166. Fantasy bonding - is it love or delusion?

down the Psychology of our twenties. Today, we're going to look into We're going to explore, I think one of the most important concepts when it comes to building healthy, realistic relationships in our twenties, whether that's when we are dating, when we are building new friendships, or even as we begin to see our parents as real people and kind of navigating that new relationship. What we're talking about is

fantasy bonding. Fantasy bonding is one of those concepts taken from psychology that I've definitely seen gaining a lot of popularity and colloquial usage in online spaces, and it often is used to kind of refer to the bonds we create with potential partners or love interests in a very

kind of like misconstrued sense. Often we think that fantasy bonding is just this idea of like having a fantasy about someone and therefore bonding with them over it, which is in some ways true, but I think it ignores a lot of the really important psychological origins that are not understood, and that is such a shame because once we really understand the nature of fantasy bonding, I think so much about our lives begins to make so much

more sense. We can gain a whole new understanding of how we approach relationships, why why that is, and we begin to be able to identify the kind of invisible string or pattern that ties a lot of our relationships together, and that is that a lot of the time we are a lot more attached to our idea of someone or we are of their potential then the reality of

who they actually are. Our relationships become defined a lot more by our perceptions, by wishful thinking, sometimes even willful ignorance, than who this person and what this relationship truly could be. So let's talk about it. First off, I really want to start by giving you a bit of history behind where this term originated, because although it's usually used to refer to dating and instances of dating, it starts a

lot earlier than that. So fantasy bonding was a term created by doctor Robert Firestone in his book literally titled The Fantasy Bond, and it was published quite a while almost forty years ago in nineteen eighty five, and he used it to describe primarily the connection we typically form with our parents and how we all have essentially this emotional hunger and need to see our parents or our caregivers as utterly perfect and endlessly able to provide us

with all of our needs, all of the love, comfort resources that we need, but also the security that we crave, even when sometimes they aren't able to do that. So therefore, based on this bond, based on this fantasy that we have of our parents, we end up idealizing them in

order to trust them through everything. So essentially, a fantasy bond in this form is what we would call a primitive defense mechanism, and we, like I said, develop it in early childhood as a way of maintaining an illusion of safety and security that is tied to our parents even when we are experiencing a lot of hurt or terror. It lets us see our parents as our savior in

an attempt to kind of cope with emotional pain. When we are as children really terrified or scared or hurt, we have this kind of vision of our parents as being able to fix that for us. We have this version of our parents in our imagination who are and we see them as these all powerful, all healing, kind of godlike people, and a lot of our relationship with them in the early years of our lives incorporates that

fantasy bond. So if you think about it, if we were from a very young age to see our parents the way that we see them now in our twenties as kind of real humans, as flawed people as everyone is. If we were to see them that way as a children, that would as children, that would have made us feel a lot less safe about the world, especially at times

when we were really vulnerable. So it's only as we get older that we really begin to realize that our parents can't stop us from feeling pain, they can't cure all our illnesses, they can't stop terrible things from happening, and that, in fact, they may at times be just as scared as us. So this fantasy bond serves a

purpose in our early childhood. It also can sometimes protect us from remembering the times that our parents weren't the best parents, the times that they screwed up, or they hurt us, or they did the wrong thing, Because as children, we really have no one else to rely on but these caregivers, and yet we are so fragile, and so if there was to be something that would cause us to not see our parents as being able to help us and being these like very powerful creatures, we really

wouldn't have any sense of security in the world. Most people grow out of the fantasy bond that they have with their parents, it becomes more realistic for those that don't. We have people who will continue to idealize their parents and family, seeing it through rose colored lenses. Maybe you have encountered people who are like, oh, you know, there was always something wrong with me as a kid. My parents were great, Like I was a bad kid. They

did whatever they could. They're like my hero, They're amazing. I think that some of those, like appraisals, are good things to have, like respecting your parents, loving your parents, appreciating them totally normal, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with our childhoods that would cause us to not believe that. But I think this more refers to people who have had this fantasy bond to the point, this fantasy bond to the point where it's kind of created an unbalanced relationship.

