Marriage
Unconscious Choice In Marriage
By J. Bailey Molineux
Jan 14, 2003, 15:59

There has been plenty of social psychological research on the conscious, obvious factors involved in the process by which we fall in love. Spending time together either at work or school, physical attractiveness, similar attitudes and values, doing fun things together and meeting each other's needs - all are involved in falling in love.

But is there unconscious choice in love? Are we attracted to someone because of factors of which we are not aware?

Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, thought so when he wrote, "The heart has it's reasons, which reason knows nothing of." So did Sigmund Freud when he argued that a man chooses unconsciously to marry someone like his mother and a woman someone like her father.

And so does Ayala Pines, a clinical psychologist and author of the book, Falling in Love: Why We Choose the Lovers We Choose (Routledge, 1999). In it, she reviews all the social psychological research on love but then explores the theories which posit unconscious factors in romantic choice.

Pines argues that childhood traumas or problems, which are unconscious, are involved in determining with whom we fall in love. She also makes the interesting point that the stronger our initial attraction, the more obsessive our love at first, the more likely that unconscious wounds from childhood play a role in our falling in love.

The idea that there is unconscious factors in mate selections helps to explain puzzling behaviors such as why a person falls in love with someone who is not good for her and why she may stick with him despite their problems. What usually happens is that we fall for someone who carries traits in ourselves we find unacceptable.

For example, a man whose needs for nurturing were not well met when he was a child will deny his normal dependency needs as unmanly. But guess what happens in his relationship with his wife? He either marries a dependent woman, perceives her as more dependent than she really is, or forces her to become more needy by withholding love from her.

The husband will complain his wife is too demanding but he tolerates her behavior for a good reason. By focusing on her neediness he avoids facing his own dependency because it is too scary for him to do so. What is really an internal conflict - the husband's fear of his dependency needs - has become externalized. It is not he who is so needy, it is his wife.

Pine's therapy, which takes courage to implement, involves three steps. The first is to develop awareness of the unconscious interaction between husband and wife. The second is to develop empathy for each other's needs which have now become conscious and the third is to make behavioral changes to meet those needs.

So next time you complain about some aspect of your spouse's behavior, ask yourself a tough question: Is what I dislike in her something I can't tolerate in myself? Is she requesting what I really want myself but am afraid to ask for?

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