2025-02-10 15:45
Status:
Tags: relationships
Reference
Notes:
Neil Strauss is a journalist for Rolling Stone, and author (previously) of The Game. His background is particularly striking for the impact of this book.
Summary:
In the best relationship he’s had in his life, Neil cheats. He’s overcome with the related emotions and his girlfriend finds out. Neil is genuinely worried about his ability to have a healthy relationship, he knows that many fail or are not worth living in, and even more you have the children that come of it. In an attempt to set things right, he goes to rehab.
When it doesn’t appear to have any lasting change, he follows all of his curiosity for other types of relationships “If I can’t do a monogamous relationship right, then maybe it’s not for me” Here he essentially lives out all of the fantasies he’s ever had and realizes.. none of it was worth it. The fantasy was better than reality.
Realizing the only thing that matters to him now is being with Ingrid, he goes back to therapy work with the intensity and commitment to lasting change that matters.
Final Part:
“They say love is blind, but it’s trauma that’s blind. Love sees what is.”
“I know deep down that I haven’t conquered my desire for other women—I don’t think that’s possible—but I’ve removed what was psychological: the fear of loving, the terror of being loved, the compulsion to cheat, the cowardice of lying, the weak sense of self, the pathological accommodation, and all the defense mechanisms that kept this system in place and me too blind to see it.”
“Together we are learning.. to paraphrase the relationship writer Harville Hendrix, the unconscious purpose of a long-term relationship is to finish childhood. Or, as psychiatrist Eric Berne puts it even more succinctly, “Love is nature’s psychotherapy.”
Recovery is not about living in perpetual joy and harmony, but shortening the time it takes to return there when you inevitably fuck it up. This way I can be grateful for the opportunity that every conflict I have with my partner is an opportunity to practice.
Real love is more complex than the storied love of two people who belong together but are blocked by an obstacle. In real life: People want love, but after they get it, they become scared or bored or uncertain or resentful. And when they get pain instead of love, they don’t leave. They cling to it more strongly than they would to pleasure. And so in life, the real obstacle keeping two lovers apart is not external. The battle to be fought is within.
Love is not about finding the right person. It’s about becoming the right person.
When Ingrid tells him about the keys after closing the Coffin, Neil notices an absence of his old feelings: “Suffocation from her love, doubt that I have a good heart, fear of opening our lives to each other, and anxiety about her expectations of me. Instead, every word rings like truth. Neither haunted by the past nor worried about the future, I’m finally grateful for the present.”
“It turns out that relationships don’t require sacrifices. They just require growing up—and the ability to stop clinging to immature needs that are so tenacious, they keep the mature needs from getting met.”