Entering ChinaAfter doing a lot of consulting, I often have a feeling that the farthest distance in the world is not from the mountains to the bottom of the sea, but from the hearts of people to the hearts of people.
It’s not that people are unpredictable, but that the difference in the level of mental development can make couples who have shared the same bed for many years feel like living in two worlds.
is like Li Xingliang and Mai Lin in “Goodbye Lover”, they have lived together for more than ten years, and they can’t be more familiar, but you will find that many times they can’t communicate – I can’t understand what you say, and you don’t understand what I say.
They are all trying to express themselves, and they are all trying to be sincere, but unfortunately, they often talk to chickens and ducks, and they are indistinguishable and full of contradictions.
What is causing this gap?
It’s a mismatch of mental level.
The mental level is a person’s mental age, which has nothing to do with biological age.
Some people are already dying, and their mental maturity is still a two-year-old child, who always lives in their own world, mainly dealing with the outside world in the way of projection, and cannot see the real people and things.
The mental level and what we often call cognitive level and emotional intelligence all intersect, but they are not exactly the same.
It is associated with a person being well nurtured early in life, being actively watched, accepted, mirrored, and forming a secure attachment relationship.
Such a person will have a relatively high level of mentalization.
A person with a relatively high level of mental maturity is an adult in the true sense of the word. He has a certain ability to reflect and be able to empathize with others.
Compared with Mai Lin, Li Xingliang’s mental maturity is obviously higher.
In the 36 questions, he was able to jump out of the entanglement of two people from time to time and observe what was happening between two people from a higher dimension. He will ask: Is my state making you uncomfortable? You okay? Shall we continue to talk like this?
And Mai Lin, who has basically been wrapped in emotions with ups and downs, lacks the ability to jump out and observe reflexively.
Secondly, people with a relatively high level of mental maturity will see problems more integrated and will not be paranoid.
Just like Li Xingliang said to Mai Lin: I love you very much, you are indispensable in my heart, but this does not mean that you are a perfect partner.
This is the truth, but Mai Lin can’t accept it.
In her concept, good is good, bad is bad, it is easy to slip from one extreme to another, and it is difficult to have an intermediate state of integration.
Therefore, when she eats the first bite of the Qingtuan is not the stuffing she wants, she will deny Li Xingliang’s whole behavior of buying the Youth League for her, and feel that he has not done what she wants.
This paranoid mode of thinking can easily lead to quarrels and destroy relationships.
In addition, a person with a high degree of mental maturity has a strong subjectivity and the ability to give in marriage.
And the mentally immature person, although his biological age is already an adult, but his mental age is still a child, and he longs for someone who can satisfy his inner deprivation.
He will keep asking for it – in all kinds of ways, such as please, giving, making trouble, controlling, blaming.
When he is looking for a partner, he is actually looking for someone who can meet his needs – you have to give me stability, you have to give me tolerance, you have to give me recognition, you have to love me unconditionally.
In such a state of mind, he can’t see the other person as an independent, complete, real person – it’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s that he doesn’t have the consciousness at all.
He will instrumentalize the other person, a tool to meet his own needs.
This does not mean that he is malicious, but that he himself has been instrumentalized in his upbringing, and he himself does not know what it is like to be treated as an independent subject.
In his experience, relationships are instrumentalized – instrumentalized. Either I give, please, and am willing to be instrumentalized in order to be recognized by the other party and find a sense of worth.
At the same time, he also asks the other party to meet his own needs, I give so much, I am so good to you, you also have to repay me what I want.
He is not willing to give because he “has”, but uses “giving” as a way to control and curry.
His “giving” is repressed, aggrieved and angry.
In his inner world, there is only one pattern of relationships. Just like a fish, it only knows that it lives in the water, and all its skills are developed around living in the water. It didn’t know it could live on land – it didn’t have that experience.
In the relationship between Li Xingliang and Mai Lin, this can be seen to some extent.
Mai Lin has been asking Li Xingliang for emotional value, comfort, recognition, and understanding, but she can’t tell what she wants.
It’s like a little baby, there is a lot of omnipotent narcissism – as soon as you cry, the world knows what you want, you have milk to eat, and uncomfortable diapers are changed.
