A 36-year-old man, struggling to form close relationships, how to fall in love with someone?

Hello!

After reading your account, I can sense your inner anxiety and helplessness. You might not even understand why this is the case. From a psychoanalytic perspective, people are controlled by the subconscious, which is the unrecognized part of human mental activity. This means that you've already experienced this event, but you didn't recognize the process of mental activity at the time.

Then, take a look at the question from the perspective of Erik Erikson's eight-stage theory of life. Hopefully, this will give the questioner some food for thought.

Erikson said that between the ages of 18 and 40, people need to experience the conflict between intimacy and loneliness. Only people with a strong sense of self-identity—that is, people who have completed their self-identity in adolescence—are willing to get close to others. When you get close to someone, it's like fusing your identity with theirs. You can only have a close relationship when the two people's identities are truly fused.

So, what is self-identity?

Self-identity is about bringing together all the different parts of you—your many personalities—into one stable personality. It's also about understanding who you are, what kind of person you want to become, how you can better adapt to society, and what your ideals are.

The process of establishing your identity usually means that you have a good understanding of yourself and can combine your past, present, and future into a coherent whole, which helps you to develop your own values, beliefs, and outlook on the future.

The period between the ages of 20 and 30 is an important stage in developing a sense of intimacy with others. If this stage isn't handled well, the individual may experience a profound sense of loneliness and confusion, and in severe cases, excessive anxiety and depression.

So if you find you can't be intimate with others, it might be because of something that happened to you when you were a child.

A person's emotions start in their primary family. How a person is raised, loved, and cared for in their primary family affects their intimate relationships as adults. How satisfied a person is in their infancy determines the type of emotions they have as adults.

There are four types of emotional styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and chaotic (anxious-avoidant).

I think most people are more familiar with the first three types. Here, I'll focus on the chaotic type. This type of person is afraid of getting into intimate relationships, afraid of making commitments, and completely distrusts others. Despite their deep desire for love and intimacy, they always drive away those who try to get close to them.

Psychologists have found that these people have such contradictory emotional patterns because they experienced abuse, sexual abuse, severe neglect, and double negation in their childhood. These experiences caused a contradictory psychological state.

No matter what, past experiences have become facts. It might be a good idea to find a professional to work with, to carefully review and analyze the harm or impact of early experiences on yourself, and identify the problem or crux from this, in order to break this spell of being unable to experience intimate relationships with others.

Wishing you the best!

Hello, I'll do my best to answer this question.

It seems like you're already starting to think about your feelings in a more conscious and analytical way when you're forming relationships. This is a great place to start making changes. I can see some fear, powerlessness, and confusion in your feelings, but I can also see a lot of desire, expectation, and motivation to explore. Let's take a closer look at what we can understand from these feelings:

1- Intimacy as an interpersonal dynamic model is closely related to the interaction model between our original family and parents. I don't know if your parents are not good at socializing, but can you tell me what kind of pattern they showed in their interactions with you?

What are your thoughts on this model? From what you said, it seems like you haven't moved out yet, and you're still very attached to your parents. This could be a conflict between the separation-dependence model. We should think about whether this attachment has affected your ability to form close relationships with others.

If you form this kind of close relationship, how will it affect your attachment? We can look at this in the context of our family of origin.

2-It seems that adult relationships are also about commitment, or a sense of responsibility. I can see that you have a lot of fears in this area. When we feel pressure and entanglement, it's because we're afraid. Maybe we can do some reminiscing. At each stage of your life, what choices and sense of responsibility did you make?

Or maybe a parent or someone else can help you take responsibility? If you need to develop a sense of responsibility, what do you think is the smallest step you can take right now?

The topic of virginity may be about deeper subconscious sexual desires and sexual shame. It seems that the discussion of this topic has to do with the development of sexual function and sexual awareness during adolescence, as well as the process of forming sexual feelings in intimate relationships. If you're interested in professional counseling, it could be helpful for you.

I hope things keep getting better for you, little by little.

What is the sensation of liking someone? It is akin to singing "Love Me" and receiving a response of "Answer Me." My affection for you is not constrained by time differences. It is a profound and romantic sentiment.

It appears that there are only two individuals in the world who are so compatible, who understand and appreciate each other. You are now over the age of 30, and you lack the ability to like other people. Perhaps there have been too many potential traumas and avoidances in your past experiences.

If an individual has had unfavorable experiences with a romantic partner or a family member who was overly avoidant, it can be challenging for them to develop and maintain healthy relationships. Some of your own characteristics, such as avoiding responsibility, may have been influenced by these experiences.

This kind of avoidance may also be an element imprinted in your character. If a person has an element of avoidance, they are likely to be prone to this situation. You have also exhibited positive and afraid behaviors. The bitterness is really hard to describe in words. There are "blind date corners" in the parks of Shanghai, Wuhan, and Beijing.

The park is a popular venue for older young men and women seeking potential partners, or for their parents arranging blind dates. The atmosphere is vibrant. Many individuals still adhere to the traditional expectation of marrying and starting a family by the age of 30 or 35.

You have previously formed an affinity for another individual, but for reasons you are unsure of, you have since ceased this connection. There may be external factors at play, but if you can identify and address these, you may be able to establish a genuine and enduring bond.

Furthermore, you may discover that your parents are not particularly adept at socializing, which may have contributed to your own struggles in this area. You may still rely on your parents' family to some extent, which could be indicative of an inferiority complex. I advise you to take the Inner Animal Archetypes psychological test to gain insight into your inner character flaws, understand your concerns, and leverage the positive aspects of your relationships.

Please advise.