Love Does Not Need A Magnifying Glass, It Needs A Mirror

When some people are in love, they almost act like a sniper. They hold a magnifying glass to their partner to find faults and presumed weak points. They undermine and eventually ruin the relationship.

That is the cowardly paradigm. Someone who does not understand that love needs mirrors – not magnifying glasses.

When it comes to the difficult business of relationships, none of us know it all. Most of us have hit more than one rock, leaving a wreck of dreams and hopes behind us.

We have been shipwrecked in the sea by impossible love and cowardly passion, whether we were scared or just indecisive.

There is one type of relationship that usually spreads more chaos than any other. This is where one or both members act as “identity criminals”.

They focus their attention on everything they do not like, all the things that disturb them in their partner. Why? To ridicule and control them.

They do it because that is how they take the reins and compensate for their hurt self-esteem.

Almost without realizing it, we get caught in a hamster wheel, our own inertia catches us in a dangerous dynamic of unhappiness.

A dynamic in which a person carries the magnifying glass but is unable to see themselves in the mirror, to see their own holes and immaturity.

The Complexity of Love: Blaming the Other Person

Howard Markman is a professor of psychology at the University of Denver and one of the most renowned researchers in relationships. His widespread works illustrate with precision and originality the problems that arise within the framework of the common and the everyday.

One of Dr. Markman’s most interesting ideas are that most people who go to couple therapy are convinced that all problems and misfortune are due to the other person.

They have the impossible hope that the therapist will provide “cure” or will “cure” the partner’s wrong behavior. If it was up to them – and this is what they often expect from the professional – their partner would be taken by the ear and punished for their bad behavior.

Behind most couples’ problems, there is usually no mental problem, but rather a problem of relational dynamics. A dynamic that the two have built and that defines how they relate to each other.

For Dr. Markman is complaints that take place in his consulting room, often associated with certain deficiencies related to emotional education and psychological skills . He thus suggests that we should teach “psycho-education” in schools from an early age.

The purpose of psycho-education is to provide us with strategies, tools, and skills so that we can help ourselves . It would teach us to look at ourselves in the mirror. To identify our own fears, insecurities and finally, to break down society’s rigid roles and gender standards.

When it comes to love, some people are carried away by these roles and norms. They may have inherited them from their own families.

Maybe they learned that it was “better to keep quiet and cope,” that ” if he does not do this, he does not love me, so I will be angry.”

Basically, the idea is to establish a foundation for self-knowledge so that we can take care of ourselves and thus bring the best version of ourselves into a relationship.

Love does not heal if you do not love yourself

In this colorful, complex and ever-growing fabric of relationships, there is always room for conflict.

Instead of seeing it as negative, as a disease we can be infected with, we should see it as an engine that pushes us to know ourselves better and strengthen the relationship.

Conflicts shake the deepest part of our being. However, we still create unnecessary conflicts, by holding the magnifying glass on the other person’s presumed error.

We do it all the time, unaware of our own emotional responsibility. We are not aware that at times we go through life so naked and cold that all we want is for someone to be our shelter. Our warm place.

But listen: This formula never works. Any person who serves as a “shelter” and “doctor” only feels useful when needed. Unfortunately, it is a dependent relationship.

Sooner or later, they will run out of energy, life and dignity. Because this person will live under the tireless magnifying glass.

Let’s not let that happen. Let us all stand in front of the mirror and rediscover ourselves and our self-esteem . Do not let yourself be drawn into a relationship where you have to sacrifice your own happiness to be loved.