ABSTRACT
The presence and absence of passions are nowhere more manifest than in love relationships. We suffer injurious intimate relationships because we cannot face the loss of the “forever delusion” and the “perfection delusion”. Our wish for permanence interferes with our ability to mourn crumbling illusions of our romantic love. This continual disappointment can stalk intimate relationships even when both partners have the best of intentions. When defensive strategies are used in relationships to avoid painful emotions, we can get locked in rigid compromise solutions with their attendant frozen feelings. Attachments are very adhesive. We often remain stuck in the clay, unable to stay or leave our hurtful relationship. Grieving our losses can allow us to find the gold of self-differentiation while creating the space to see our partner as his or her own vital person. As illustrative of this theme, we introduce four clinical cases to illustrate the measures people resort to in order to maintain both their relationship stasis and their internal integrity. Those who work to morph the fantasy of the idealized other into a fully dimensional other, while creatively calibrating their contradictory desires of love and hostility, can restore frozen zones from deadness to aliveness, and work through tensions in their relationships.
