We might assume that our greatest longing in relationships would be to be looked after by someone; an exceptionally kind person who could listen to us, nurture us, assist us and make us feel comforted and seen.
But this is to ignore just how strong there is — in some of us — a diametrically opposed aspiration: a wish to find someone who is in a lot of pain and trouble, who is confused and sad, unhappy and overwhelmed, and who therefore cannot possibly do very much for us, but who we, on the other hand, have every opportunity to hold, appease, calm, and heal.
For this group among us, troubles aren't just nuisances to be managed, they lie at the core of what we positively desire to find in others.
We feel our heart tighten when we learn that someone had a difficult childhood, or is isolated and adrift or has been bullied at work or made to feel worthless in a past relationship.
These are not merely regrettable incidentals, they lie at the centre of our feelings of love.
For us to be this way, there tends to have been a certain sort of childhood.
Something has happened to us early on which means that giving assistance has become decisively easier than receiving it.
We might say that everyone, at the start, longs to receive love.
But when it's not been especially forthcoming, one way to handle its absence is to turn into a compulsive caregiver; to offer others what we wish could have been offered to us, to turn our deficiency into a bounty, to locate the needy part of us in someone else and then to heal it in them as an alternative to addressing it in ourselves.
When we have to forego our wish to be nurtured and understood — maybe because mum was elsewhere or dad low in spirits — we might have begun by looking after our teddy bear, then moved on to friends, and eventually in adulthood, discovered our greatest satisfaction in salving the woes of our lovers.