For example, maybe they bring a new family member in, they start dating someone they've talked about how their family is like amazing, that parents could do anything, and then like the new girlfriend, the new boyfriend, the new partner comes in and is like, whoa, Like, there's a lot going on here this My partner is definitely like, has

this idea of their parents that is not real. The other thing that a fantasy bond does is that once we have kind of learned that we can dissociate from the reality of who someone is and create a version of them that is useful for us, we can begin to replicate that bond in our adult relationships, primarily in our romantic lives. And that is what I really want to talk about today. This is when we get the fantasy bond that we most often talk about when it

comes to dating. A fantasy bond situation can be something that any of us finds ourselves in because it is basically like relying on a very human trait, which is our imagination. And what it does is it describes an illusion of connection between two people that is based on an idea of the love or the connection that you share rather than the truth. It is essentially a partial delusion.

It can be based on someone's potential, a potential that they might not be ready or are incapable of fulfilling, but you hold onto the possibility because of what it could mean for you if they were to change, if they could be the fantasy. Essentially, it's having one version of this person in your mind and this other version of them. There's real not aligning, but we're unable to see that gap, that conflict between the fantasy and the reality.

We all want to feel close to someone. We want intimacy, we want security, we want love, we want a relationship, and sometimes that can cause us to ignore a lack of genuine interest or compatibility, or signs that this person is actually not right for us. They actually don't give us what we need. But by indulging in the fantasy of who this is that we have created for ourselves, the relationship can still be sustained and provide us things

that we want in other areas. Another reason this might develop is when we place unrealistic expectations on someone and we imagine that they can somehow solve all our problems. They are the one who can make us feel loved and chosen and seen and complete. And what this tends to do is cause us to accelerate our emotional bond. I think that love. What I've learned about love is that it should feel really natural and easy and like

a gradual progression and increasing closeness. The relationships where you meet someone and you're instantly like, that is my soulmate. I need to tell them everything about me. I've often found that, you know, it's the saying right, like the candle that burns the brightest, like goes out the fastest. Maybe that's this. It could be something else, but the

idea is the same. Right that intensity is not sustainable, and so so when we find ourselves creating a fantasy bond, we are that intensity is really defining of those situations, and we often force a lot of artificial intimacy with them. So we might be like, I know I've only known you for a week, but let's go on a trip together. Like do you want to do you want to come on a trip? Do you want to go on an overseas like holiday, Do you want to go on a

weekend away? Or we'll be like, oh, by the way, like my mom's in town, why don't you just meet her? Why don't you just move in with you know, we've only don't know each other for like three weeks. Let's

just move in together. And it's because that intensity, that artificial intimacy, allows us to overlook some of the things below the surface that doesn't match the vision, doesn't match the idea of this person, because we are so blindsided by all of the excitement and how fast everything is moving at the beginning of a relationship, we put on those rose colored lenses to ensure that the red flags look a lot more golden to us, or we ignore parts of this person that don't align with what we want.

It also is seen in long term relationship as well. People who have developed this type of bond often deceive themselves by imagining that they still love this person long after the feelings of affection and friendship and compassion and intimacy have faded, because they want to be in love with them, so they continue to elevate the fantasy of what this person could be or it currently is, and what this causes us to do is to find comfort and security in a dream in our imagination, and therefore

neglect or unfortunately turn away from possibilities that we could actually find genuine satisfaction with someone else. So I've kind of spoken about a few reasons why this occurs. Obviously, the pattern for this kind of dynamic begins in childhood for some of us, where we learn to do this with our parents. But additionally there's also a lot of adult triggers or cues that create and replicate this kind

of dynamic. Firstly, if you have been through a long period of like people who have just treated you poorly, if you've just you know, the last couple of years, everyone has just kind of broken your heart or pulled away or hasn't want to commit, you are probably emotionally exhausted at this stage, Like you are probably very tired, and you can't take another failure. You really can't, your

heart can't take it. So subconsciously, the next person who comes along you create a fantasy bond because it's easier to overlook the things that would previously have caused a relationship to fail, and therefore you avoid another disappointment. A lot of us, myself included. I'm going to include myself in this box. Have a very innate fear of being alone.

