Hell is other people

A friend of mine - Colin - is newly engaged to Lilly, the woman of his dreams and his soulmate and all that jazz according to him. A few days ago, he and I had a conversation about his engagement, and he began talking about a previous relationship with Sara, the one which left him in a deep depression from which he hasn't entirely recovered. He said he still has flashbacks and dreams about his previous relationship, despite that she dumped him over two years ago, and he fears that he'll never truly get over it.

The relationship went something like this: Sara was the "center of his universe" at the time they were dating, and when she left, he felt as if he had been unmade, as if life had lost meaning. His plans for the future, his circle of friends, his very sense of self were wrapped up in the idea of being in this relationship. When it ended, he lost his sense of self.

Without getting into the entire conversation, we ended up arguing about what it means to be in a relationship. I pointed out that he's doing the same thing with Lilly that he had done with Sara - building his sense of self entirely on his relationship with her - and that it's going to lead to the same sort of problems he had with Sara. He argued that when he was with Sara, he was committing himself completely to the relationship, and the only problem was that she didn't feel the same way. He even insisted that this is what one ought to do when in a serious relationship. I flat-out told him that he was wrong and was romanticizing unhealthy ****, and then he called me callous and I called him a cornball and it kinda fell apart.

Anyway, so which of us is right? I feel that I'm right, but I also recognize that I only really understand these things on a conceptual level, so maybe I'm being unfair, and maybe this is the reason I can't bond with people. Also, I'm starting to become aware of how much I see relationships in terms of power differential (I won't allow myself to be defined by a relationship because that gives the other person power over me), and that probably isn't all that healthy. On the other hand, he's been having an existential crisis worthy of psychiatric treatment for like two years, and I think it might have something to do with him tying his self-worth so tightly to a relationship.

You are right .
As far as power differential no we don't do that ,a mutually beneficial relationship is a partnership that you both equally contribute to and work at ( doesn't matter how much money ,or property or any that rot you contribute) when my late wife and I married , we wrote our own vows ,and neither of us wanted any part of obey ,that's a power differential right there neither of us wanted that in our relationship , love and honor are fine (I have a very unflexible personal honor code instilled by my mother ,my wife always new I would make good decisions because that's how I am wired)

Anybody who ties there self worth into another person's "love" is going to have a series of crisis over and over everytime a relationship ends , until they see the light they will never find what they are looking for and will plunge from high to low with each failed relationship, never rebuilding themselves without some proffesional help ,honestly you have to love yourself before someone else truly can or will.

In my opinion wrapping your entire identity around other people, regardless if they are romantic partners or your children etc is a very unhealthy way to live.

I’ve met people whose entire identity was defined by a relationship they were in. I think he is confusing commitment with enmeshing.

I can’t relate to this way of life. But I have to say it’s fairly common. Their partner’s friends become theirs, their life style become theirs, their interests and views start matching their partners and they spend all free time with their partner. These type of people usually can’t be alone and must have someone all the time or if they don’t have anyone then they fantasize and agonize about their exes or future partners.

They simply do not have their own self figured out. I think some type of professional help might do, but only if they are willing to open up and accept criticism. Usually they don’t.

So they go from one person to another with no time in between and no reflection and in the long run it doesn’t work. They choose wrong partners because they don’t really care if the person is a good match as long as he/she is with them. They are in love with being in love not in love with actual person. How can one understand someone else if they don’t understand themselves?

I wish this guy luck because he is going to need it

Good thread and something I’m glad to think about today, as I’ve lost a close relationship.

While we can enjoy all the feelings that come with love, we are still a whole person by ourselves.

I agree your friend sounds too enmeshed. Healthy love is somewhere on a continuum of less than his intensity and more than the inability to allow trust, love, and sometimes even power with a lover.

It must be a mutual effort, but it’s not always equal, much as that would be ideal.

Feeling okay about letting go should they abandon you is very liberating. Wish them well because you truly love them. And be kind to and love yourself.

When your heart is open and you are a loving person, you tend to keep having love in your life. I don’t see that as faulty. What’s wrong with being someone who draws others to them because they love and want to have love?

The ‘people are hell’ part to me are how others can be so callous and hurtful. Those people will leave you or be so abusive that you will leave them. So we learn from what happened with them and look for others who won’t do that and are better for us. Maybe there’ll be no one for a time.

I’ve just had a huge loss. Yet I feel that there are so many more people in the world and more purpose for me. It is painful but I let the wind blow me. I trust this happened as part of some master plan I don’t understand right now.

There is a quote along the lines of "I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me"

I think that sums up a healthy, non dependant or codependant relationship. Be an individual who can stand alone and bring that to the relationship.

