The Bad Couple: Philophobia And Narcissism - Relations

Failure in love affairs does not particularly lift the spirit and a person without fear of attachment, and for a filophobe with a fearful type of attachment, this is just a defeat. Because of their low self-esteem, such people are insulted to the extreme. Some (not all!) Already in childhood develop a strategy to drown out low self-esteem: they compensate for their inferiority complex by striving for perfection. Figuratively speaking, they take low self-esteem into the grip, put it on their shoulder blades, and in its place they put a good "I", an almost perfect "I" with a capital letter.

Philophobia is the fear of falling in love or having affection for another person. For a person with philophobia, there is a great risk of being emotionally attached to someone or being in love. Usually occurs when a person is faced with any emotional upheaval associated with love, but it can also be a chronic phobia.

However, this mental work requires huge expenditures of energy - for behind the big "I" there is always a small "I" ready to jump. To keep it under control, the big "I" must constantly provide the highest attainments. This is done in two ways.

First, such a person tirelessly polishes his abilities, and often his appearance. On the other hand, it diminishes the opponent's ability. So, such a person, called in professional jargon "narcissistic", stands out in relation to self-esteem due to "double counting": deep down, such people feel worthless, however, in order to drown out this feeling, they do their best to prove themselves and others with the help of personal achievements and attractive appearance that they are still significant. To maintain good self-esteem, they need to not only constantly worry about higher achievements, but also praise themselves internally.

This is why narcissists are not able to adequately and realistically perceive their value - as a rule, they overestimate their own importance. As long as the narcissist enjoys sufficient recognition and success, that is, the strategy works, he is doing well. But if there is no success, if the narcissist is faced with a refusal in partnership or professional failure, the little "me" breaks out, knocking the ground out from under his feet and depriving the person of all self-confidence. The little self scoffs: “You're not good enough; nobody loves you; I knew all along that you were a failure; you will never succeed, "and so on. The psychological consequence of this attack of the little" I "becomes deep despondency, up to depression, and it will last until the person recovers himself with the help of old strategies. What he completely gives up on this roller coaster ride is his normal, average life. First, he lacks a realistic, adequate self-esteem, not blown up to the skies and not lowered below the plinth. Secondly, he is sick of everything average - he himself does not want to be ordinary in any way, and he is repulsed by this ordinaryness in other people.

This is why narcissistic people are almost unbearable in love relationships. Perverse narcissists shy away from love relationships, because no potential partner satisfies their perfectionist needs, or after a short stormy period of idealizing a partner, the narcissist himself humiliates him, obsoletes and breaks the relationship. Not only does the narcissist's self-perception fluctuate between idealization and complete devaluation - his perception of a partner also rushes between these extremes.

Rita, the “princess” from the example at the beginning of the book, and Mikhail, the furniture dealer from the “Attack as a Defense Strategy” section, who, when welcoming his friend to the store, said right off the bat that she looked bad again, are typical narcissistic type. Pronounced narcissists rarely keep their opinions to themselves - as a rule, they are not quiet. Depending on the mood of the narcissist, the partner either turns out to be showered from head to toe with love vows, or falls under a hurricane of criticism. The narcissist makes every effort to try to form a partner according to his ideas about the ideal - after all, the partner's weaknesses are reflected, according to the narcissist, on himself, jeopardizing his reputation. With the same firmness with which the narcissist fights his own weaknesses, claiming to be perfect, he also fights the weaknesses of his partner. The partner for the narcissist is an extension of his own "I", that is, he must increase the shine of the narcissist and in no case threaten this shine. For this, two potential types of partners are considered.

1. A partner who is at least as attractive and presentable as the narcissist imagines himself to be, and this applies not only to appearance, but also to professional status and other distinctive features. Thanks to this combination, a “beautiful couple” emerges from the category of those that tabloid publications devoted to the life of “stars” and “stars” invite us to admire.

2. Some daffodils, however, prefer the "gray mouse" as a pair, whose function is to further emphasize the brilliance of the daffodil with its own colorlessness. In addition, the advantage of gray mice is that they themselves are quite undemanding and, thus, can spend all their energy admiring the daffodil under the motto: "I and my wife love me passionately."

