Adult Siblings Over A Lifetime

Most people talk about their parents in therapy and eventually understand their importance in shaping their current views of the world and of themselves. But many people don’t understand the importance of their siblings. In most cases the developmental impact of siblings is not as weighty as the impact of parents, but in many cases siblings are just as important: the older brother who was the center of the universe, while you were simply one of a million stars; the younger sister who was “the smart one” while you were “the cute one.” Our position in our family constellation has a lifelong impact—usually an unconscious one.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about sibling relationships because I have a sister and a brother. I wrote an article about another aspect of sibling relationships for thirdage.com.

If you would like to read more of my thoughts on this please CLICK HERE or the image above.