Actions Are More Important Than Words
Relationships do not need to follow a certain timeline and manifest in many different ways. “Moving in” with a significant other looks different for each person that wants to do so. The key point is to KNOW who you are making deeper commitments to before moving too fast based on fantasies, hormones and other factors based in irrationality. A few months is in almost all cases simply not long enough to have an accurate picture of who someone is. ~ Darlene Zimmerman ------------ The Fantasy Bond : Structure of Psychological Defenses | Glendon Association, Dec 1, 1987 Robert W. Firestone It is composed of a spoken, manifest message and an opposite underlying latent meaning or action. Parents and family members continually give each other mixed messages to cover up their real sentiments. For example, a parent who tells a child, “It’s time to go to bed; you need your rest,” might be camouflaging a real desire to be free of the child for the evening, or might be attempting to hide a more general rejecting attitude. The child picks up the underlying message in the parent’s tone of voice, body language, and expressive movements, but is confused by the words. The child realizes, on a deep level, that he or she is receiving two contradictory messages. However, because of the child’s dependency on the parents and need to believe their words, the child must sacrifice his or her own sense of reality. Having one’s sense of reality distorted can lead to serious psychological disturbance, particularly when rejection is denied consistently with double messages from one’s parents. In a couple bond, men and women give double messages far more often than they realize. If they honestly stated what they really thought or deeply felt, they would be breaking an implicit pact to maintain the pretense of love and therefore the form of their relationship. Believing the words of one’s mate while ignoring the actions can lead to serious distortions of reality. ... “One young couple had been deeply involved for several months when they began talking about the possibility of living together. In this instance, the man initiated the conversation following a particularly close, romantic evening. However, soon afterward, the young woman became uneasy when she realized that they had only spent one evening together over the previous week. When she asked her friend if he was pulling away from her for some reason, he became angry and acted insulted, denying the real message of his behavior, all the while insisting he still cared for her. The woman felt confused and depressed until she finally admitted to herself that her lover was trying to deceive her about his waning interest. She was still pained by the rejection, but regained her sense of perspective after she saw through his duplicity. She would have been less disturbed had she noticed sooner that his actions belied his reassurance of love.” Darlene Zimmerman | #metanoiahealingarts https://www.facebook.com/metanoiahealingarts/ https://www.instagram.com/metanoiahealingarts/