The role of culture and family in loving too much

Women or partners who meet challenging or needy men or partners have a need to be of service, and to help their man. The men in turn are searching for someone who can help them, someone who can control their behaviour and save them.

The act of saving men by being perfect and selfless start in compelling fairy tales which embody a spiritual truth. We miss the deeper meaning of the story due to cultural bias.

1. We believe that if someone we love is not acting or feeling as we wish, we can change someone for the better through force of love, especially as nurturing females or powerful males.

2. Everyone is focused on trying to help but also tend to delegate that role especially to women.

3. We are taught that , rather than judge, we must respond with kindness and generosity.

These virtuous cultural recommendations explain the behaviour of people who choose cruel, abusive, emotionally unavailable and unloving partners. The people who choose such partners do so from a drive to control their pattners.

Control

Control originates in childhood fear, anger, pity, guilt, shame and pity for themselves and others. To avoid being overwhelmed by these feelings, a child develops coping strategies to avoid these feelings. This subsequently leads to denial , which is a subconscious need to control.

We all go through phases of denial, to trivial or major things to avoid facing the truth about ourselves that does not fit with our idealised image and circumstances. We ignore information we do not want to deal with. We deny what we feel and what is happening in our lives.

A child growing up might have a parent who is unfaithful and therefore does nor spend time at home. As a grown woman , she will pretend her betraying husband is busy at work to avoid facing the truth. By saying that he is busy, she denies reality, and creates a sense of compassion for him.

Denial helps her prevent the fear of destabilising her family to potray a picture perfect family to society. She also denies her feelings about the situation. She learns to tune out and operate from a place of fantasy. By doing this, she maintains a status acceptable to society. An enduring wife who keeps her relationship going through thick and thin. She earns the badge and award for bravery and courage. She is moving towards the "forever after" dream.