Relational Amnesia: The Toll Forgetting Has on Your Relationship
What you forget, your partner never does.
Do you or your partner inevitably forget things that may be important to your partner in the relationship? Anniversaries, birthdays, fights, arguments, promises, errands? And if so, does your partner need to remember everything and feel the need to remind you and nag?
If so, this dance is limiting and hurting the intimacy in your relationship.
Why do people forget?
Young children often use the defense mechanism of forgetting in order to not remember things that may have been scary or traumatic. It is one of the most effective early defense mechanisms. It is very efficient, and when it erases a memory, it really erases it. For good and for bad.
As adults, some continue to forget things in intimate relationships as a way of not dealing with anxiety or pressure to perform. Others forget as a passive-aggressive move because it’s not that important to them.
For those who default to relational amnesia, this can become a relational business card that they use when they form intimate bonds. This type of amnesia is, for the most part, most prevalent in their personal life, while at work they may have excellent memory or, at the very…
