A young man in his 30s walked into my psychiatric office:
“I’m afraid I’ll kill my wife someday!”
Murder? so serious?
I held my nerves and listened to his story.
One, I treat her so well, but she calls me “perverted”
Li Yajun (pseudonym), married for two years. The wife became more and more aloof and often refused to have sex.
The reason is very simple, Li Yajun is too controlling!
Li Yajun will always ask his wife’s whereabouts in detail, down to the minutes and seconds of what she is doing.
Look for opportunities to peek at my wife’s phone, and even stalk her a few times.
Wife was very angry, calling him a “pervert” and even fighted a few times about it.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
The wife is now doing business in partnership with a male friend, which makes Li Yajun unable to bear suspicion, and often makes up some pictures in his brain: two people chatting, drinking tea, even holding hands, hugging…
Li Yajun said that if his wife is suspected of being unfaithful, he may lose his mind, “I really killed my wife!“
At this time, his voice suddenly increased, and he was almost unable to control himself.
Although his wife has never been unfaithful, introverted, and not a great beauty, he said, “I love her so much and am afraid of losing her. I know this distrust is right She’s disrespectful, but still can’t control herself.”
After chatting, I found that Li Yajun is very attached to his wife and cares about her attitude and evaluation.
Especially when his wife decides to do business with someone else, he strongly disagrees. Li Yajun didn’t do much for his wife to start a business, and his income was limited. When he occasionally quarreled fiercely, his wife said cruel words such as “You are useless“, like an awl pierced into her heart.
“Useless” was a word that brought him deep frustration.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
His current wife was attracted to him because “the first time I met her, she was very down-to-earth and very reassuringsafe“.
Feel safe?
This is generally a woman’s evaluation of a man, but Li Yajun fell in love with this woman because of her sense of security.
His actions can be found in his childhood.
Second, the deformed love for the wife stems from the deprived maternal love
Li Yajun’s childhood was unfortunate, his parents were arguing and fighting. The only warm memory is from my mother:
Hold him, wipe his nose, buy him snacks.
But when he was 5 years old, his parents divorced. On the day his mother left, the boy cried so hard that he knew in his heart that his mother would never come back. His father kept cursing and dragged him back into the house.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
Father never remarried and raised him to college. The mother also re-established a family, and almost no contact with Li Yajun.
From a psychological standpoint, this is a poor example of childhood object relations.
What is an object?
Simply put, the subject is who you are, and the object is the people you get along with, or the things that affect you[1].
People are very weak when they are young, and they need to be cared and nurtured by their mothers to establish a close attachment relationship and gain a sense of security.
If the object relationship in childhood is not good, there may be problems in interpersonal relationships in adulthood, and will continuously ask for other people’s emotions to make up for the lack of childhood /strong>.
Li Yajun’s childhood was marked by a lack of close attachment:
He was sorely lacking in his mother’s comfort, affirmation, and inclusion that his emotional attachment had nowhere to go. That’s why I’m extremely thirsty for this kind of feeling when I’m an adult.
At this point, the emotional provider is his wife/girlfriend, and the attachment turns to them.
His control over his wife is due subconsciously to his father’s behavior.
As an adult, he finally lived a life he hated and began to control his wife.
It’s just that the father beats and scolds the mother, and his method is to question and check the whereabouts. As development continues, verbal and behavioral violence can occur at any time.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
Three, people with unfortunate childhoods heal their childhoods all their lives
Li Yajun once sought out a so-called “emotional recovery company”, but the other party only taught him some opportunistic methods to treat the symptoms rather than the root causes.
He needs the help of a counselor to understand that his state has a lot to do with childhood experiences, and to be aware and timely about his current pathological behavior termination.
All things considered, I tried to help him with hypnotherapy.
Under hypnosis, I asked him to imagine:
If you could go back in time and face the 5-year-old you, could you say something encouraging to him?
He said “yes” and then:
“Don’t be afraid, although your mother has left you, someone will still love you and let you grow up safely. You will grow into a healthy man, and there will be someone who loves you. wife, have children of their own, have a happy family…”
I said, “Fine, do you think the little boy understands?”
“Not necessarily fully understood, but certainly not so scared.”
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
After a while, Li Yajun told me, “Yesterday when my wife took a shower, she put her phone in the living room, and I didn’t even look at it.”
This is indeed an iconic change. As long as he perseveres, he will definitely be able to return to the best state of his relationship.
Four or three groups of “cruel” experiments, telling you how important your mother is
The story of Li Yajun is finished, I believe you must ask:
Whose childhood was smooth sailing? Even if it’s a little unpleasant, how many years can it pass?
Your questions are also psychologists’ questions. In the 1950s, American psychologist Harlow designed a series of experiments using monkeys[2].
(Psychologist Harlow and his rhesus monkeys)
Experiment 1: The mother who provided the food or the mother who provided the hug, which one did the monkey choose?
As soon as the baby monkey was born, it was separated from its mother and given to two fake monkeys to “raise”.
One of them is made of wire, but can provide milk (milk); the other is made of flannel, without milk, but can be hugged.
Guess which mother the monkey prefers? “Having milk is a mother”?
The answer is that Little monkeys are willing to hold “Mother Cloth” most of the time, and only go to “Mother Nurse” when they are hungry.
If the monkeys are suddenly startled while they are playing, they will invariably run to “Mama Boo”.
If you put the “cloth mother” where they can see but can’t touch, they will watch eagerly, or shrink to the ground and tremble.
Conclusion: Love needs touch.
Experiment 2: Will the little female monkey deprived of its maternal love be a qualified mother when she grows up?
Researchers found that monkeys raised by “artificial mothers” were not only withdrawn and depressed, but also attacked each other and even self-mutilated, and the female monkeys lost their willingness to mate.
So, they made a “rape rack”, tied the female monkey to it and forced to have sex with a normal male monkey.
As a result, the mother monkeys are extremely indifferent to their children, often beating and abusing them, and even biting them to death.
Conclusion: An individual who is not loved cannot pass it on to the next generation.
Experiment 3: Does suffering from “mom” make the child go away?
The researchers set up various mechanisms on the “Mama Cloth”, including firing blunt-headed iron nails at the monkeys, blowing air conditioners, and making strange noises.
In the beginning, the little monkey will scream and jump away, keeping a distance, but will soon come back to it, holding it as before.
Conclusion: The attachment and love to the mother is difficult to shake because of the mother’s harm to oneself.
It is no exaggeration to describe these three experiments as “brutal”, and Harlow himself has been controversial for it. But he traded the experiment for the healthy growth of a generation of Americans.
Because the American society at that time generally believed that To train children’s will, they should not be dependent on their mothers, as long as they can ensure that nutrition allows them to grow up.
In fact, the loss of a child’s mother’s touch and comfort can have serious negative consequences for adult life and relationships.
Finally a word for you:
Happy people are healed by childhood all their lives; unhappy people are healed by childhood all their lives.
Together!
Declaration
Based on the basic professional norms of the psychological counseling industry and the privacy protection of all clients, the description of this case in this article only retains the basic framework. All content that may reveal the identity of the client and that may lead the client to guess that he is describing himself has been adapted accordingly.
References
[1]Xiong Wei. Object Relations Theory in Psychoanalysis[J]. International Journal of Psychiatry, 2000, 027(004):193-198.
[2]Seay B , Hansen E , Harlow H . MOTHER-INFANT SEPARATION IN MONKEYS*[J]. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 1962, 3(3-4):123-132.
*The content of this article is for the popularization of health knowledge. It cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment recommendation, nor can it replace the face-to-face consultation of a licensed physician. It is for reference only.
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