The Decline Of Illusion For Another Person

The decay of the illusion for another person is like a perfume that little by little loses its fragrance. We do not know why, but each day the laughter produces less tickling and the gazes stop looking for each other with longing. Knowing when it is time for a relationship to end is not always easy, but doing it on time and properly avoids unnecessary and painful emotional costs.

We could approach this article in the way that most people expect. Offering guidelines and strategies to recover the lost illusion. Because everyone deserves a second chance. Because there are things worth fighting for. However, there is an obvious fact that is seen very often in couples therapy consultations. Many people who end up leaving their relationship knew for almost a year that they had stopped loving their partner. 

Thus, and as curious as it may be to us, the same thing happens with friendship relationships. Often we insist on stretching a “gum” that has not given more of itself for a long time. However, we choose to go ahead with those links for a number of reasons. For reasons that can be summarized in the same dimension: fear. We are afraid of leaving something that until recently gave us happiness, satisfaction and well-being.

We are afraid of being alone. We are afraid to be honest, to tell the other without anesthesia or hot packs that “I no longer want to move on because I have stopped loving you.” We fear, in essence, hurting the other person.

The decline of illusion: when the other is blurred from our priorities

The world of psychology has addressed the issue of failed relationships and the decline of illusion for more than three decades. Figures as relevant as John Gottman or  Harville Hendricks have taught us ways and strategies to save our emotional ties. We have learned in this time what to do to make love last, we know which are those “horsemen of the apocalypse” that according to Gottman can anticipate a breakup or how to differentiate good relationships from those that only bring suffering.

Now, there is one fact more than obvious. There are relationships that expire and have no turning back. Continuing to invest time, effort and emotional adventures is meaningless when there is no illusion or ember that enlivens it. When repeated opportunities have been given and the results are always the same. When the barriers are insurmountable and only distance is perceived. When what is inside us is the slime of disenchantment that covers everything with chiaroscuro and discomfort.

The truth is that few sciences are as uncertain as the one that governs the world of illusions in the human being. We could say that his enemy is routine and that his kryptonite is the wrong doing of those who do not love as they should, those who do not know how to care and take things for granted. We know that in matters of the heart sometimes we are not skilled at declining its forms, its times, its norms. However, the decline of disillusionment is not a misspelling; it often happens just like that. 

Disappointment, disenchantment, discovering the other without the blindfold that we wore over our eyes … We could give a thousand reasons and formulate a thousand more theories as to why this unexpected emptiness arises in our relationships. However, in most cases this decline in illusion for another person does not derive from what others do or do not do. Often, it is we who have changed, we who no longer vibrate at that frequency, we who no longer find motivations in the motives of the other.

What to do when disappointment appears?

In love, as in friendship, waiting rooms are not good, or excuses or letting time pass to see what happens. Either you fight for what you love or you let go of what was once wanted so as not to hurt. Nothing is magically solved and the illusion does not return by itself if we do not promote changes, if we do not join forces together to take the relationship to another level to transform the bond in a more enriching way.

Now, if this decline of the illusion is already a sunset, the best thing is to act accordingly. Lengthening the inevitable generates suffering. To live off false illusions is to feed ourselves on a substitute for love that causes indigestion, that makes you feel bad, and that like a contagious virus reaches the other to make them sick as well. After having done everything possible for that relationship, you often have to do the healthiest thing: put distance.

Illusion sometimes has the strange property of transforming itself over time. We cannot always master it, we know, we cannot always retain it forever in our ties with other people. That it goes out sometimes is the law of life. However, the important thing is that it always continues to appear on our paths, next to someone or alone, but always there, present, constant, invigorating.