Your Relationships: Are They Intimate or Illusion?

The single most important factor that contributes to the deterioration of love, friendship and sexuality in a relationship is the formation of a fantasy bond. The fantasy bond is an illusion of connection or imagined fusion with another person that provides an individual with a false sense of safety, security and permanence. Afraid to really be vulnerable, trusting, and open to the uncertainty of a real relationship, people attempt to fuse or join with their loved one in their minds.

When a couple forms a fantasy bond, they begin to replace real love with a more routine style of relating. They no longer view themselves as individuals or function as two people choosing each other but as a single entity, a couple operating as one. This loss of identity contributes to a faded level of attraction. In addition, when people develop a fantasy bond, the contact between them and their partner is less close and intimate and more superficial and routine.

So why do couples enter into a fantasy bond? Although a fantasy bond can have a deadening affect on a relationship, its illusion of connection offers a sense of security. In spite of the fact that most people say they want to fall in love and are fearful of the thought of ending up alone, when a person forms a real emotional attachment to another person, it evokes a great amount of anxiety--a fear of loss, a separation from an old identity or a challenge to one's self-protective defenses. The fantasy bond relieves each member of the couple of this anxiety and defends them against the deeper feelings of intimacy.