Looking Honestly at the Special Relationship
Pick a particularly significant person in your life, ideally one with whom you’ve had a fair amount of friction and/or frustration.
- What role, in your mind, was this person supposed to play? What function was he or she meant to fulfill?
- If this person fulfilled that function, would that make you feel really special?
- How special did you end up feeling (or have you felt so far)?
- How well did this person fulfill the function you allotted him or her?
- Is any resentment or ill feeling you harbor toward this person related to the failure to fulfill his or her assigned function?
- Can you think of any previous person in your life who was supposed to fulfill a similar function and similarly failed?
- If so, is it possible that you were seeing the current person as a symbol for this past person, and, through the current one, trying to symbolically gain from the past one what you didn’t get before?
- Trying to prove to the past person how wrong they were and (symbolically) extract from them what they wouldn’t give you—doesn’t that amount to a quest for vengeance?
- Is it possible that the drive for vengeance on the past person was a large part of the unconscious motivation behind your participation in the relationship?
- Does it seem logical that you can either seek vengeance or love, but not both?