For our dissociated child within , romance in the arms of a lover becomes a fantasy of rescue.

For our dissociated child within , romance in the arms of a lover becomes a fantasy of rescue.We hope that our unmet needs of childhood will be healed at last in romantic love. To us, the perfect partner is actually our perfect, idealised parent in disguise. But when the glow of romance fails in disappointment and our expectations are dashed, revenge begins. The rage of an abandoned child within emerges....the rage and hate materialise from deep within. The amplitude of this fury and pain and despair all comes from the past. It is a reliving and reenactment of the betrayals of childhood that have been denied. If we are savvy and ready to evolve, we begin to sense that the intensity of our rage and hurt comes not from the present but from the past. As the saying goes, if it’s hysterical, it’s historical. But chances are, we learn little and try again to replicate a rescue with a new love, ever settling for less.romance becomes a reenactment, and also a chance to re-learn

As we jump from lover to lover, from one failed romantic obsession to the next, we begin to become aware of our own destructive patterns and begin to see that we ourselves are the common denominator in this recurring dysfunctional play. We play out the dynamics of parental rescue fantasy and revenge, and at times in even uglier ways than do our less evolved counterparts, because we are freer to explore alternative paths of living. But in our freedom we also have the chance to wake up and learn about our patterns. If we are fortunate we will be begin to see the correlation between the heartbreak we feel in the unrequited love of the present and the heartbreak we experienced in the past as children with our first loves: our mother and father. In this way we will begin to become aware of what we are doing, and through this we can mature—and to work toward facing the whole of our historical traumas.