Tag Archives: gambling addicted partners

Monument to Cervantes (statues of Don Quixote and his companion Sancho Panza) by Lorenzo Valera (1930), Madrid, Spain, Author/Source Luis Garcia (“Zaqarbal”) (PD)

“He thought that every windmill was a giant.  That’s insane.  But, thinking that they might be… Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat.  But, what if it isn’t?  It might be round.”

–They Might Be Giants, lead character commenting on Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes in his great classic Don Quixote celebrates the individual, and the unique vision that can see beyond the limitations of this material world.

We get the phrase “tilting at windmills” (pointlessly assailing imagined foes) from the scene where Don Quixote – an elderly gentleman who believes he has become a knight – mistakes certain windmills for giants.

On the page, this is laudatory.  We are elevated by the call to idealism.  But in practice – especially where love and romance are concerned – this approach has serious flaws.  In fact, it can be downright dangerous for abuse victims.

Fixing Mr. Right

We meet someone.  We like his appearance or his sense of humor [1].  Whatever the attraction, whether he is a loner or the center of attention, we find ourselves drawn to him.  At long last, we have found Mr. Right.

We may, on some level, notice in the early stages of romance that there are problems in store.  But we dismiss those.  So he drinks a little.  OK, more than a little.  We tell ourselves he has his reasons.  We are sure we can “fix” him.

In reality, the problems may be precisely what we find appealing.  Reminiscent of problems in our family of origin, they feel “familiar” – as if we had met this man before.  We convince ourselves that fate has selected him for us.

We determine to defend him against the world.

If Only

What women often see in their beloved is the man he might be.  We fall so deeply in love with that man the thought of leaving him, of abandoning our dreams (especially dreams in which we have invested precious years of our lives), is unbearable. Continue reading →