Negative Passion By Dr. Pete Padilla
The feeling that passion brings to a relationship is awesome! There's no better feeling in the world. Passion is one of the most powerful and most addicting substances a person can experience. But there is a catch to willingly partaking of this “drug.” Passion has a downside; a dark side. The odds are that the longer you stay together, the more likely a
relationship will get
"routine." Why is it so hard to keep passion alive in a long-term relationship? What do we do to try and keep passion alive in our relationships?
Relationships
tend to start out strong, and then
these days they seem to fizzle out
just as fast as they ignite.Not all
do this of course, but many do just that: fizzle. But because passion tends to go missing, couples find different ways to replace such a grand feeling. The rub, however, is that they tend to replace one type of passion with another type of passion. They resort to replacing positive passion with negative passion. This phenomenon fits with the old adage that negative attention is better than no attention
at all. But what type of positive relationship can be built on
negativity?
The reason that
negative passion has taken the
place of positive passion is similar
to a drug addict “chasing a high.”
The initial rush experienced when
a relationship is new and still exciting
is a feeling that normally dissipates
as a relationship settles into a
routine. So how do people keep the adrenaline flowing? They act in ways that keep passion in the relationship. However passion is an absolute value. Passion can be both negative and positive. Passion is passion nonetheless. So couples often engage in games that keep their relationships exciting. Only the excitement in these cases may not be such a good thing.
The first type of game based in negative passion is rooted in
activities that involve sneaking
around. Getting away with
something tends to jumpstart a
relationship with passion from the
get-go. People that engage in this
type of activity seek out other people
who are either completely offlimits or are “restricted” in some manner. Sometimes students like their teachers. Sometimes teachers like their students. Sometimes supervisors and like their workers. Sometimes workers like their supervisors. Sometimes people are attracted to their best friend's girlfriend or boy
friend. These sneaky types get their passion, their rush, from the
illicit nature of their crime or
indiscretion. This game, however,
falls short of being ultimately
satisfying. Because once these
types of relationships transform
into something “legit,” the very
nature of the alteration kills its roots, the sneaky passion. So, just about the time one of these types of relationships become socially acceptable, the wind is let out of the sail and a new sneaky situation catches the eye of the deviant. In short, the types that enjoy this game tend to jump from short relationship to short relationship, avoiding legitimacy in the fear that the routine factor
will have any chance of snuffing
out the passion factor.
The second type of game rooted in
negative passion is the
relationship based in crabbiness or bitchiness. The type of people that are attracted to this sort of
relationship are always upset, and
the negativity of the relationship keeps them in the game.The raw resentment, anger and frustration keep the passion, or in
this case the raw nerve, open and
alive. This type of relationship may be rooted in a negative passion, but it's definitely always a challenge- and the sex in these
relationships tends to be very
passionate and exhausting. It sometimes the good sex itself is what makes the whole thing endurable. Examples of these types of
relationships are evident in television
series such as Everyone Loves Raymond and the couple featured in Home Improvement. The crabby partner definitely keeps things from
becoming too comfortable; and thus
keeps the relationship from being anything
but routine. In the long run though, a partner’s resentment from the continual crabbiness may cause too much of the nerve to become raw and the
other partner may then be repulsed
into the arms of a less crabby partner
that seems just as passionate minus the built up resentment.
The
third type of game rooted in negative passion I call the “cliffhanger.” In this game, the passion is created by pushing your partner to the precipice
of the cliff and then the
challenge is to stop them from falling over and permanently ending the relationship. The partners guilty of this game tend to come alive under
these circumstances. Suddenly they
realize what is at stake and the
challenge of “saving” the relationship tempers any boring routine from developing. These cliffpushers truly believe in their cause; to save
the relationship from doom. In
fact, in counseling these types
are the most passionate and believe
in the romance of the chance to show
their partner their true dedication to the relationship. The problem is that once they pull their partner from the edge of the cliff, “things” are okay
for awhile and then they once
again begin the push-to-save cycle
in earnest.The troubled
relationship eventually solves itself
as the partner being pushed builds
up enough resentment and then
voluntarily seeks the cliff edge as their escape. Game over. The
problem with intimate relationships is that their very nature makes them candidates for these games rooted in negative passion.The positive passion of a new relationship is difficult to keep at
initial levels of intensity.Thus,
couples have sought ways to keep the passion alive and intense. They have however, resorted to playing these three types of
negative passion games. And
because these types of negatively-rooted games have endured so long, they have become institutions firmly rooted in our relationship
culture. In fact, an episode of
Sex and the City called Drama Queens deals with the fact that some women have come to think that if there isn't any trouble in their
relationship, then something must
be wrong with it. How sad.
Has
drama, high maintenance, and negativity become the hallmarks of our American love lives? This may explain the emergence of a negative
social phenomenon so pervasive
that we have labeled it divorce culture: an entire culture built on broken relationships. Yet who has a magic solution that will keep alive
the fresh passion inherent with a
new relationship? Is it inevitable that our relationships must turn negative just to keep the passion intact? I don't think so, but I also
offer no solution here in this
piece. I hate to leave the readers hanging, but each one of us must figure out the solution for themselves. Suggestions? Email Dr. Padilla pete.padilla@gmail.
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