Breaking Free from Hopeful Illusion: The April Fool’s Edition
In the comic strip “Peanuts” the character Lucy is a bully, and perhaps her most famous mean trick is the football swipe: She tells Charlie Brown that she’ll hold the football for him, then swipes it away at the last minute and he falls. I hated this story line as a child. I got frustrated with Charlie Brown for falling for the same trick over and over. The first couple of times, I felt sorry for Charlie Brown, but I lost patience with him after that. I could not understand why he kept letting Lucy hold the ball for him.
Charlie Brown probably wanted to believe that Lucy could change. Maybe he couldn’t accept the idea that she truly got a kick out of humiliating him. Every time she promised that this time she wouldn’t pull the ball away, he wanted to believe it was true and every time he fell for it. He was stuck in a pattern of unhealthy optimism. Lucy was consistently Lucy, and if Charlie Brown could only have accepted that fact, he could have moved on and trusted someone else to hold the ball for him, leaving Lucy behind to trick and torture some other naive person.
Most of us have had a “Lucy” moment at some point in our lives. Mine was in my twenties when I dated a man who was unable to be there for me in the way I wanted him to be. There were many breakups and reconciliations, and my friends could not understand why I kept going back to this person, over and over again. Like Charlie Brown, I did not want to accept the fact that this man was not who I wished he was. Like Charlie Brown, I believed that he would change and then I’d feel betrayed when he didn’t. One such time, I complained to a friend about some horrible something he had done, hoping for sympathy, hoping she’d join me in demonizing him. Instead of sympathizing or demonizing, she patiently pointed out that he was consistently being himself, and she asked me why I stayed with him when I clearly wanted something he could not give me.
This response shocked me awake. Until that moment, my obsession with his inability to be there for me distracted me from being there for myself. I was addicted to the hope that he would change, much like a gambler is addicted to the hope that the gamble will bring the big win, much like Charlie Brown was addicted to the hope that this time, Lucy would be kind. The only way to break this sort of addiction is to face the painful but freeing truth. I finally faced the truth of my situation: I was with someone who, though attractive and sweet and even well-meaning, was never going to be with me in the way I wanted him to be. Once I accepted this truth, everything became clear and it felt like a spell had been broken. There was not even a smidgeon of temptation to stay and try make the relationship work, because once I saw the truth, I also saw that there wasn’t actually a relationship to begin with, just hope and illusion keeping me stuck. Letting go of illusion freed me to move forward into the reality of truth and I haven’t gotten stuck since.
If you are having a “Lucy” moment, it might be time to stop and take a look at your life. Do you invest your energy in something that consistently gives you the same unhappy result? What result are you are hoping for? Is what you are currently doing going to bring that result? If not, it is time to accept the truth of the situation. Prepare to have your world rocked.
You may also be interested in:
When You Love Someone Who Treats You Badly
Do You Really Have to Love Yourself to Be Loved by Someone Else
9 comments
Permalink1
I needed to read out loud. Especially the first part; I feel alone in this. No understanding.
My friends clearly told me not to talk about him anymore, nothing changes. It’s true.
I am stuck in hope. I need to Free myself. Believe truly that I deserve more and can achive it. Why not? I am so lonely now…without him would not change.
But I would have at least the opportunity to better myself.
Thank you.
Permalink2
You are not alone, Louiselle, but it sounds like what your friends might be saying is that they don’t feel equipped to help you with this frustrating problem. They are watching you in an unhappy pattern and they don’t know how to help you find your way out. But you do need someone to talk to about it, because it is clear that you could use help here. This is an excellent reason to seek out a therapist, who can help you find out just how to move through all of this. Therapy is a place where you can talk as much as you need to about the troubles you are having in your relationship. Your friends can help you with a different part of this- they can help you to bring focus back to yourself when you are tempted to shift your focus to your partner. Rather than trying *not* to talk about your partner, refocus on talking about yourself, your life, your friends, their lives, the things you have in common together, anything else that could start building your own hope in yourself.
