According to legend, Oedipus was abandoned by his parents because of the prophecy of his birth was that when…
growing up he would kill his father and marry his mother. When Oedipus came of age, he left his foster family. On his way he met an elderly man and killed him, ignoring that it was his father ( Laios ). He later married unbeknownst to him, his mother ( Jocasta). When he found out what he had done, he caused his own blindness.
Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was based on this myth and introduced the oedipus complex as a key factor in the development of a child and on later adult relationships.
The oedipal complex begins at the age of 2 years, where the child tries to claim but also to find the position in the triangle, father – mother – child. The child in this stage is faced for the first time in his life with Ï€Ïοσεξουαλικά instincts. In particular, the boy begins to claim sexually assaulted the mother and she feels competition to the father. The reverse happens with the girl.
In order to resolve the oedipus complex, the boy will have to identify with the father and to stop seeing the mother as a sexual object. The same will happen with the girl, respectively. More specifically, the boy will experience the anxiety of castration and the girl’s envy of the penis, through physiological processes. The sign, which indicates that the cluster has been successfully resolved is the feeling of shame that the children feel is indicated through behaviours such as, shame around nudity, they don’t want to see it without clothes etc.
During this stage, the child acquires identity and assimilates characteristics mainly from the parent of the same sex. At the same time shaping his sexual preferences, looking for the candidate companion features the same usually with the parent of the opposite sex. Here, you will ask yourself why for instance, men who have a mother, erm, traditional housewife, the ones looking for tall, skinny, fashionable women.
These procedures do not pertain to the absolute and work subconsciously. The only sure thing is that we choose partners where they remind us of something familiar. This home is our family and the relationships of our parents.
The experiences of our childhood we can say it is like a tattoo engraved on your soul and I will forever carry with us, even in our relationships. If, for example, the relationship with the father was characterized by emotional removal, then it’s likely that the companion that we choose to be distant and hurting us. The same with the mother. If our relationship with her was emotionally healthy, then we are able to recognize the real love and good relationship and to stay or to go, if something we don’t like.
There are many cases where some people, while they had a father-distant, violent, alcoholic, etc.e. to avoid to make relationship with people who look like their father and end up being with a partner who may not have the same characteristics with the father but has a similar. In other words , the person experiences the same feelings which had experienced and the relationship with the father ( insecurity, anxiety, frustration).
At the other extreme, if there was a good and stable relationship with the father, the person would be in a position to know almost immediately if his partner can to make him happy. So wouldn’t tolerate the emotional insecurity, fear and anxiety.
Many times even our relationship with one parent can be so traumatic that dislike entirely by people who look even a little bit in this parent. If, that is, the our father was too nervous and ξεσπαγε over us, we will choose a partner very calm. Even though now I’ll be happy. This is because we are essentially the oedipal in reverse. Our choice is driven by the opposite characteristics of the parent that has hurt you.
Our need to find a parent who is opposed to the father, essentially blocking us from seeing clearly our own real needs. What we want from a partner.
So we are doomed to choose mates similar to our parents? To repeat always the same story and the same feelings? Whether our choice is determined by family dysfunctional or non-standard , or by a full discharge, our perception of the relationship is stuck there.
The opportunities for us to live something different from what we already live is quite limited. Usually we choose partners relevant to us because we fear the unknown or seems strange or awkward. But if there in the unknown, hiding all the happiness?
Speaking of examples, a lady having a father indifferent, and alcoholic, and she had 4 failed relationships with men similar to her father. These men were not alcoholics but it was critical, lazy and made to feel uncertainty and grief ( like you used felt for the father). The fifth relationship was with a gentleman very different from the previous and from the model, her father. As expected he felt nervous next to him because he felt very good and safe, something he’d never felt with anyone before.
We can if we want to have absolute freedom in our relationships only if you acknowledge the positives, dysfunctional family patterns and connections that we do now. As with all the big issues of the human psyche, it is inconceivable to understand and treat our adult self without to look into our children’s world.
Finally, can the experiences of our childhood to be the palette on which you paint the subsequent love our options but we can choose. It can define us and affect us greatly but if we learn and get to know it well ourselves, we can escape from this and to live something truly beautiful.
Source
Oedipus Complex: How it affects our relationships?
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