This reminds me a whole darn lot of those teenage relationships, where neither party can bear to be apart for more than 5 seconds and they text and call each other 600 times an hour and there is absolutely no room or time left in their lives for anything else but this obsession.

Enmeshment is the road to relationship ruin. It is fundamentally unhealthy. Your friend needs to learn to hold on loosely.

I think it is to do with him being needy and i also think being needy cannot be turned off or rationalised or therapied away. As you say you only understand it conceptually and you are lucky in that

i think that is a good thing but one cannot make oneself like that

Yes! Winner!

Right, and I understand that to some degree, but I don't have any idea how to actually do it in practice.

I agree completely, and I made the point that, if he and Lilly break up, he's going to find himself in the same state of depression he was in the last go around. He insisted, however, that if he and Lilly never break up, then it will never be a problem. He said something along the lines of "that's just the risk you have to take if you want to truly love someone and be loved by someone." He also made the point that, if someone breaks up with you and you're not affected by it, then you probably never really loved them in the first place. Which, ok, fair. But I would think there's some third option between "complete lack of caring" and "soul crushing depression."

Yes! This is what I was looking for and I couldn't quite grasp it. And yeah, I don't think he sees it as enmeshing, but as devotion. He feels that he isn't making a real commitment or being a good partner if he isn't totally devoted to her.

He is getting professional help, fortunately, but he takes criticism about as well as a popsicle takes a blowtorch, and he's adamant about his ideas on love and relationships. I don't think there will be any convincing him, but I wanted to see if maybe I was being unfair to him.

Colin and I are polar opposites in almost every regard. [I think the only reason he still tolerates me is because I was his only close friend during his really low period and because I'm one of the few people who will talk with him about Foucault and Heidegger and all that.] On the subject of love and relationships, I think he and I are on two opposite extremes of a spectrum, and "healthy" is somewhere between our ideas. The difference is that at least I recognize that my ideas are unhealthy.

That cracked me up never heard that one before .

Without the details of how this friend of yours describes commitment and yours it's hard to say whether he's doing the right thing and whether or not you see some validly unhealthy behavior in him.

I will say that if what your friend means is that someone should be 100% committed to the person they marry, I will agree but where it becomes cloudy is in how a person describes commitment vs some unhealthy behavior like completely losing one's self in the other person which is not uncommon either. A lot of people mistake giving up individuality of themselves and taking on a part of the other person as "love" which it is not, it's obsession. Losing one's individuality in a relationship is not the same as being committed at all. Neither is commitment something that goes against someone retaining their independence and individuality of self in a relationship. Being committed isn't dependent on that.

If I'm committed to a person as a mate, friend, brother or otherwise it does not mean that I give up my right to be an individual and have thoughts of my own, and I have to take on the other person's views and likes, dislikes at all.

If that is what your friend is doing, I would agree with you on the unhealthy part but it's not committing 100% to a mate in a relationship that's a problem, in fact it's the only way a relationship really can work.

Thanks to everyone so far for the responses. I apologize for not replying to all of the comments yet. I will soon, hopefully by tomorrow, but some work-related things came up that I have to address.

Sorry.

I wasn't aware "enmeshment" was a thing. Just googled it. Learn something new every day. Anyway, the website said of it: "This often happens on an emotional level in which two people 'feel' each other’s emotions, or when one person becomes emotionally escalated and the other family member does as well."

This is something Colin does a lot, and not just with Sara or Lilly, but anyone he gets close to, although it's much more apparent in his romantic relationships. I wonder if he simply has a problem with emotional boundaries in general. I also wonder if he likes hanging out with me because I don't have many emotions for him to be affected by.

"Hell is other people" is a reference to Sartre's No Exit, and yeah, it is basically about people tormenting each other with lies and emotional manipulation. More specifically, it's about those who rely on others to define them because they don't want to take responsibility for their own actions.

Of course, Garcin, Estelle, and Inez were all terrible people specifically chosen to torment each other. When each looks to one of the others for validation, the other two respond with lies and manipulation tactics. Even when they try to be honest, the one asking for validation doesn't trust the motives of their comrades anyway, so they end up being suspicious of any validation that is given. I wonder what would happen if you were one of the characters in Sartre's play who was looking for validation, but you happened upon someone who gave you all the emotional support you needed.

I suppose Sartre would say that you're still lying to yourself, so it's a moot point.

There certainly are.

Yeah, I think that sums it up really well.

He isn't quite that bad, but he does seem a bit immature for a 31-year-old. Not that I have room to talk, but at least I know that I lack the emotional capacity to be in a healthy relationship.

Don’t let that stop you I find you compassionate and emotionally mature in your comments I have read here.