The love trap: she can t fix you

I'm Dr. Orion Taraban, and this is Psych Hacks, Better Living Through Psychology, and the topic of today's short talk is the love trap. So this is a way of thinking that I fell prey to for many years as a young man. I'm going to address it today because I think it still remains a very prevalent problem in today's society. Let's get to it. When I was younger, I had an emptiness inside of me, and I hoped that this emptiness could be filled by the love of a woman. I believed that by entering into a relationship with a woman, I would be able to feel her love and affection for me, and that if I felt enough of her love and affection, it would fill that emptiness, and I would be happy. And I'm here to tell you that this is not only not what actually happens, but that this isn't even possible. This thinking is also associated with all kinds of suboptimal outcomes with women, because women, regardless of their intentions, don't want to do this. This is not something that any woman really wants to do. Women enter into relationships with men because they want or need things from them, but few women, if any, want or need a broken man that they can make whole with their love. They might want a beastly man, like in Beauty and the Beast, that they can tame and conquer, but they generally don't want an empty, broken man that they can heal. Maybe if they did, they'd have more luck, but that's not what women desire. And that's actually not a problem, because they can't do this, even if they did want to, which they don't. It's not possible for women to fill you up with love and affection, and by approaching women, consciously or not, with that intention, you set them up for failure. This is because they literally won't be able to give you what you want, and this leads to all kinds of suboptimal relationship outcomes, because no one is really going to stick around if they perpetually feel like they can't ever do the thing, as it were. Here's the truth. You can't feel another person's love. I wish you could, but you can't. Similarly, you can't feel another person's fear, or another person's pain, or another person's despair. I know that there are a lot of empaths out there who believe that they can, but at the very most, what they're experiencing is some kind of mirror neuron activation that stimulates a comparable emotion inside of them. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to prove that those two emotions are identical, given that all physiological processes, like emotions, are interpreted through particular subjectivities, with particular experiences, memories, expectations, etc. In any case, even when empathic reactions do occur, the people in question are still only experiencing their own emotions. Just like you could be sitting next to someone having a full-blown panic attack, someone who fully believes he's about to die and not necessarily become panicked as well, you could be sitting next to the most loving, affectionate woman in the world, and still not feel an ounce of that love inside of you. That's not because you're a broken, heartless man. It's because you literally cannot feel another person's feelings. You can only feel your own feelings. That means that if you want to feel love, you've got to feel your own love coming out of you. That's the only way you can do it. Love others and experience that love coming out of you. Real talk. If you appreciate the insights on this channel, I would highly encourage you to get your hands on a copy of my book, The Value of Others. Over the course of 432 pages, I delve deep into my economic model of relationships and explain the behavior of both men and women in the game of mating and dating. I also provide a lot of actionable advice on how to get and keep more of what you want in the sexual marketplace. Once you read The Value of Others, you'll never look at relationships the same way again. Now available in ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats. The links are in the description. So why don't people do this? Why do people spend so much time to feel what they cannot feel while avoiding the feelings they can? I wish this weren't true, guys. But the fundamental issue is that feeling love and getting what you want are not the same thing. In fact, they might be diametrically opposed to each other. Love is self-sacrifice in the service of the other. This is why Jesus said you could love your enemies. It has nothing to do with personal desire or need satisfaction or emotional experience. Love is about giving so that other people might benefit. Which means, at least in that moment, you are not getting what you want. Unless, of course, what you want is to sacrifice yourself in the service of others, which suffice it to say is a very, very rare desire. You're up for canonization, if that happens to be you. The reality is that most people don't want that, irrespective of what they might say. Just look at their behavior. Loving is not a pathway to getting what you want. It never has been, and it never will be. And that means, bitter truth number two, that if you want sex and affection and relationships from women, the way to get those things is not by being loving. Again, I wish this weren't the case, but if you want those things from women, you have to get better at attraction, seduction, and the value proposition that underlies sexual relationships. The assholes, the guys who are successful with women, have figured this out. You don't get what you want from women by loving them. I wish you could, but I was not consulted in the design phase. This doesn't necessarily mean that you never love or learn to love. Certainly, learning how to love is very useful. It grows you, matures you, makes you a better human being. But it doesn't get you laid, it doesn't get you a relationship, and it doesn't get you the other things that you might want from a woman. So it's important to choose the right tool for the job. In any case, if you can't be filled up with a woman's love, then it's a good idea to try to solve this problem, this inner emptiness, on your own. And in my experience, there have only been a few things that have actually helped me move the needle on this one. First and foremost is a felt emotional connection with God, with a higher power. I'm not talking about an intellectual connection, reading texts and philosophies. I'm not talking about living in accordance with a certain religious dogma. I'm talking about the emotional experience of being seen, justified, and unconditionally loved by God. And this will fill that inner void, guaranteed. Second is purposeful action. That inner emptiness is directly related to your experience of self. The more you're focused internally, the more you're thinking about yourself, the more you're going to feel empty. From a Buddhist perspective, that self is a delusion. And the more we believe a delusion, the more we're going to suffer because we're not aligned with reality. What I've discovered is that the more I shift my attention outward and become absorbed in the experience of life, the more I tend to disappear to myself, and that sense of emptiness disappears with it. We get out of ourselves by getting into life, and it's much easier to get into life when we're being absorbed into something exciting, challenging, interesting, or meaningful. There are other therapeutic pathways as well, but I'll leave it here for the time being. Heal that emptiness yourself, and don't expect a woman to fill you up with her love. That's the love trap. You're not broken if you can't feel her love. You've just taken literally what is essentially a cultural idiom. There you have it. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below if this fits with your experience. And please, send this episode to someone who you think might benefit from its message. I know you know someone who needs to hear this. Everyone does, because it's word-of-mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow. Other value propositions? Anyone looking to join my free weekly newsletter for which I write original content or book a paid one-on-one consultation with yours truly can do so on my website, orionterraban.com. There's also my best-selling book, The Value of Others, in which I explore the economic model of relationships, and my paid member community, The Captain's Quarters, where I host, among other things, bi-monthly group consultation calls and Q&As with invited guests from all over the internet. It's a great group. A lot of value there. Check it out if you're so inclined. The links to everything are in the description below. As always, I appreciate your support, and thank you for listening.