False Forms of Love: Shadow Side Attachments
To explain all this let’s look at one of Dr. Carl Jung’s postulates. He was the most famous pupil of Dr. Sigmund Freud and he put forth the concept of the shadow side personality. According to Jung’s thinking our shadow side can be that part of our personality which is the opposite of our more socially acceptable self and our more usual, overt way of presenting our self. The shadow side self can yearn to break free from having to be ‘good’, proper, constrained, and ‘fitting in’. In the depths of many people the shadow side secretly desires not to live up to anyone else’s expectations, not to conform to standards or live by society’s rules. The shadow side is repressed but it wishes to break free of that repression, to go wild, to try everything forbidden and to live a ‘who cares what anybody thinks or says’ existence. The freedom to have low standards of conduct, run on impulse and not have to repress or suppress the usually unacceptable can be powerfully attractive. Sometimes the shadow side self breaks out and takes over.
The conformist, repressed, good girl meets someone who represents all her repressed desires and characteristics, and it is ‘fascination at first sight’. The ‘live by the rules’, always a nice guy meets someone who helps him bring out his selfish, lust driven, secretly barbarian inner self, and off he goes to a life of wild abandon. Miss (seemingly) ‘prim and proper’ can only indulge her masochistic side after finding just the right dominating and sufficiently sadistic lover. Mr. ‘Upstanding Citizen’ can only let out his ‘down and dirty’, hidden self after he hooks up with a blatantly naughty and nasty femme fatale.
Sometimes things work the other way around. The ‘outlaw’ rebel becomes intensely attracted to the ‘good to everybody’ nurse. The outcast, loner prostitute falls for the popular and proper priest. The ‘bad boy’ converts himself into acting good so he can be with the ‘good girl’. These examples and similar others happen less often but they do happen. Which ever way it emerges a shadow side attraction offers a reversal of the usual, and an overt exploration of what was previously covert and perhaps even was entirely out of conscious awareness.
When we get involved in a shadow side romance we give our self the chance to travel into our own unexplored regions. Shadow side, false love really may be about learning to discover, to know and to love the rest of one’s self. By way of the intimacies of romance and lust we can tap into our own worst, weirdest and sometimes most wonderful traits, tendencies and talents. Shadow side, false love attachments are frequently filled with uninhibited actions, some of which are great fun, and occasionally quite creative, as well as frequently awful. They also often are filled with episodes of spontaneous, emotional combustion and near total abandonment of restraints. Therefore, shadow side lovers feel more free to explore and experiment with many more ways of being themselves than is true for the usual common and correct couple. Shadow side, false love is frequently exciting, adventurous and sometimes quite dangerous.
Sometimes a person feels drawn to a shadow side lover only to spend a brief time ‘visiting’ in that dark and difficult world. Then they return to their regular life, often more worldly-wise, stronger and more mature. At other times a person is caught up in shadow side, false love and takes up life-long residence in a sort of slavery to the opposite of what they knew or how they behaved before. When that happens they usually seem to go from one shadow side lover to the next in an endless string.
The best outcomes usually occur when a person synthesizes their two opposing sides and creates an integration of both, keeping the best and jettisoning the rest. Then they find a lover or spouse compatible with their new, integrated self. The results of this kind of synthesis and integration sometimes are spectacular. Of particular help in achieving integrated synthesis is a form of psychotherapy popular in Europe and South America called Psychosynthesis. It uses specialized techniques for bringing opposing parts of the self into healthy integration and it works well with Dr. Carl Jung’s conceptualizations and form of psychotherapy.
Once in a while shadow side, false love gives rise to healthy, real, lasting love with a shadow side lover but most think this is extremely rare. More often shadow side, false love can be a prerequisite to a later lover who is more compatible for growing a new lasting love.
One appeal of shadow side romance has to do with relaxing inhibitions. Tiffany said, “It was always easier to go naked and do crazy things when I was around Smittey because he was scum. I could act like a crazy b!tc# around him because I knew he was worse than me and if I lost him, so what. If he stayed around I could abuse him as much as I wanted. It was great! Then I got tired of all that, and went into therapy and learned to love myself. Then I had to find somebody really fine because I learned I was worthy of real love. I’m not so carefree as I was, but my life is way better now.”
“I can’t understand why my wife picked such a loser to have an affair with” or, “My husband’s choice in lovers is so low class. I just don’t get what he sees in those women” and “It’s so embarrassing to discover my lover wants those trashy freaks more often than he wants me.” The people who say these sort of things don’t understand that dealing with difference and deviance, without having to live up to higher standards, is the attraction. The wayward mate can find out what their bad side is and get, if not real love, acceptance and participation. Living up to higher standards is not required and that is such a freedom for many, especially heavily repressed individuals.
The shadow side dynamic is a false love because it is not lasting and it does not provide several of the major functions of healthy, real love. Nurturing love, protective love and healing love usually are not much a part of shadow side love involvements and, therefore, shadow side attempts at love usually come to an end with a fair amount of agony. The good news is that quite often the agony is not very long lasting because the love was false.
One of the benefits of exploring your own shadow side (often with the help of a knowledgeable, love-oriented therapist) is you may come to acknowledge and integrate deep parts of yourself and consequently may be able to avoid the entanglements and problems that can come from having a shadow side, false love experience with another.
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