I’m Okay if You Are Okay with Me.
**This article is not a standard review but a discussion of how the story weaves in lessons in psychology and behavior.
What’s the difference between being in love and being locked in relationship dependence? In her novel, The Pact, Picoult does an excellent job of bringing to life people who are caught in that very question. The lovers at the center of the story are so caught up in relationship dependence that one of the teenagers ends up dead with a shot to her head while in the arms of her beloved boyfriend. See Part One.
As the line between friendship and lovers blurs so does the line between suicide and murder.
Fusion or relationship dependency is the process in which the feelings of one person become so intertwined with the feelings of another person that he or she is unable to know, state, and follow through with goals. When immersed in fusion, people often make the incorrect assumption that their feelings are ‘thoughts’ or facts. For example, a person may tell themselves that because the other person is late or inattentive—he or she doesn’t care, which is a feeling, not a fact.
More on fusion here. More here on confusing ‘feelings’ and ‘thoughts.’ Directing behavior to keep others calm is easiest to see in love partnerships and parenting but other-determined behavior can include whole families or cultures. We humans are relational beings. The problem comes in when we go too far in working to keep the other calm and/or go too far in requiring others to work to keep us from becoming anxious.
Back to The Pact by Jodi Picoult. See part one to catch up on the story.
NICKEL THERAPY: Ask a Psychologist
Two families living next door discover that they make a more than compatible foursome. For years, the spouses talk daily and frequent the same restaurant every week to share their lives. Both couples have exciting and well-paying careers leaving them plenty of time to enjoy leisure activities as a group.
When one wife becomes pregnant the news soon follows that the other wife is pregnant as well. How lovely! The shared pregnancies provide a fortunate sort of support rarely seen in the suburbs today. The infants are even in the same bassinet for a while. From there Christopher and Emily, share schools, parties, sports and arts, as well as their own private after-school ‘club.’
Christopher and Emily grow steadily closer–from toddler buddies to playmates in elementary school, to best friends in junior high school. In high school they become lovers. The parents would rather the two waited until the wedding–which is sure to be a grand affair–but also realize that as close as Christopher and Emily are, sex is likely part of their high school relationship. After all, the two will be married once they are on their own.
What could possibly steer the young lovers off the path?
All their lives they’ve been two pieces of a pair. The future has been obvious. But now, as young adults, Christopher and Emily have greater capacities to think for themselves, greater abilities to become more than reflections of parental expectations or their own expectations. With fusion comes the expectation that people think alike and believe alike. With more mature thinking the partners in a couple realize they don’t have the same brain. They don’t want exactly the same things in life.
This process occurs to an extent in every ‘love’ relationship as it moves from infatuation to reality and, hopefully, a deeper love. The way this discovery of being ‘different’ is resolved sets the tone for a relationship. This discovery is resolved in one of four ways.
Emotional Distance. In this process two people become roommates. Movie: When Harry Met Sally.
Conflict, that is, never ending battles for control. The tone of interactions is consistently competitive and argumentative. Movie: The War of the Roses.
One Up/One Down, one person taking charge and the other primarily deferring. Movie: American Beauty.
Making a Triangle—bringing in a third party, could be an affair, focus on a child, or other person to restore balance. Movie: Any movie about an affair.
So what happened with Christopher and Emily? The person who begins having suicidal ideas is frequently at a point where he or she believes their is no ‘exit, no way to resolve relationship complications. Part Three looks at what happens to push Christopher and Emily ‘over the edge.’
