One way or another, interpersonal relationships have their own stages of development: emergence / birth, their life / growing up (and certainly crises just like the crises of growing up) / maturity or sometimes death.
The idea of the article was presented by a close friend of mine, who told about his relationship with a childhood friend: de jure, the relationship ended unilaterally; de facto, my friend still does not understand the reason for the breakup and worries about why it was that way (his friend no longer got in touch, ignoring all attempts at contact, although it is known from mutual acquaintances that he is alive and well ).
This is one of many examples .. There are also unfinished male-female, parent-child relationships, business relationships, or the same client-therapy alliances (where the client leaves forever without reporting it).
A similar mechanism (paradoxically) exists in the topic of working with debts: your friend takes a certain amount from you and does not return, promising that “a little more and everything will be done” / your client promises to pay for the session: “Just a couple of days and I can transfer money”, hesitate to pay, etc.)
My senior colleague, an osteopathic doctor, told the following story: “At the beginning of my practice, I was very worried that patients did not make themselves felt (how they felt and what dynamics were observed), I was very nervous. And then I realized that they - adults * who can independently assess their own health and, if necessary, seek help. It's funny that over the next week, many of my patients phoned (unsubscribed) with a desire to continue working. "
And, yes, such a relationship can be the cause of psychosomatic and (in a long period of incompleteness) pathological symptoms.
I do not want to go into the transpersonal aspect of these questions and would say the only thing that at some deep level with this kind of “incomplete gestalt” we feed the other side with a certain energy: with our attention, feelings about this incompleteness , thoughts “why did everything happen this way? ”(As my colleague also said:“ And on the doors of hell it should be written “EVERYTHING COULD BE DIFFERENT!” ”).
Thoughts can be either conscious or not, and it is they that take a lot of physical and mental energy, and ... is the source of energy for your partner. I won't be able to provide statistics or provide a scientific evidence base, but I often met just such situations in work and life. In other words, you are a donor, and your partner is a recipient, for whom it is not profitable to find out the reasons for leaving the relationship, completing them mutually, or to repay the debt.
What to do?
The first, theoretical answer is to complete the “gestalt”, admitting that it happened, and there will be no continuation of the relationship (no matter how much you want it), to experience grief and anger, and, finally, to let go , moving on.
The second, practical answer:
Step 1. Think of the person with whom the relationship is incomplete. Listen to the physical and emotional sensations, what about them: is there any discomfort in the body?
Step 2. Slowly and very delicately listening to yourself, imagine that the image of this person dissolves in space, eventually disappearing.
Step 3. What's going on with you? (Perhaps physically or emotionally you will feel emptiness. Do not be afraid of this: emptiness occurs in the interval between the departure of one feeling / state and the emergence of another. Emptiness is a necessary pause).
Step 4. Pay attention to bodily sensations and emotional background. What has changed / has not changed there (the severity of the symptom, feelings, general perception of reality)?
“The price of freedom is never small” (L. Petridi), but the goal is clearly worth the money spent and the experience gained: I can assume that after such “unfinished relationship” a certain skill of feeling the prospects of such a relationship appears, understanding the boundaries and taking care of oneself, as well as a sense of balance “take and give”.
* Adults ”- persons who have reached the age of 18 years.
