The drive for love

Why love blooms with someone but not with another is a complex process, particularly because the psyche has its own agenda. Sometimes it seems like there’s an inner drive to find the ying to our yang, the other half to make us whole, by seeking the qualities or personality aspects that we don’t have, as though together we’re better. Hence the old cliche ‘opposites attract’ when people who’re not at all like us seem more interesting and attractive. Yet sometimes those very aspects that attracted us become the things we find hard to live with, because the other person is so very different.
Or sometimes we fall for familiarity. Perhaps there’s comfort and solace in finding someone who’s more like you, or more like a parent. How many people look for mother or father figures in romantic partnerships, and then later complain that there’s no passion or fire?
Yet other times the psyche seeks to replay old scenes and heal old hurts, by finding certain people compellingly attractive – people who resemble old loves that caused enormous hurt. If you’ve learned some love lessons, it may all work out well. Maybe this time the combination will work, this time we’ll be loved back, this time love will last. Or maybe you’re just repeating an old bad pattern but expecting a different result?