Your Disappointing Love Life Can Make You Sick
As a clinical psychologist and psychological disability consultant in New York City over the past 36 years, I’ve learned that a disappointing love life is often the unacknowledged source of emotional illness and stress-related physical illness, resulting in diminished job performance and recurrent episodes of short-term disability.
What is a disappointing love life? A love life, starting from the beginning of life, controlled by repeating love relationship disappointments, replicated unhealthy past relationship experiences, and defensiveness for the purpose of coping with and preventing additional disappointments and the hurt they create. All of these unhealthy love life experiences are recreated with what we’ve unconsciously learned about love relationships earlier in our lives.
There are several possible forms of the disappointing love life. One common form is repeating breakups, married or unmarried. The problem here is difficulty sustaining a healthy love relationship. The same unconsciously learned love life mistakes are recreated over and over again leading to a series of failed love relationships.
Another common form of the disappointing love life is chronic love relationship conflict. In this instance, relationship stresses are recreated over and over again resulting in unresolved relationship conflict. It’s common for recurrent arguments and fighting to alternate with periods of cold distancing and minimal or no communication in a conflicted love relationship.
Lastly, there is the disappointing love life that is marked by chronic loneliness. The problem here is an inability to form a healthy love relationship. In most instances of this particular disappointing love life, the individual was exposed to some form of relationship trauma earlier in life that resulted in a lifestyle of detachment, avoidance, and aloneness. Resignation and the avoidance of love after a series of hurtful love life disappointments can also lead to the same chronic loneliness.
As a psychological disability consultant, I interviewed scores of corporate and institutional employees and managers who presented with psychological signs and symptoms of emotional and/or psychosomatic illness resulting in diminshed job performance and/or episodes of short-term psychological disability. Depressive illness being the most common. All three types of the disappointing love life can result in a depressive reaction characterized by depressive moods, social disengagement, sleep disturbances, and cognitive impairments of concentration, focus, and other executive functions that temporarily limit the ability to work. A common underlying psychodynamic when repeating breakups and chronic loneliness are involved, is the conversion of unresolved grief into depressive illness.
Anxiety and panic disorders are also common when chronic love life disappointments are present. Ungratified needs for love and interpersonal intimacy can become a source of fear and instability. The interpersonal source of this anxiety is often obscured by the generalization of fear to other sources. Over the course of psychotherapy, the true cause of anxiety and panic disorders in the disappointing love life will inevitably surface to consciousness and expression.
Somatic disorders are another common expression of psychopathology in the area of an individual’s love life. Minimal psychological-mindedness coupled with unhealthy unconscious learning about love relationships can result in the formation of somatic symptoms as a consequence of chronic love life disappointment. Unconscious needs for love and care are always involved in this conversion from emotional to physical illness. Converting psychosomatic illness back to love life disappointments is an important effort over time and development in treatment.
I created the Love Life Seminar and Love Life Consultation as two ways of introducing people to the importance of working on their Psychological Love Lives, the portion of the mind that controls love life experiences through what was learned about love relationships in life. When we have unconsciously learned something unhealthy about love relationships, we can unlearn it by identifying what we’ve learned, challenging what is unhealthy, and practicing a correction through new and healthier learning.
In summary, we might recall Freud’s statement that “love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” He rightfully believed that the capacity to love as the ability to form deep, meaningful relationships, and the ability to work, as the ability to engage in productive, purposeful activity, are the primary pillars for human fulfillment, mental health, and emotional well-being.
Dr. Thomas Jordan is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, psychological disability consultant, speaker, and author of the award-winning book, Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life. Love Life Seminars and telehealth Love Life Consultations available upon request. Contact Dr. Jordan directly at drtomjordan@lovelifelearningcenter.com or (212)-875-0154.
