How people hang on and protect their idea of reality

There are people who have a hard time facing reality for what it is. They kind of believe, that whatever they believe is so. In a sense, it is true; if you simply refuse to see the reality for what it is, then, your worldview remains untouched. You may be told that your husband or wife is cheating on you with someone and that the affair has been going on for longer than you were married, but you were so happy. You were so happy and you love your kids so much you decide it’s a lie and you refuse to believe it. You don’t do a DNA test on your kids because you don’t want to lose them. You call this “trust”. The way you justify this self-delusion is that you call it “trust”. You “trust” your partner, no matter what. You trust your friends no matter what. That’s the rationale. You do not wish to check up on the people “you trust” because that would put your worldview in danger. As a consequence, you’d have to face realities and react to them.

This is called being in denial. The need to hang onto something that isn’t real.

Then, you extend this onto other people.

“No, THEY are in denial.”

The next level to this is to deny OTHER’s idea of reality. You can even claim that you know another person’s feelings better than they know them themselves. You again, call this “trust”. To you, a person may be “a good person” because they love you for instance. Even if they told you in your face that their feelings for you have changed or that they never loved you in the first place, you may insist “they are saying so to protect/test me”, “they’re going through something”, or “that’s just not them”, or “they’re not aware of their own feelings”. There are tons and tons and tons of excuses people use to help themselves NOT face the fact their relationships and life aren’t as perfect as they thought they were. I could write a book on these excuses alone.

They will use whatever psychological finding to justify their own denial. If you say they’re in denial, they conclude that no, YOU are in denial. You don’t know your own feelings, the object of your love isn’t aware of their feelings or isn’t free to love you. Even though they maybe attempting to trap this person for themselves, they accuse their romantic rivals of having trapped that person for themselves. They minimize the love others are feeling, just to deceive themselves into thinking they still have a leg to stand on in their relationship with another person.

They do their own deceiving

If you observe a person like this, they deceive themselves with 100% accuracy. They blind themselves from the fact that the nice man that comes to help them once a week is stealing money from their stash. Because they love the fact someone cares, they ignore the fact he is stealing from them, and that the reason they come by is that they’re stealing. They may even say it’s normal old people love their young helpers much more than the other way around – so it’s understandable they’d steal. Or that “all men cheat”, but it doesn’t mean at all that they don’t love you… Right?

It is, factually, super easy to take advantage of a person who is in desperate need for love and attention.

They get in the way of what is important to you, in order to feel loved by you

People like this may often use this strategy, too. They find someone who is deeply and truly in love with somebody else, and then, make a problem for the couple out of themselves. Now, all of the sudden, the attention of both of these people is squarely on this person, and they feel LOVED. In the crossfire of people whose relationship they’re meddling with, they will CERTAINLY get all the attention they need to feel loved. They may further deceive themselves into believing that if they can catch the attention of lovers, one or the other, perhaps both of them, are MORE deeply in love with them than each other… After all, if they were in love with each other, they wouldn’t even NOTICE anyone else’s existence… Right?

They will also easily convince their rivals that their love isn’t real just to hang onto their own reality

Now. Here’s the clue of a lifetime. If person A is in love with person B, and B is in love with person A. A+B=true love, right? Then, person C gets in the middle of it, for attention, maybe, or because they were always in love with person A. Now, somehow, they have to get B out of the picture.

Because A and B are truly in love, they both feel just a little too lucky for this world. True love works that way.  It is difficult to believe that someone that amazing would genuinely be in love with you. This is the truth. It is EASY to believe that person lies to you just to keep your world from falling apart, or to plan to break it to you gently, or that they are actually blatantly abusing your love for them. That natural insecurity between true lovers is something C’s tend to take advantage of.

They get in the ear of B and tell them that A doesn’t truly love them. “They tend to fall in love a lot. They’re like that. You’re just the flavor of the month. Me, on the other hand, we go way back.” The reason they go way back is that C is obsessively hanging onto their belief there’s a future in there with this person. They tell their narrative to C, the narrative they may partly believe: A has issues. A is damaged. “I know A is damaged, but C will not have the staying power… All I have to do is to tell him what A is TRULY alike, and they’ll vanish out of the picture…” And sure enough, C starts to look for signs of damage, and trust you me, everyone has signs of damage to find when you go looking for it, thinking you’re smart or forward-thinking and woke and awakened.

Denial or not?

Here’s an easy self-check. WHO is telling you what? Especially if the love of your life professes their undying love for you, but their jealous ex, your rival suitor, their possessive friend or family member, perhaps their fan base on Social, is trying to convince to you that they’re NOT truly in love with you… Compare this with this person themselves telling you they don’t love you, they never have, they’re in love with someone else… Would you STILL believe they’re in love with you, despite ALL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY? They say all the right things, do all the right things, they are the perfect lover… How easily do you believe this is all a joke on you or they’re after your money or whatever else you may be able to provide?

Which is your bias? That they DO love you despite what it looks like, or they DON’T love you despite what it looks like? Identify your bias, and you identify the lie you’re more likely to believe. Then… Reassess.

Do you have ANY REAL EVIDENCE to support the claim, whichever it is? They love you or they don’t love you? Does the story add up? Which story adds up? I wouldn’t necessarily trust the opinion of those who stand to lose a priority position in your life or in the life of your loved one if you decide you’re truly loved by this perfect person. (And no, nobody is perfect, but there ARE people who are PERFECT FOR YOU(r imperfections).)

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