The opposites attract themselves?

I get a lot of interesting questions in the Ask a Psychologist section of the website. One of them was: do opposites attract?

We can think that each of us feels attracted to something that we lack, something that is not similar or similar to what we have or know. In this sense, we look for what we lack, we look for what is different, we look for what is opposite. As in the Chinese conception of Ying and Yang

CG Jung’s analytical psychology also understands that the psyche or soul is dual. In our development, we try to reach new experiences, new realities that we haven’t gone through yet – the unconscious makes up for what we lack in consciousness.

So internally we tend to go more to one side of our duality. And what we put aside, appears outside of us…

The simplest idea, that opposites attract, comes when we think that a man is attracted to a woman. And how many and how many couples do we not see in which the man is one way and his wife is totally another?

It could be that one person is extremely talkative and the other is quiet, while one likes to go out, another likes to stay at home. It could be that one person in the couple is angry, while the other is calm in person…

But these are just a few examples of opposition.

In other interpersonal relationships – and not just in love relationships – we end up finding people who complete us. That show us other sides of life, situations, things, feelings.

And in the course of life, we find new oppositions, new differences, new news! Therefore, it is also very common to notice the following:

A girl starts dating her first boyfriend. He is very different from the way she is. After a period they end. The second boyfriend is totally different from the first, quite the opposite. But it doesn’t work either. The third boyfriend is more like the first than the second… and probably the fourth – if there is one – will be more like the second than the third.

Of course it’s not a rule. But there is a circular psychic movement, in which we return to points we have already passed, we find again what we had forgotten or left behind…

And so, from opposition to opposition, we live our lives…

I suggested in another post the movie Closer – Too close. It is a very interesting film, in which we can see that people end up looking for what they miss. Ever. Sometimes, even if a relationship is even good… they still look for what their partner doesn’t have…

Love, in this sense, says a lot about the search we are always doing for ourselves. We always find in the other person what we haven’t found in our soul.

So, we can answer that yes – opposites attract.

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