Instant relationship fix

My archives remember a rather messed-up guy who, in his teens, made the desperation mistake of adopting an immature joker archetype, then continued to endorse and feed it well into his late thirties. He still tried to be popular, tried to be the funny man, wanted to be extra-special, even using the word “glory” to describe his ideal. As you know, some childhoods are stamped in as trauma and the child never leaves. You have a man-boy, a woman-girl who can’t see beyond their early feelings and needs because the past is where they live, their ocean, while the present is the waves and whitecaps.

His relationship of three years was sick, like indigestion. He would actually cringe when she walked in the door. I don’t know what she saw in him. But he wanted it to work and I drew the line:

“You can end the hurt and destructiveness immediately, absolutely immediately, by putting your needs aside. If you really care about her, you can just be hurt, not angry. ‘That hurt me,’ not ‘but you do worse.’ Here is where this comes from: One of my first clients was a young mother who was unique. She said at her first session, ‘I mistreat my daughter. I’m the most important person in the room. I’m not going to be able to be a good mother until I heal from my own past, my own baggage.’ And she was right. Why shouldn’t that apply to marriage, to committed adult relationships: ‘I can’t be a good spouse until I deal with my own past’? Why do adults think they’re fine? Or troubled in their own life but worthy in their marriage? But like that mother, who can’t afford to wait until her demons are exorcised to stop abusing her child, must quickly do right, you can stop being poisonous immediately, while working with me into your foundational injuries. Your father left you and your mother, then returned five years later with a new young wife and children, and your mother put up with it. Breakdown after breakdown, she put up with it. And you lived in that swamp and that tear gas.”

In his partner, a man wants corrective justice for his past, but he doesn’t know it. He wants pure respect and love and accommodation just as the child he still is needed them. I’m very sorry. You get that from your dead mother and father, in here. Your partner gets your care.