We fall in love with the people who feel like unfinished emotional stories. Our partners often mirror our childhood challenges — not because we’re broken, but because we’re trying to create a new ending.
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00:00So the way we love as adults always bears the imprint of the way which we were loved and we loved as children.
00:07And that hugely restricts how we're able to behave and explains the very peculiar, often nonsensical, often counterproductive ways in which we love.
00:19We're not free to love just anyone.
00:22And this, you know, I'm sure you'll have had this in your life, met people, etc., who will say things like,
00:28seem to have ended up with quite a difficult person for me.
00:31You know, they're quite challenging for me.
00:34Why can't I go and love somebody else?
00:35Why am I so in love with this person who's quite challenging?
00:38And often it's because what's challenging sits on the very area that was challenging in your past.
00:46And that's what makes them attractive.
00:47Now, before we want to jump off a cliff at the pessimism involved, let's be a little optimistic here.
00:53In a good relationship, we are drawn towards people who, yes, carry some of the puzzles, some of the knots, some of the challenges of a parental figure or figure of a caregiver.
01:09But they hold out the promise of a different ending.
01:11So, whereas in a relationship with parent or caregiver, it ended up with shouting and you stormed out of the house and you're no longer in touch with them.
01:21Imagine the joy.
01:23Imagine the sense of triumph over adversity and human non-communication if you are together as a couple able to move towards understanding and mutual growth.
01:34I think that explains why people hang in there with people who you might think, you know, from attachment theory, an anxious person who teams up with an avoidant one.
01:49You might want to go, why?
01:50Why are you with this avoidant person?
01:52Look at this other.
01:53I'm going to present you with a perfectly securely attached person.
01:55And you go, oh, they're a bit boring.
01:57Don't really want them.
01:58Why?
01:59What's going on?
01:59It's pure perversion.
02:01Let's be generous towards that impulse.
02:03They're trying to find a different ending to probably a very painful early situation.
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