How to Stop Feeling Lonely in Your Relationship |
Why Relationships Matter
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Early survival habits create distance in intimate relationships.
Feeling loved requires exposing your full self and appreciating your partner’s complexity.
Adopting new mindsets allows you to see your partner and your relationship with fresh eyes.
"Even though we are together, I still feel alone."
"Being alone is bearable; loneliness while in a relationship is painful."
"It is a lonely feeling when someone you care about becomes a stranger."
Sadly, most people who have been in a long-term relationship recognize the feelings being expressed in these statements. And sadly, most of them don’t know how they got to a place in their love relationship where they feel so alone and unloved. And worst of all, they don’t know how to come back from it and re-establish the intimacy and emotional connection they once enjoyed.
What Happened? The Fantasy Bond
I have been writing and lecturing about the fantasy bond for many years now. The fantasy bond, a term originated by my father, Robert Firestone Ph.D., is a defensive adaptation that develops in infancy when the baby is solely dependent on a parent for survival. At times when the infant perceives the parent as being absent or unavailable, the child deals with their distress by forming a fantasy of being connected with their parent. This illusion of attachment calms them and offers them relief from the sense of threat they are experiencing. In the words of Robert Firestone, “the fantasy bond acts as a primary psychological........