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Dr. Carole Lieberman is the author of Bad Boys -- Why we love them, How to live with them and When to leave them. Dr.Lieberman, good to see you. Is it the case of smart women making foolish choices or is it really an addiction?
You actually can say that it's an addiction because most women dabble or experiment with bad boys just like people experiment with drugs. But there are a lot of women and an increasing number of women who actually become addicted to the high, to the pursuit, the high drama pursuit of the boy , of the man. And also the high of a feeling even though it maybe for fleeting moments ,that bad man who nobody else could get ,you know, he's been a trouble-maker for lots of other people , and you have managed to capture his heart at least for a few moments , and then there is the crash, you know, just like with drugs. the craving, the high and the crash. And...
It sounds these women who just crave drama in their lives, in other words , they get easily bored so they want kind of ro, an emotional roller-coaster?
That's part of it, but it actually goes deeper. Um, I call these women "hooked on heartbreak" and that reflects the fact that what they are doing is , they have a repetition compulsion , they have the compulsion to repeat a family drama. When little girls um, are between the ages of 2 to 7 approximately, they try to get their father(s) away from their mother(s). And in most cases, you know, this is a normal phase and it works out with the father actually makes the little girl feels as though she still is attractive, lovable, and it's just obviously he is not attainable. But for fathers who are absent, um, who are too seductive with the girl, who are abusive . There are all different kinds of fathers who can have disfunctional relationships with their daughter(s). And in those cases the little girls grow up to be women who want to keep repeating this pattern , but making it come out with a happier ending.
So, how do you figure out what are the warning signs, cos bad boys just aren't, you know, riding Harley Davidsons and even necessarily having bad habits they could just be creepy narcissist , right?
Yes, that's one type. In fact, a lot of, all bad boys to some degree have that sense of," it's about me". That's what women don't get. They have all these fun nerve temporarily , have all these fun, winning the pursuit and temporary high but really what they don't get they see the wounded little boy inside.
And they have these rescue fantasies.
And they have rescue fantasies and what they don't get is really the man knows to get out sooner than the woman. The woman will hang in there until she's really brokenhearted. And the man would either leave or he will do behaviors that will make the woman push him away. So, he protects himself, he protects his heart a lot better than the woman do, who just go inner to the end and it's because of this repetition compulsion, because in the sense you can never keep repeating the same behavior and have it come out with a different ending.
Can these people be fixed, the man?
Yes. The man can be fixed and women could do this.
And not by women necessarily.(Well)They have to be fixed by themselves, don't they?
Well, what has to happen is both of these people men are wounded by their mothers just like little girls are...women are wounded by their fathers. And what has to happen is that they each have to realize what they are doing is trying to avoid intimacy. And they need to approach each other and recognize what the behaviors are the...the purpose of these behaviors is to push the other person away. And they have to recognize that and work together to resolve that if that's what they want to do, if they want to really have a relationship.
Working a lot less drama. Find a woman who has a healthy relationship with her father(Yes)and a man who has a healthy relationship with his mother.
That's it. That's it.
All right, now we have settled that. Thanks so much for coming. Bye.
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