Is love the answer to all questions? Not quite. It also provides quite a few. Psychologist and couples therapist Oskar Holzberg answers them all.
Can I ask him to break off contact with an old love? Yes, when it is clear that it is not about the old love, but about the present one.
The partner's old love poses a threat
Our old loved ones were familiar and close to us. With them and through them we have become who we are today. If we have found a closeness with an ex-partner after the painful separation, he, like our oldest friends, is one of our most important relatives.
But we also know the stories of childhood love that flares up again at the class reunion. About long-gone relationships that experience a fresh start because you suddenly met again at the gas station. About the ex-partners you return to after years. We therefore also perceive our partner's old loves as threatening.
After all, he once experienced love and closeness there. And we feel more threatened when this closeness is missing in our partnership. Especially when the old love is single and calls back more often.
Does the partner respond to fears?
© Ilona Habben
Previous attachments can feel familiar, secure, and secure. In the memory from which the dark pages have been erased, they are also transfigured nostalgically. As soon as we are beset by unfulfilled wishes because we do not feel accepted and understood in our current relationship, our psyche finds people to whom it can direct our longings. People we really know or with whom we only fantasize about a relationship. An old love allows both. It is the fantasy that grows out of a past reality. So there are enough reasons why the old loved ones of our partners can worry us. Life has never been as adventurous as with him, the outdoor freak. No one could ever reach the philosophical conversations with her again. And, although he never said it quite frankly, sex with her was just unattainably good.
But should we therefore insist that our partner completely breaks off contact with his old love? When we feel threatened, we should seek protection. And if we fear that our loved one will be lost, then it is also appropriate to ask him to end the threatening contact. Especially when it is intensifying dynamically. Presumably, our partner will explain that firstly there is no danger and secondly that our fears should not hinder his contacts. But it's not about his intentions or his freedom. It's not about the truth that can never be found. It's about how our loved one reacts to our fears: whether he addresses them and whether he answers them.
Old loves are important anchors in our changeable lives and we should leave them to our partner as friends. But we should say when they threaten us. And in this case, maybe even ask to give up contact with them. Because through this request, in the confrontation with our fears, exactly the emotional connection we are looking for can arise between us and our partner. The one we fear our favorite person might find again with his old love.
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