It's only natural. I think it's one of our basic human needs is belonging, is connection, so we'll do almost anything to obtain it, especially in romantic form, and the fantasy that we create allows us to simultaneously avoid being alone whilst also avoid seeing this person we're with for

who they are. And if we were to see the real version of them that isn't hidden behind our imaginative, you know, dream and vision, we probably wouldn't be with them, and we probably would ask for a lot more from the person we're with. It might also be that this person is like so close to being the right one, so almost perfect, that we're like, you know what, this

is good enough. If you don't feel like you deserve the best, If you don't feel like you deserve the kind of love that everyone talks about that is perfect and fulfilling and made for you, you will settle. And there will be a sense of part of you that will not want to settle. But the fantasy fills that gap because it allows you to once again see everything through those rose tinted glasses. So this creates the fantasy bonding cycle.

You feel a deep, almost irrational longing for this person, and you begin to find that all of your thoughts find their way back to them. You place them on a pedestal, and when you create once again the image of them that is vastly different from who they actually are, and it's this image that makes you fall in love more, makes you fall in deeper because you are the ones sustaining it. So the connection that you have with them, it feels real. But it also simultaneously is allowing you

to overlook a lot of red flags. It's allowing you to minimize some of the disappointments, some of the letdowns. It may also be that you continue a relationship based on the good times you had in the past. You're only there because you think you can get back to that when there was. You know, there might not be an indication that that is true. You know, the fantasy that you initially created may begin to disintegrate and deteriorate. But actually that causes you to invest more in the

illusion because you have a lot to lose now. So this cause us to once again turn up the intensity, create more closeness again and again, and again, you keep pushing it, but also ignore your gut instinct when it comes to the relationship. I talk about gut instinct. I actually think quite a bit on this podcast now that I'm thinking about it, because I really believe in it.

I have a deep belief that this type of like physical visceral intuition is often correct, and in fact, we've actually seen in a lot of studies recently confirming that intuition is a very real psychological process in which subconsciously, unconsciously, our brains are making assessments that we don't particularly know about on a conscious level in order to get us to the right decision. So it is using past experiences, it is using environmental and internal cues to kind of

guide us in the right direction. Even if that process that ends thought, that conclusion isn't explicit, it's intuitive, it feels implicit. But when there is a much stronger urge to go a different way, when like our front brain, our active brain is being like, no, I want love, I want a relationship, I'm going to just go with this person, we can really ignore the valuable insight that is brought by this kind of gut feeling. And so when we're caught in a fantasy bond, we end up

surrendering a lot of things. We end up, you know, surrendering a lot of our needs, surrendering a lot of our identity, surrendering a lot of our boundaries to sustain the relationship. And I have seen a lot of consequences of this in my own life. I would say one of the biggest like consequences of a fantasy bond are these really drawn out situationships that we find ourselves in, Situationships that are defined by a lot of longing, a

lot of wishful thinking, and inevitably a broken heart. And this primarily occurs because we ignore this person's lack of commitment, use it by thinking that they just need more time, or that if we offer more of ourselves up they will change their mind. We just need to be better, We need to be, you know, to do something that is going to convince them. That is not true. This person is not who you want them to be. Your perception of the potential future with this person is based

on false premises. It's based on you misconstruing reality once again, on the illusion of someone falling in love with someone's potential is both an unconscious but also a dangerous game,

even if we don't mean it to be. A couple of years back, actually I met this guy and it was straight out of a long term relationship, and I became like I was so I think, firstly emotionally vulnerable that I became immediately attached to him because of the idea of what he could bring me, which was the love that I really missed, And with that, I didn't want to accept the fact that, like maybe I actually just needed a rebound. I had to accept the fact that this was the one, and what ensued was a

really great deal of toxic hope. I ignored how fickle he was. I ignored how often I was a second choice for him. I ignored how he put me down, how every time I tried to talk about the future he would be incredibly dismissive, because it was important for me to ignore that to continue the relationship, because I think if I had acknowledged it, there was no way that I would stay. There's no way I was going to be there, and so I just kept the fantasy up.

