What is the common denominator that makes us fall in love and choose a particular person to be our partner?

This question seems very simple, but many people say that they really do not know why they choose one person or another. They say that perhaps they are guided at the beginning by certain characteristics -physical or not- that attract their attention or some personality trait or are simply guided by anintuition.

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It is curious that many people, after breaking an unsatisfactory relationship, fall into a similar situation again and again over time. This situation is due to the fact that there is a common denominator in these relationships, they fall in love with a person very similar to their former partner and that leads to repeating the same pattern. Therefore, this generates very similar situations and conflicts in different relationships -but not so different from each other.

Scientific studies say that people tend to relate to their partners in a similar way to how they learned to relate to their parents during their childhood. Depending on that, a wide range of relational possibilities can be found. If the relationships with their parents were positive, healthy and satisfactory, they will tend to look for similar couples to their parents – in the way of relating and communicating with each other.

On the other hand, if relationships with parents were rather negative, conflicting and insane, they tend to repeat these relational patterns in future couples. And why does that happen?

Many psychologists  found that gratitude, communication, praise of partners and so on can improve the satisfaction of couples  but why are there so many grievances? Why are these methods always limited in practice?

In our lives, we meet a multitude of different people. Some leave us deeply indifferent, others mark us good or bad … Finally, there are also those few people we can fall in love, to lose the reason.

According to the psychologists there is a reason why we fall in love with certain people, and no others! This is what the psychology of love says, and the reasons that lead us to make the choices we make when we are in a relationship.

The importance of events during childhood in our choice of a partner

In psychology, we can assume that we are led to choose (or look for) an “improved father or mother” in our love life. That is to say that strangely this person, in one way or another, looks a bit like one of our parents (so we know “intuitively” how to interact with it) but in another measure, this person is also completely different from parents in some aspects. It is particularly the “negative” or missing aspects of this relationship with the father or mother that we will seek to fill.

For example, if you were missing something in your relationship with your parents when you were a child, this is the aspect that you may have to look for in your relationship to fill this gap.

That is why we are often led to look for people who, in our eyes, help us to heal our wounds, to face the problems, to palliate our psychological needs, to realize our hopes, our dreams, our expectations … And to get something that we feel we have not had enough during our childhood: love, protection, approval, admiration, independence, self-esteem, trust, pride …

The search for our “half”

Another curious fact: it seems that we are looking in the other person for a kind of twin that is both similar to us and different, and that completes us. A thing which we translate magnificently in language and common expressions: we speak well of the “soul mate”, of our “half”, and Plato himself evoked in his Banquet the myth of the Androgynous to explain love: according to this myth, men and women were originally one single being with two faces, four arms and four legs. These beings were then cut in two by the gods who feared their power, forcing each of these halves to search for the other, all life, in order to find themselves again in full.

This other “half” completes us, because it has qualities that are less well developed at home, and conversely, we also complete it in our own way. For example, it may be that the loved one is firm and determined when you are not strong enough, that it is rather reserved when you are more spontaneous, each having strengths and weaknesses that correspond to those of the other. .

Different … But not too much

But if “opposites attract,” harmony is also essential, and two people also need some degree of similarity between them. Thus, according to the psychologist and analyst Vadim Petrovsky, there are at least three major fundamental criteria that must be able to coincide within a couple, so that the latter is welded.

The first is the general temperament. If a person has a “hot” temperament and passionate, his ideal partner should be as well. If instead the person is rather shy, not really demonstrative in his feelings, she will be more comfortable with a similar person.

The second is the level of openness. Within a couple, both people must be equally open minded. If one person is more open than the other, this can generate tensions, misunderstandings or even frustrations that will make it difficult for the couple to maintain themselves in the long term.

Finally, their level of jealousy must be similar. Jealousy within a couple is sometimes inevitable, yet it does not jeopardize the survival of the couple … If (and only if) the two people are just as jealous of each other, says Petrovsky. On the contrary, if one person experiences jealousy while the other person does not, a feeling of insecurity and lack of affection will soon set in.

Find in each other the imperfections that correspond to us

A relationship between two people is like a living organism or an ecosystem that can evolve, grow, and sometimes become ill. This organism can be healed, just as it can die prematurely. At the beginning of a relationship, we are under the influence of very powerful feelings and emotions. Like a drug, it alters our perception of reality and prevents us from seeing potential defects in our partner. The fact is that we fall in love with a person we do not yet know everything about. It is only after a time that we begin to perceive things as they really are: we realize that we have in front of us, not a perfect being, but a person with his qualities and faults.

It is at this moment that there are only two possible options: to be disappointed and to separate to go in search of a new ideal, or to accept the defects, to learn to dialogue, to accept the differences and imperfections, to admit the right of everyone not to be perfect.

That’s why it’s important not to try to “change” the points you do not like at this point in your relationship, because not only will you not succeed, but you risk making things worse. for both parties. Rather than trying to change things that do not suit you, the only real solution is to accept these weak points while taking into account the strengths that exist in return – or to realize that this simply does not suit you. to admit that you are not made for each other, and to look for a person who will fulfill your expectations better.

Just keep in mind that no one is perfect, and that the goal is also to find a person who complements you, so that you can help each other through the strengths of each.

Hülya Karahan: The Founder

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