In order to stay in love with someone, we use psychological mechanisms. These mechanisms serve to keep the person in our heads high because nothing would separate them from other people if we did not use them. They are used to maintain an image of someone and justify our obsession with them.
But these mechanisms are obviously our enemies when we need to get over someone.
Why we are in love with someone:
- Projection
- Idealization
- Rationalization
- Fantasizing
- Denial
Note: These are not the only reasons. We also have reasons of a psychological-emotional nature that are related to our personality and what kind of things we want (consciously and unconsciously) from our partners.
2 Psychological Reasons Behind Obsession After Rejection
Projection
Instead of seeing a person as they indeed are, we see them through the lens of our fantasies and desires.
- I want to be in love with this person. They will help me fulfill my fantasies: to be in a couple, to have children, to be loved, etc. That’s why I think they are fantastic.
They are a blank wall, and we are the projector. Everything we see in them actually comes from us.
- I once had an extremely intelligent and capable client. According to my assessment, her chosen partner was an average guy, but she deemed him exceptional and, get this, more intelligent than herself. Through discussions, we concluded that he only listened to her and nodded while she said intelligent things. But that was clearly enough and necessary for that guy to be declared special for her.
In short, it can be said: if someone doesn’t have something, we will give him what we have – so that he can be raised in a certain place.
So, you can imagine this as a projector with beautiful filters (that’s you) and a blank wall (that person) onto which you project yourself and your desires—what that person should be.
- This is a relatively complex lesson, but if you pause and think, maybe you’ll recognize that this person is actually empty compared to you and that you projected yourself onto them.
Idealization
An ideal impression of another object (person, thing, or event) is created, attributing only good qualities, while negative ones are suppressed and ignored. The object of idealization is treated as we treat ourselves: with care, love, and admiration.
The qualities that this person possesses are declared to be extraordinary. If a person is fun, it becomes very big and important. If she’s serious, that’s the best thing in the world. So her features are overemphasized, and that makes her the ideal person we met.
Idealization also involves maintaining an image of the ideal person, which is why things are attributed and “given” to them that they don’t actually possess (a form of projection).
For example, we give that person money to start their own business and then claim how incredibly capable they are. We ignore the fact that they couldn’t manage without our money. Or we give them our knowledge and then admire how incredibly smart they are when they say things we told them (this obviously precedes the suppression that we told them or gave them all that).
We want to maintain their greatness because, according to our ego, the best things and people belong to us. If the person in front of us isn’t exceptional, this means that we are nothing special either. However, if we keep this person exceptional, rare, unique, and precious – because she or he is with us – it means that we are also like that (exceptional, unique, and precious) because they wouldn’t be with us if we weren’t like that too.
Why Break Up Is So Hard To Bear: Real Reasons
Rationalization
Rationalization is a defense mechanism used to justify our idealized views of a person. For example, we can justify or minimize their behavior that we would otherwise consider unacceptable.
- He didn’t lie to me. He had to say that because…
The essence is that people distort the content, adapt it to themselves, and remember it differently than it actually happened. Therefore, when we talk to someone about that event, we can get a completely different story from the one we witnessed.
The goal of rationalization is to justify our actions and choices to ourselves and others. We practically convince ourselves that it was meant to be and that it is good.
In this case, we could mention the story of the sour lemon. We beautify the things we strongly desire with rational explanations.
- Everyone says he’s a womanizer. But he is brilliant, so I’ll try to be with him.
- He may not behave correctly towards me, but at least I’m not alone.
Rationalization serves both us and the people around us.
Fantasizing
Fantasizing is a mechanism that allows us to distance ourselves from reality and completely lose ourselves in an idealized representation of a person or situation.
It involves daydreaming and imagination as a very immature/childish way of dealing with the world.
People cannot realize something in reality, so they seek solutions in fantasy. They achieve temporary satisfaction by fantasizing about imagined achievements or withdrawing into a world of imagination to avoid fantasizing about current troubles.
People can fantasize so much that they completely detach themselves from reality. In their imagination, a person can be in love with them. They even go so far as to see things that don’t exist.
Denial
This defense mechanism involves completely ignoring or denying any information or evidence that could threaten our idealized image of a person.
So, a person has to remain in a good place, and their flaws are completely denied.
- It’s not true that they are a liar. They just understands the truth in their own way.
The other variant is refusing to acknowledge that the situation and facts are as they are. It’s a simple defense mechanism more related to infantile (immature) people, but since it’s widespread, we have to talk about it.
Denial occurs by not recognizing what we don’t like about reality.
Why acceptance is one of the most important things in life
These defense mechanisms help us maintain our idealized image of a person and protect ourselves from any information or situations that could undermine that idealism. They also explain why we stay in love with someone.
However, in the long run, they can interfere with our ability to assess people and relationships realistically, which can lead to disappointment and conflicts.
Also, the intensive use of these mechanisms (and the purpose of this is to maintain a good image of that person – since that person belongs to us – if it is ours, it means that we are good) is the reason why we cannot fall out of love with people.
These mechanisms are also the enemy of overcoming.
