GETTING THE LOVE YOU WANT
BY HARVILLE HENDRIX
Books on relationships - getting the love you want
What You’ll Learn: Why all your relationships seem to be fucked up in the exact same way. Why you keep dating people who act like your mother/father. Why most of your fights are about stupid and silly-seeming shit that you just can’t let go of.
Why It’s Good: I read Getting the Love You Want about 10 years ago and it blew me away. We are all vaguely aware of the Freudian idea that we end up dating our mothers/fathers and are doomed to repeat our childhood traumas in our relationships as an adult. But, at the same time, that idea has always felt like some superstitious bullshit. But then you grow up and get into a serious relationship and you start noticing that your partner leaves crap all over the house just like your dad did and holy fuck does it drive you insane because it reminds you of the chaos and unpredictability of your childhood and the point I’m trying to make is THAT IF YOU FUCKING LOVED ME YOU WOULD KNOW WHERE YOU LEFT YOUR KEYS GODDAMNIT!
Enter: Harville Hendrix. Hendrix gives an actual, logical, reasonable-sounding explanation for why our relationships rub against our sorest places so much. Basically, our interactions with our parents draw our “emotional maps” of what love means, what acceptance feels like, what being a good person is, etc. These maps then filter who we’re attracted to as an adult. We experience intense chemistry with some people because they, unbeknownst to us, reflect back our definitions of love, acceptance, compassion, and so on. Next thing you know, you’re sleeping with a chick who does all the same shit your mom did.
While knowing your parents’ fucked up definitions of love doesn’t necessarily fix anything, it does give you a bit of a roadmap to help you navigate your own love life. In fact, Hendrix calls these our “emotional maps.” We’ve all got them. And we all suck reading them. So he’s here to help us.
What Kind of Break Up It Might Prevent: Repeating your parents’ divorce.