Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples: Second Edition

What thoughts do I have when my partner acts this way? What deeper feelings might underlie these thoughts and feelings? Did I ever have these thoughts and feelings when I was a child?

“pick imago matches, project them, or provoke them.”

On an unconscious level, accepting love from your partner feels too dangerous because it contradicts a parent’s view that you are

You fell in love because your old brain had your partner confused with your parents! Your old brain believed that it had finally found the ideal candidate to make up for the psychological and emotional damage you experienced in childhood.

life allied with mine, for the rest of our lives—that is the miracle of marriage.

Experience has taught me that the most effective form of therapy is one that combines both schools of thought.

He thought he was in love with a person, when in fact he was in love with an image projected upon that person. Cheryl was not a real person with needs and desires of her own; she was a resource for the satisfaction of his unconscious childhood longings. He was in love with the idea of wish fulfillment and—like Narcissus—with a reflected part of him

that being a responsible sender is just as important as being a good listener.

She had chosen someone who resembled her father so she could resolve her childhood fear of being abused. She