What did you put in the place of love?

Infants and children naturally expect love. We are born with an attachment system which expects love. We reach out to our parents and they respond with love. So what happens when that love is suddenly taken away?

What happens when a child is sent away – at the age of six or eight, or 11 or 13 – to an institution which is devoid of love? Maybe you reach out and make friends – or maybe you try to make friends and it doesn’t happen. But at the age at which we found ourselves abandoned in a boarding school, our peers – no matter how friendly they were – could not provide the love we received at home.

There was no one to give you a hug, sit you on her lap, tell you a story or hoist you onto his shoulders.

So what did you put in the place of love? I was wondering about this earlier this week and it seems to me that I replaced love with books. I loved reading and I loved books, so they became a source of solace for me. Books were my great love at school. But I never realised till this week that they had taken the place of love.

For others it might have been academic achievement, music, art, sport or the affirmation of being one of the popular kids.

What took the place of love when you were at boarding school?

Whatever it was, it became part of your survival personality. It became a sanctuary where you could feel safe, even though that safety might have been a mere shadow of what you had experienced at home.

And if home didn’t feel so safe and you needed a place to retreat to when you were at home, it’s likely that you will have taken that habit with you to school. I had been retreating into books long before I went away to boarding school – there was love in my home, but not all the time.

In the end the thing we put in the place of love may become the thing that keeps love at bay. These pursuits become a sort of bolt-hole that we retreat to when the going gets tough. Reading, listening to music, hours spent watching the rugby or at the gym – they can all come between us and the people we love. It can be scary to turn away from our own particular bolt-hole and face the difficulties in our relationships.

But when you turn to ‘face the flames’ you realise that no matter how scary it was, it was worth it. Because there is love again, waiting for you to come out and welcome it into your heart.

That may mean opening up to your emotional life (which may seem almost non-existent), learning to regulate your nervous system, giving up the need to keep everything tightly under control, or stepping back from dismissiveness or evasiveness. That may feel scary or even impossible, but I’m here to help you.

Right now I have space to work with one couple. That could be you.

If you went to boarding school and you want to find out more about working with me, book a Relationship Dynamics Clarity Call.