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What are your thoughts on this quote?

Couples choose each other with an unerring instinct for finding the very person who will exactly match their own level of unconscious anxieties and mirror their own dysfunctions, and who will trigger for them all their unresolved emotional pain. -- by Gabor Mate, MD in the book Scattered

I see this clearly in a codependent couple that I have been friends with for a very long time.

JGal 7 Mar 10
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11 comments

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1

Maybe, unless Alpha needs help and Beta needs to give that help.

yvilletom Level 8 Nov 15, 2023
1

unerring instinct? level of unconscious anxieties? mirror their own dysfunctions? trigger their unresolved emotional pain?

These terms to explain just relationships or is he teaching a PhD class? Can he make it more complex than this please?

St-Sinner Level 9 Mar 20, 2023
2

Seldom after the second bad choice.........

AnneWimsey Level 9 Mar 12, 2023

I don't know. I seem to have been doing this for most of my life.

5

Sounds a bit like a word salad to me. I think people might fall in with someone with their same dysfunctions, but I wouldn't think that is ideal.

What I see with successful couples is patience, understanding and encouragement for each other's anxieties and dysfunctions, each with different strengths and talents to balance each other, provide either more stability or more whimsy which ever might make the couple happier together than apart.

Those are just my observances. I'm no expert, since I am a person better off alone than with a partner, so far as I can tell.

Julie808 Level 8 Mar 11, 2023

Hmmmm.There are codependents without partners . . .they are usually martyrs & still addicted to whatever comfort was mutually used in the codependancy whether alcohol, drugs or wallowing in misery.

@julie808 I agree with you! Perhaps "level of unconscious anxieties" means temperament. The assessment that your mate will trigger all your unresolved emotional pain, makes me wonder. Do I want to be in a couple again?

@JGal You may find that addressing your own fears will improve your relationship with everybody, not just with a significant other.

I too am better of alone then with anyone, or at least anyone that I live with. Just a solitary woman am I.

1

Nonsense.

5

Perhaps it is one aspect of attraction, I don't see it as the sole one.

MizJ Level 8 Mar 10, 2023

I should hope not. Aim for synergy.

3

Marriages succeed and/or fail for a variety of reasons. There is no single explanation in either case.

KateOahu Level 8 Mar 10, 2023
8

Nah, been married twice, and divorced twice. Nuf said.

Same here, do not want to do it again, ever.

Nuf said, or nuf done?

@yvilletom Much more could have been done, but I chose to be civil.

6

I have a lot of time for Gabor Maté. While it may not be true for all couples, I see a lot of truth in it.

Codependency can be a bitch. (Been there, done that, finally escaped when I recently killed the three demons inside my head.)

Schema-based cognitive behavioural therapy is an escape route from the prison of unresolved emotional pain.

anglophone Level 9 Mar 10, 2023

That's the key! What is my unresolved emotional pain? I know I have been triggered. Can I read my way out of it?

@JGal You may be able to read your way out of it, but you might have a better chance of success with expert help. If anybody offers you psychodynamic CBT instead of schema-based CBT, I would recommend against it.

1

a convoluted answer. but yes, opposites attract

TheDoubter Level 9 Mar 10, 2023
3

I think this is too academic. To me, couples want to find partners who have similar likes and views so they agree on things and enjoy life together + accommodate each other on the way.

St-Sinner Level 9 Mar 10, 2023

Unchallenging & non progressive.

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