Permalink3
On paper my relationship is pretty great. My boyfriend showers me with love and affection but I cannot enjoy it because I constantly think about needing space and wanting to leave him. But I’m scared. I rationalize that means I’m not ready to leave yet, but internally it feels like a massive struggle that causes me to be self-destructive and depressed. We fell in love extremely quickly and moved in together right away, and I wonder, after reading your post, if it was hope and illusion masked as love that drew us together, and/or illusion that is keeping me here undecided… How do you walk away when your partner is madly in love with you? How do I make that first, heart-wrenching move?
Permalink4
Its so hard to leave a relationship when you have invested so much into it. I have been in a relationship for 2 years and nothing has changed. I am with a man who is emotionally immature and that does not want the same future that I want. He does not want kids, he does not want a home, he does not want the emotional connectivity. He thinks that because he showers me with gifts, a lavish lifestyle I am supposed to be content. But I am not I want all the things he does not want. He thinks that we should have fun and live life and have no emotional connectivity and I don’t know if that is possible for me. I have gone 2 years trying to accept this reality and trying to change my wants for what? for money for financial security? what’s harder is that I am a therapist and I know that what I have done is wrong to stay in this so long I made excuses for his behaviors and excused his lack of emotion. But im tired its a constant struggle and its killing me inside to not get my needs met. We live together and I just want to pull that band aid off! he wont leave because he says I meet all his needs but he knows that he does not meet mine.
Permalink5
Sage:
I have beem stuck in just tre same situation for a kong time. I have been with my boyfriend, for three years. Its been on and off for so mang times i cant remember. I leve, and og back. He loves me more than words can say, he holda me, and every day tells me that he loves me, that om his girl, how is my girl today…..
Suddenly i realized that im not smiling anymore, im depressed, and he tells me to ost out my problems, to fond joy again. Every time i have to change. I realized i dont have it good with him, but im scared to be alone. I wanted a family with him, but it wont happend. I also got so much pain in my schulder, i had to sickleave my job now for a period. I gold him yesterday it is over, and i will not og back.
I cant do this anymore to him or me. I love him, im very attracted to him, but atter a month og two, it become complicated.
Sage: do What makes You happy, and start to focus in that direction
Permalink6
Ever think that maybe it’s not your place to change people? You obviously fell in love with the person for a specific reason or you so you say you are “in love” with that person but in all actuality you are just obsessed with a thought of what you want and that person fits an image but lacks exactly what you want and need! I think in all actuality it sucks big time for the person that you are having those unattainable images of because that person will never be able to please you in the way you want and will constantly do wrong in your eyes! What I say is move the hell on or at least try to but for that poor persons sake stop contacting them and let them find the person that they can please emotionally and physically!
Permalink7
I have feelings for a guy he too have it and also expresses it but whenever I tell him to get serious he ignore it and change the topic by simply saying that, “I love you but relationships are temporary ,everyone ends up with a break up and i never want to loose you “.I find this reason irrelevant and I’m stuck in between I can’t leave him I am not getting loved the way I want, every time he avoids me whenever I talk about it. What should I do ?
Permalink8
What do you do when you understand everything you wrote. Acknowledge the truthfulness of what you wrote in my life. See the man for who he is and not who he allowed me to think he was. Understand that no matter what he will never be capable of giving me what I need for a real partnership. commitment, or love.
And yet, I can not experience the cathartic moment you had, and shut the man out of my hear and mind?
What do I do when the need for the dream is so powerful that I cannot seem to loosen my grip on it to save myself?
Permalink9
Kathy- It sounds like the understanding is there, you logically understand that you are not going to get what you need from this person, but you can’t find out how to break away. Shutting something this powerful out of your mind really doesn’t work, because you do not have something else to hold on to. Instead of trying to shut him out, start to build something else until the need this person fills for you has been met in a better way. You do not have to do it alone, either. You might find this post about learning to love yourself helpful: http://elyntromey.com/therapyblog/?p=1179