By Yoav Aftovitzer
Translation by Yasmine Ariel
No Hope 
“I don’t believe in relationships,” Mira told me as she dropped onto the couch in my therapy room. Mira came tired after a long night fighting with her partner, skeptical about the possibility that she could ever make a relationship work. Her frustration and despair touched me.
Mira and Boaz met a few months ago at University. After years of failed relationships it seemed like they found one that actually worked.
Boaz moved in with Mira soon after they met, and they spent much time together enjoying their common spiritual interests, and their mutual curiosity for life.
Mira swept Boaz away with her to a new world of seminars, festivals, communities and friends. Boaz, a homebody used to his cozy comfort zone, decided to go for it. He felt he had an opportunity to make a real change, to give up the familiar and known, and open up to Mira’s world.
Hurting
In this session with Mira, I asked her to explain what had happened that she felt so hurt by Boaz.
“I had to finish writing my last seminar for University and I couldn’t do it. I’ve been stuck for a month. Eventually after a month of trying by myself and failing, I decided to ask Boaz for some help. We scheduled for 5:00, and said we would work for a couple of hours and then go to see a movie. He arrived at 5:00, said he was tired and needed to rest for a moment before we started working. After that, he asked me to give him a massage – and I was already stressed out. We wasted a lot of time, and by the time we started it was 8:00. On top of that, when we finally sat down to work, he said that maybe we should just work for an hour, and then go to see the movie. I was so offended,” said Mira with tears in her eyes. “It’s really humiliating for me to ask for help. I’ll never ask him for anything else. I’d rather be alone.”
The Analysis
Mira blamed Boaz for betraying her trust and for promising to help, and not following through. Boaz accused Mira of overwhelming him with the things she wants, without seeing and communicating with him.
Sometimes it seems that when people come together into relationship they are experiencing a meeting between emotional wounds.
When Mira talked about getting help as something humiliating this was an indicator leading to an emotional wound.
Her difficult relationship with her mother, who didn’t see her and her needs, led her to develop a behavioral pattern to defend against the pain of rejection: “I need nothing. I’m strong. I’ll make it on my own.” This is where her belief that seeking help is humiliating came from.
Through the hours of the night in which she was angry with Boaz, Mira remembered her mother. Most of all she remembered her unfulfilled need for her mother’s
love.
And, it seems to me that this is the key point - under every emotional wound there is a basic need that hasn’t been fulfilled.
If Mira could have listened to Boaz she would have discovered that from his perspective she doesn’t see him. Sometimes he feels like he disappears in her fast paced world - like he doesn’t have a place in life.
Many of us experience a sense of “invisibility”, a sense that others can’t see us, and what we need. Feeling our needs are recognized eliminates much of relationship mess.
Recognizing the emotional need of the other creates empathy because basic human needs are universal. “Grownups have children in them,” and the minute we recognize the child within us the door to compassion opens.
Mira’s “solution” - to be alone and to give up on relationship, is keeping to her old patterns. The old patterns had value in order to protect the little child Mira from a mother who ignored her too much.
But this pattern is not Mira’s essence. Rather it is “unnecessary overload.” The overload interferes and puts us out of balance. Understanding that overload or wound is not your essence is the first realization necessary for any healing process.
Awareness and objectivity are a major tool. It is important to understand that two people in a relationship want the same thing – love and happiness. It is important to remember this when, for example, we see people being defensive or showing unpleasant behaviour.
Compassion
I believe in letting go of conflict and being more compassionate. For me compassion is like a kind of peripheral vision that reminds me, even when my soul is in struggle, of our shared ray of light.
Many times in life we project the relationship we had with our parents as children on to people that we meet. This means that, like Mira, we may set ourselves against the world as children fighting their parents.
Relating to anyone as if they were our parent is a sure way of creating conflict. If we pay attention to our relationships, and identify the pattern of conflict that we have, we can start to build a new kind of relationship. We can build relationships based on being awake, seeing the common essence of us all, and the possibility of moving out of the darkness of the unresolved emotional wound cycle into the light of a
loving relationship.