Is it not true that all falling in love involves “reparative fantasy”… to varying degrees? And that the first negative cycles are commonly activated by disappointments related to our partner failing to be the “fantasied other” that we thought/hoped they were? And that this throws us back into the wounds/raw spots that the reparative fantasies seek to protect us from? And that the future of the relationship is a kind dialectic between our “reparative disappointment” and our healthy capacity for attachment and our attachment history. This would involve the differences between self and other that especially disappoint. If these thoughts are accurate, could it be that these early disappointments form a kind of “core negative cycle” that somehow is a template and energizer for all the negative cycles to come. Thinking this way, in doing both Level 1 and Level 2 work, I find myself “on the lookout” for how the couples original differences that were so disappointing, and somehow not fully comed to terms with, can be at the center of the ongoing negative cycle process.
Key to this line of thinking is that we all come into relationships with places of insecurity and vulnerability that the reparative fantasies functionally form to protect us from.
Another way to think of this is that when relationships begin, there is a “fantasied” developmental line that starts and “real world” developmental line. The real world developmental line has to do with the whole range of safe or not safe interactions the couple is able to accomplish in their hours/days/years together… much the stuff of eft cycle work. The fantasied developmental line is prompted by our attempts to reparate our wounded individual histories within the context of the relationship. Commonly, except perhaps in the more securely attached relationships, both partners will tend to hide portions of their reparative fantasies from their partner, even from themselves. What is hidden here is the deep sense of “inner wound” which is actually an “attachment wound,” the sense of rejectability, terrible vulnerability… and the specter of shame. I am thinking as I write this that this is the stuff of Level 2 work, issues to be engaged when the couple has found places of safety with each other.