I just kept ignoring it, and that was also just not apparent to me, and I think if I had initially known that sooner and applied the necessary boundaries, it wouldn't have lasted for so long. But the thing is is that the fantasy doesn't make itself known until afterwards, and so it's easier to say it now in hindsight, but at the time, obviously, like, I can only believe what my mind tells me, and my mind is also creating this like imaginative person and this like vision of

this person, and so that's what I'm gonna believe. The other relation of sequence of ignoring who someone truly is for the fantasy is that inevitably, as the relationship progresses, you will end up trying to change them so that they match the idea of what you initially wanted in them as a partner, because you haven't truly bonded with who they are in reality, because you've bonded with the fantasy. Eventually, that imagined version and that real version are not going

to align. They're going to come into conflict, and instead of being able to accept that maybe you were just wrong about them, you're going to look for ways to solve the problem. Honestly, I'm going to say this a little bit of a caveat I don't think you need to love everything about your partner at all times. Like that's not to say that if you find things that like maybe annoy you a little bit, or little habits that you would like to change, that potentially you've actually

fantasy bonded. But what I'm really speaking about here is significant things that you have obviously at some point overlooked in favor of this person's potential. And they're big things. I'm talking religious differences, I'm talking extreme lifestyle differences. These are things that you can only ignore for so long. The fantasy can only stay intact for so long before you're going to want something to change. And it leads to a lot of conflict because this person doesn't want

to change. They never promised they would, so they feel a little bit blindsided, and they also feel incapable. It's going to put a strain on the relationship, and most of the time it will lead it to fall apart because it's almost like you wake up and you realize that you are in love with someone who does not exist. You are in love with someone that you created in your mind. And I think that the result of that is that we feel a lot of regret because we

wasted our time. We feel like we've misled ourselves. We feel angry, we feel hurt, we feel heartbroken because like, how could we have done this? You know, who was this person that we loved? Where did we get this from? But I really want to remind you that it's not a conscious choice. It comes from so many things. You also probably have a very big heart. You have an optimistic personality. You want to see the best in people.

You want to believe that they can be the best versions of themselves, that they can change, that they can be their potential. That is why you find yourselves in these relationships with people where like you're just constantly thinking it's gonna get better. This fantasy that you have of them is reality, because to not believe that would really hurt.

So what I actually want to talk about next is how we can prevent the fantasy bond before it even begins, especially for people who are hopeless romantics, people who are maybe just attracted to the idea of anyone who's offering them love, who sees the best in everyone even when they let us down. I really want to talk about that next. So all of that and more after this short break. So how exactly do we prevent a fantasy

bond from forming. I think it's all well and good to talk about the origins and the whys and the watson all of those things, but actually doesn't help us unless we know what to do about it. So I'm going to give you some of my best tips as a former prolific fantasy idealized kind of person kind of data. Firstly, in the beginning, when you're first starting to see someone, spread out your dates with them in order to not

get attached too quickly. When we meet someone that we like, of course you want to see them all the time. Of course you want the reassurance that they want to see you, that they want to continue going on dates with you. Let it naturally like, let it naturally form though, let it take like a natural progression, instead of trying

to create that intensity that we spoke about. I think physical proximity and frequencies is naturally going to cause you to feel closer to someone before you've actually gotten an idea of who they really are and what they can actually offer you. So take time between your dates with someone to actually reflect, to actually make sure you're looking after yourself. You are your own person, you're not getting caught up in like this whirlwind, and you don't get

completely engulfed by this new person either. It's really interesting because I think that like the consequences of fantasy bonding are like intense emotional availability compared to emotional unavailability, and we don't want either of those things right. We want to balance between the two. It's very easy to go the other direction and put on this image of being very cold and very heartless and very like, I don't know, detached.

That's also not the way to find love. So I think if you want a number, I would say when you first start dating someone, a week between dates is really good, and then after like the third date, you can kind of increase. After like the tenth date, you should increase as well. I also think do not look for a label too soon. You actually need time to

test things. You need time to actually know this person and know who they are and know theyre wance, know what they can give you rather than what you think they can give you, If that makes sense. Part of that is having a list of non negotiables. If you know that you are particularly susceptible to this kind of bond, which I'm assuming you know because you're listening to this episode.

