This article is about love and sex between people in a relationship. The ego is alive and well in personal relationships and is affected or activated most of the time. The intent of this article is to look at how our egos come together in close emotional and physical relationships. At the end you will find exercises that will help you to be affectionate and tender.
Our egos try to help us win love and enjoy sex. Our egos try to protect us from the rejection, domination, emotional pain, and insecurities that can occur in love-sex relationships. There are many variations of ego attachments including, but not limited to, pleasure seeking, craving, persecution, possessiveness, jealousy, frustrated love, and obsessions. I’m not going to try to psychoanalyze all the ways the human ego can become obsessed with love and sex. I want you to take an honest look at your limiting patterns and beliefs about being in a close relationship with someone. By doing so, my hope is that it will increase your joy and satisfaction in life and love.
SEX
Human beings were created to be loving and sexual beings. After all, we are not like the flower that the bee needs to pollinate. Each one must overcome the truth that best guides their way of living, loving and being loved. Sometimes our egos get muddled by societal pressure to aim high. We are a bit more like the peacock trying to attract a mate with its colorful feathers. You can see from the peacock example that nature also has a little ego involved in the courtship process.
Some concepts in this article are general and may not be true from other cultural perspectives or customs. The basic generalization is that we all want or need love, companionship, and closeness. Even babies do better when held and touched. Being accepted, feeling that you belong, and having close contact with others are typical human needs. People have a desire to be accepted (loved) and our egos are affected by this. It’s beautiful when we connect with someone in a tender, sexual, and meaningful way, but it can be very painful when things don’t work out.
EGO
Here are some generalizations about the differences between male and female egos: Men are attracted to physical features. Women are attracted to indicators of success. Men are less emotionally invested when it comes to sex than women. Women can’t let go of their hearts when they make love to someone. Men need a chase (pursue and conquer) to make long-term commitments. Women are selective with their partners and enter new relationships with a long-term commitment in mind.
These concepts have been linked to the beginning of the homo-sapien species when males likely selected mates based on their physical ability to bear children and females selected mates based on their strength and ability to provide food and shelter. . What are some other differences between men and women that you know of? What evidence do you see that these concepts may be changing with the new times and the new generations?
TO LOVE
The way we were indoctrinated in love as young children is very important to the way we function as adults. Early love is conditioned by the way we were cared for. Did we have adequate food, shelter, and clothing? Did we have environments conducive to growth, play and natural development? Did we receive appropriate contact and physical comfort when we needed it? We were loved, cared for, protected and treated with respect from a young age? Or was our innocence damaged by unhealthy or unaware caregivers? Have we had the opportunity to discover our innate tendencies to share love or have we been caught in a web of misunderstandings and inappropriate teachings by the harmful acts (conscious or unconscious) of the adults around us?
In his book The 5 Love Languages, author Gary Chapman helps us see how we learn to receive and give love. He teaches the various ways that people communicate their love for others and the ways that they feel loved by others. He draws from the early childhood conditioning mentioned above. Gary doesn’t venture into dysfunctional love languages, but he suspects there are several as well.
Here’s a quick checklist to see if your ego is attached (and perhaps distorted) in the areas of love and sex.
Do you feel more worthy of love and sex when your body is fit and attractive and less worthy if you are not in shape?
Do you suppress your attraction to others when you think they are out of your league or beneath you?
Do you base your love on the income, social status, or assets of a partner or potential partner?
Do you search (consciously or unconsciously) for someone who is similar to one or both of your parents?
Do you seek approval and validation from a loved one and get angry if you don’t get it?
Are you looking for someone perfect?
Do you long for a lover who is not available to you and reject the one who is available?
Do you lock yourself in relationships where there is a game of “I love you, I love you not”?
Do you select the people who hurt you?
Do you select people based on how they make you feel about yourself (boost your ego)?
Are you capable of being in a relationship with someone who is different from you?
Are you able to set healthy boundaries with the person you love (ie, mutual respect and consideration, boundaries of time, money, and space, personal rights and preferences)?
Are you too jealous?
Are you afraid of being abandoned?
Do you keep your feelings and opinions to yourself for fear of causing friction and/or being rejected?
Do you keep your distance and keep your heart protected to avoid pain (not allow yourself to fall head over heels in love)?
If you identify with three or more of these patterns, you may need to do some ego transformation work. The most important thing to remember is this: there are no right or wrong ways to search for love. However, the ego’s defense mechanisms can continually block your chances of finding happiness by trying to avoid pain. The way you search for joy and fulfillment can be healthy or painful and even destructive. In the long run, you either get what you want or you don’t. Hopefully, your attempts at love will lead to a deep and sustainable love, if that’s what you want.
Here are some exercises to help you move to a more pleasant place in the areas of love and sex if you’re not experiencing the quality of life you want:
1) Make a list of your first memories when you felt loved. For each memory, what was happening at the time? What was it that made you feel loved?
2) Identify the decisions you made and the strategies you developed to reproduce the feelings of being loved.
3) Make a list of your first experiences in which you felt rejected, confused and/or hurt by someone you loved.
4) Identify the decisions you made and the strategies you developed to avoid the pain associated with love.
5) Think about what you can do to get detached from your early decisions and strategies, if they aren’t working so well.
6) Make new decisions and strategies to be honest, present and available for healthy love and sex.
7) Give them a try and see how successful you are at attracting someone, how you feel about that person, how much you enjoy yourself, and how sustainable your relationship becomes.
8) Above all, let your heart be tender, vulnerable and open. You may need to transform your ego to experience this state.