Sublime

We are living, she has come to believe, in a culture where people are not “getting the connections that they need in order to be healthy human beings,” and that is why we can’t put down our smartphones, or bear to log off.

Burdened by the “impossible” task of making Laurie happy, Jim went on “strike,” gave up, or simply turned away.

Matt didn’t want to have sex with his mother. In order to get excited, he needed to create a woman who was turned on by mothering him. Unfortunately, he believed a real woman with whom he had a real relationship couldn’t perform the same function. His pleasures required a toll call.

So a woman’s recognized humanity may leave much to be desired by way of moral freedom. And her sense of obligation is then likely to be excessive, on the one hand, and lacking, in many others.

They believe that a good, lasting relationship comes from effort and from working through inevitable differences.

To the detached persons reading this book: Recognize that you have been the terrible partner. Through your fear and obsessive love you have robbed your spouse of the ability to feel trusted, to feel confident, or to feel secure.

other categories of hateful patients Groves identified are “clingers” and “self-destructive deniers.”

A central premise of the partner-as-child theory is that it’s not an aberration or unique failing of one’s partner that they retain a childish dimension. It’s a normal, inevitable feature of all adult existence. You are not desperately unlucky to have hitched yourself to someone who is still infantile in many ways. Adulthood simply isn’t a complete