Make sure that your rational voice is speaking louder than your romantic voice than your like fantasy voice, if that makes sense. When you meet someone you really like like, it's so easy to get super carried away in them, intoxicated by them, that we actually forget what we're really looking for, and we forget what we really want and what we really deserve. That is where your non negotiables come into play. I've talked about this on the show before.

I think that you should have a list. And I know that sounds like super rule based and super intense, but honestly, it's gonna save you a lot of pain in the long run. If you say, Okay, here are the five things that I absolutely need in a partner. I absolutely need them to be consistent. I absolutely need them to be kind. I absolutely need them to live close to me. I absolutely need them to like do nice things with me, plan dates. I absolutely need them

to whatever. Have that list, and if they're not meeting that those kinds of priorities for you, that is your sign to let them go. That is your That is you going back to the version of you that was rational before you met this person before you may have bonded with them through the fantasy telling you what to do. You are going to have to listen to your own self. You're going to have to listen to the opinion that

probably matters the most, which is your own. The other thing here is remember potential is not the same as actuality, and you really need to make sure that you are honest with yourself about whether your attraction is based on who you want them to be or who they are in the moment. So when you start telling your friends about them, or when you start talking to yourself about them when they're not around, being like, wow, they are really so so kind and they're really like super this

and super that. Do you have examples of that? Is that true? I want you to remember an example of it. I don't want you to start applying additional you know, very generous character traits to this person when they're not actually there. On the flip side of this, the other side of the coin is are there any negative emotions that you are suppressing that you know don't sit right right now that you might be concealing by trying to speak more positively of this person. You once again need

to trust your gut. It is going to tell you things that you need to hear and you need to listen to it. Is there something about this person that just doesn't feel quite right that you were ignoring just because you want a relationship. Are there things you're not telling your friends? That's a big one. It's sometimes, I think hard to be honest with ourselves, and we need that external accountability and our friends are great for that.

If there is something that this person has done, if there's something they're not offering you that you're like, this actually really bothers me, and you wouldn't tell your friends about it because you know they would have an opinion that might go against what you want from the situation, what your fantasy wants. That is a pretty big red flag that you should not be ignoring. One of the other ones is avoiding actually bringing up things that are

bothering you because you want this relationship to work. And I guess that conflict aversion is so common, is so common, and it really is just people pleasing in a new form. But also sometimes we can implicitly avoid bringing up the things that we might need because it is a way of protecting us from acknowledging the fantasy that is occurring.

Something is upsetting you, But if you were to acknowledge it, it would mean that it would counter like come, it would contradict the vision, it would contradict who this person is.

So I think in those moments when something like whether it's a lack of commitment, whether it's a lack of consistency, they're not replying to your text messages, they never want to do things with you, like before seven pm, Like they don't want to meet your friends, they don't want to like show that they care about you, and you're just like almost waiting on them to do that. That's no, No,

we're not waiting anymore. If that is if your non negotiable, say you want someone who is consistent, you want someone who puts an effort, and they're not doing that. It doesn't matter if you're scared of conflict. You need to do this for yourself, and you need to recognize that there is an unconscious part of you, a very rudimentary and primal part of you, that is actually not letting you see this clearly. When we get to this point, I think you do need to end things and treat

it like a breakup. No matter how long you've been together, even if labels or exclusivity was never spoken of. I think I really struggle when I see people have what are these very emotionally intense relationships and then deny themselves the grief that they deserve. This still touched you, This still was important to you, And relationships, however long they are, this was still a relationship. If it ends abruptly, it will create an emotional vortex, especially after the intensity of

a fantasy bond. The memories feel bigger when they have become inflated by expectation. So it's normal to feel a little bit mentally and emotionally unstable because you're kind of also at the same time as you're grieving the potential of this person, you're grieving the what ifs. You're also floating back down to reality in the aftermath. So some tips at the stages ignore the need for closure if you do end things. As humans, I think we love closure.