I don’t say that the world can guess its own mind and fulfill my wishes.
This is almighty narcissism.
In Merlene, it’s a bit of a thing: I don’t say it, or I can’t say it, and I don’t know what I want, but you have to know that you have to give it to my heart.
Of course, in the last 36 questions, Mai Lin has made significant progress.
She told Li Xingliang what you can say when she is sad to comfort herself.
It’s a more mature approach – I first take responsibility for my feelings and needs, figure out what I want, and then tell you clearly so that you can give it to me.
If one of the couples has a high level of mental maturity and the other is low, the one with the higher level needs to be backward compatible.
He will feel that the reason is not clear, the other party can’t listen to it at all, there is no way, he can only coax, perfunctory: Okay, good, it’s me who is wrong, I shouldn’t be like this.
Just like Li Xingliang, when encountering contradictions, he habitually coaxes, just hoping that the other party’s emotions will pass quickly and everything will return to calm.
But who will coax whom for the rest of his life? After a long time, you will get tired of it, and you will not want to say anything against your will anymore, so you will become numb and choose to turn a blind eye, or escape outside.
Therefore, the party with a high degree of mental maturity is often lonely in his heart, because the other party cannot see the real self, cannot communicate with the heart, and has no way to sympathize with each other.
And the party with low maturity is actually not happy.
Because he feels that the other party doesn’t really understand him, he just perfunctory himself – he didn’t get what he really wanted, and he also had a lot of grievances and anger.
How is it possible to get it?
You ask for your partner all the time, longing for him to tolerate you unconditionally, and in the final analysis, it is an unfulfilled baby’s desire for full maternal love.
However, you are now an adult, and your needs are many times greater than those of a baby, and your destructive power is many times greater.
The other party is also an ordinary person, with his own limitations and wounds, he can’t carry you more, and he can’t give you unconditional love all the time.
There is one more case.
If the mind is not mature enough, and both of them are children, it will be even more noisy.
And children have no ability to reflect, they can’t realize what happened between two people, they can’t realize their own child mentality, victim mentality, and they will only blame the other party for not giving them what they want.
So a little thing can lead to a quarrel, which will be dark and scarred by each other.
The two people thought it was a personality disagreement, but the root cause may be here.
If the mental level is mismatched and immature, is this marriage unsolvable?
Not really.
It depends on what the two people want in marriage.
Just like Li Xingliang, he attaches more importance to the companionship and care of his partner in marriage, and he hopes that his partner can devote 50% of his energy to paying attention to himself. And Merlene can do just that.
The salted fish is thirsty, and he may have to endure the loneliness of the spiritual world in marriage, and endure the limitations of Merin.
It’s also a balance.
Another possibility is self-growth.
When you realize that you are still a baby, willing to go through the pain of transformation, to make your own subjectivity strong, and to take responsibility for yourself, then new possibilities are created for marriage.
Or, healing may occur when the more mature partner in the marriage is willing to be more accommodating and sees the less mature partner.
Just like Li Xingliang and Mai Lin, after 36 questions, Li Xingliang handed Mai Lin a short note. He told Merlene: You don’t have to do a little more, you’re good enough right now. I will never leave you.
You will see that Mai Lin repeatedly took out this letter and read it, on the road, at night, and in the car. Apparently, she was deeply touched.
It’s a kind of healing.
During the 18-day journey, Mai Lin also reflected and grown, and she finally had the ability and willingness to jump out of the relationship to examine the relationship, and to see Li Xingliang and give it to each other with a subjective attitude.
At the end of the show, she expressed these sincerely in her letter to Li Xingliang. This is a huge self-transcendence for her.
Therefore, we all pay attention to the right person in marriage, because it will increase the likelihood of a happy marriage.
But people tend to overlook the mental level of the right people – and many people may not be aware of this for the rest of their lives.
Yes, if you lack the perspective of mental development, it will be difficult for you to really see him clearly, and it will be difficult to see yourself.
Both of them were in ignorance, noisy and stumbling. You will comfort yourself: isn’t life like this, just make do with it.
Perhaps, when you see this, your world will be a little different.