Of course, narcissistic tendencies do not have to be as pronounced as described above. But even minor narcissistic tendencies can lead to relationship problems. But we are all infected with narcissism to a greater or lesser extent! So strongly recommends the modern society with a claim to perfection. Mostly women are susceptible to this suggestion, but more and more men are joining them, and we can hardly abstract ourselves from the models of beauty that magazines and television impose on us every day. We are taught to strive for excellence. That said, our narcissism is much more than personal vanity: it is a deep concern that we may not meet the needs of society. This concern extends both to oneself and to a potential partner. Who has not felt more perfect when a presentable partner is nearby - take at least his appearance, at least his professional status? And who is not ashamed of a partner behaving “wrong” or “inappropriately” dressed? Who has never asked the question: what is he missing? Who hasn’t dreamed of being endowed with extraordinary beauty and / or extraordinary abilities? After all, everyone is in some sense worried about their image and therefore their partner's image.everyone is in some sense worried about their image and, therefore, about the image of their partner.everyone is in some sense worried about their image and, therefore, about the image of their partner.

The problem with highly narcissistic people is that they are always more preoccupied with their outer image than with what they are and what they really want to be

External representation plays the most important role in their life, because their personal significance is very much dependent on the assessment of other people. This makes life very tiring - the narcissists exert too much effort to form and maintain high self-esteem.

For people with narcissistic motivation, the alternative to “living freely and at ease” is always an option because of its strong image orientation. The partner has to be “something special,” otherwise the narcissists prefer to be alone. Objectively, the most suitable candidates are rejected because they show weaknesses in the eyes of the narcissist that are unbearable for him - be it an inappropriate education, a lack of a university degree, or a poor professional career. In addition, the potential partner may have too little money, they may not match the narcissist's desired ideas about appearance, or may not suit his tastes. It can also happen that the narcissist distances himself from his partner because of criticism from others. If a stranger criticizes a partner, the narcissist is very bad. For him it's like a knife in the backthe partner must be presentable. So you can destroy love in one fell swoop. But ultimately, it doesn't matter if the criticism comes from a stranger or from the narcissist himself - the partner's weaknesses completely turn the narcissist away from him.

For the same reason, when choosing a partner, the narcissist keeps escape routes in his soul. In the end, no one is perfect, and maybe we can find something better. This is especially often manifested when the partner completely surrenders to the relationship and obligations are added to them - the narcissist takes a step back and only then thinks that he does not fit in a partner and whether he really is “the one, the only one”. On the contrary, if the partner is in some indecision, the narcissist will be busy mainly with catching him - he becomes an avid “hunter” who wants to prove to himself that he will be able to get “prey”. At this stage, the narcissist needs conquest to prove his own worth. Only when the conquest is complete will he think if he really needs this partner. This mechanism is associated with double consideration of one's own self-esteem: at the stage of winning relationships, the fear of failure and rejection comes to the fore, and the narcissist may not fully realize this. Consciously, he often feels only hunting fever and violent love. When the partner is won, the "trophy" immediately loses its attractiveness.

As children, narcissists were too deceived in their quest for recognition and now want to avoid further rejection and criticism anyway

However, some of them were overly approved by their parents in childhood, constantly praised for relatively little effort and average achievement. Thanks to this, children can develop an uncertain self-esteem - they feel that their parents are exaggerating and do not understand what is really "good" and "bad", "success" and "failure". They lack a reasonable assessment of their own achievements and abilities. Because of the too stormy and, therefore, undeserved praise of their parents, on the one hand, they tend to consider themselves simply amazing, on the other hand, they feel that this assessment does not coincide with reality, although they do not know what the real one should be. As a result, depending on the attitude of the parents, the self-esteem of children ranges from very high to very low (when separated from their parents).

Finally, it should be noted that narcissistic people are highly successful in both professional and personal life. In order not to create a false impression, let us note: daffodils do not look at the world through a distorting mirror, they are simply extremely responsive to both praise and criticism. Often, at the first meeting, they are very charm, courtesy and sociability, therefore they are welcomed with pleasure among friends. They themselves suffer mainly from a pile of unsuccessful relationships. However, because narcissistic traits are so widespread, making it normal for a person to be a narcissist to be overly concerned about their relationship and partner, it is difficult to figure out what their problem is.

A chapter from the book “Loves / Dislikes. What is holding you back from building a strong relationship and how to fix it. " Stephanie Stahl. - Moscow: Publishing house "Bombora", 2020.