We crave closure because we are really bad at dealing with uncertainty and we want answers. It is this thing that they talk about a lot in psychology, is also in the psychology around trauma as well, and how we make memories. How we process memories is that we like our stories to have a nice ending, because that means that we can properly place those memories in their proper location, in their proper box. We like when chapters are closed.

We like when there are conclusions. And when that doesn't come, when the chapter isn't ending as we thought it would because we haven't been given the emotional and psychological closure we need, it can be super confusing. The thing about ending a relationship that is defined by a thing, fantasy, bond is that closure probably won't come for a while that because there is nothing this person can say that will make you feel okay, because they aren't the person

that you believe they were. They are not that character anymore, and so you're looking for answers from someone who quite frankly doesn't exist. You thought he was this great guy. He wasn't this great guy, but you're still expecting him to act like it. You know. I think that it's really difficult in that situation because part of you will also be like, okay, I want to move on, I don't want to remember this person. I don't want to keep sitting in the wattifs. But you can hold those

emotions without letting them rule you. You can feel sad, you can feel disappointed, you can feel that fear of loneliness, that desire for love without needing to go back to that person. I think you just need to learn from in that moment, what were the signs that in hindsight you probably couldn't see as clearly at the time. I also want to remind you that the fact that you have formed this bond with someone's potential, that you have this fantasy about them, is a really beautiful thing. It's

because you have a very pure and good heart. You know, you do see the best in people. You are generous. Your mind has like gone through hoops, has turned so many twisty corners to make sure that this person looked good in your mind's eye, that they continued to have a good reputation in your imagination. As a way of healing, I do honestly think you should listen to the breakup episode that we did last year for more tips on this.

But the number one thing I would say is get back to a place of independence where you actually begin to reinforce how worthwhile and amazing you are. You don't need a fantasy of someone because you deserve the real thing. You know, you deserve more than what your imagination has

concocted for you. Part of that is also just I think part of why we end up in these situationships and these relationships and these like weird dynamics is because we don't necessarily feel like super confident and who we are as a person. We maybe don't feel super fulfilled or entertained by our lives. So work on bringing back those hobbies. I saw this amazing video the other day of this woman who is spending the year doing the

things that she used to do as a kid. When we're younger, we have all of these amazing parts of us, and we are like these super active and like incredible people, and we have hobbies and whatnot and so many different talents, and we lose that as we get older, and we sometimes tend to replace those things, those activities with relationships and we let them be our main source of entertainment,

and we can really lose ourselves in that. So get back to your hobbies, get back to your friends, get back to yourself, and kind of tend to those secret gardens that you contain within you. I talk about this analogy a lot. But each of us has these little parts of us that really no one is ever fully going to understand, these little quirks, these little interests, these things that make you curious, that are precious and just

for you. Make sure that you're tending to those. It is totally okay if you got wrapped up in the idea of someone. We've all been there. I've been there so many times. We want to see people be their best. We want them, we want to believe that they could be what we want, and we want love, we want a relationship. So when we get to a point of maybe exhaustion with dating and exhaustion with a lot of dead ends, our mind is going to find a solution to that problem, and it's going to use all the

tools it has, including our imagination. So I don't want you to feel any shame. And I also really hope that this episode has taught you something about this dynamic, that you've learned something that you have something to apply to your own life, or at least that you're looking out for these kinds of bonds and know why they form.

I think it really is important to talk about because a lot of people end up in relationships with these people, with this kind of person that they've bonded with for years, and they don't realize what's happened until like ages down the line, and suddenly it's this huge shock. But if you catch it early, if you know that's how you form attachments with people, you can kind of prevent that from happening. So thank you so much for listening to

this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, remember to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now. Share it with a friend if you think they might need to hear what we've talked about today. And as always, if you have an episode suggestion, if you have something to say, if you have an experience with fantasy bonding, please reach out to me on Instagram at that Psychology Podcast. I would love to hear

from you. I would love to hear about your experience. We can create a little support group or something like that. But sending you love, sending you strength, and we will be back next week with another episode.