Splitting the difference

A universal part of growing out of infancy is dealing with the problem of opposites. Psychologist Melanie Klein is famous for mapping this out. Babies apparently experience their mothers, even their mothers' bodies, not as one but as two: the Good One and the Bad One. The technical term for the infantile splitting is the paranoid-schizoid position. Eventually...if all goes well...the baby realizes that Good Mommy and Bad Mommy are in fact the same Mommy. Apprehending this truth is called the depressive position.

Splitting is a part of life long after infancy. In trying to figure out the meandering and magnetic and frustrating path of my relationship with B, it was --and is-- tempting to split him into two. Not Good B and Bad B, but Possible B and Impossible B.

Possible B responded to me so strongly that it was just some kind of temporary blockage which prevented us from getting together in the normal natural dyadic way that I wanted. If only I, or he, could get past that, we could move on. Impossible B, however, is just not capable of the kind of bond I wanted. Be that out of desire, difference or defect changes nothing. It just ain't there. And my persistent hope that it might be was not only a waste of time and energy, but kind of disrespectful, asking him to be someone he's not, just to make me happy.

I still visit both Possible and Impossible B. Mostly Impossible B in the last few months. But what if, even worse, Possible B and Impossible B are the same guy?

Talk about a depressive position!