On Chloe's checklist, the tasks follow one another and accumulate.
Some of them are embellished with a small "N". "N" for Nathan, the man with whom she has shared her life for three years.
It is May 2019 and he is looking for a job.
The 27-year-old helps her, but not only.
She writes CVs for him, submits applications herself.
He even sometimes pays the fines that his partner cannot pay for lack of means.
A role that the young woman takes on out of “love”, but also to relieve a spouse who is showing all the symptoms of depression.
Read also »
Suffer to be happy: the sensible theory of a Yale professor
Relieve, heal, save.
Chloe knows this protocol only too well, she who is always attracted to partners who are not doing well.
Nurse both in professional and personal life, her behavior is characteristic of the eponymous syndrome, also called "savior" syndrome or "savior child" syndrome, in psychological jargon.
Magnetized by the distress of the other, the “savior” or the “nurse” feels the irrepressible need to come to their aid at all costs, even if it means relegating their own needs to the background.
On video, are you in love?
The satisfaction of the other in the line of sight
Contrary to popular belief, this state is not just a matter of women.
Philippe can attest to that.
This 58-year-old psychotherapist has fed his relationships with this exaggerated benevolence for years.
“In my couple, all my needs were distorted.
The line of sight was: to satisfy my partner, he confides.
Each time I had to reassure her about her potential, her physique, restore the image she had of herself.
I did not allow myself to claim any place within the couple.
This is the problem, according to Christophe Fauré, psychiatrist and author of
Now or Never!
The transition of the living environment
(1).
“Being receptive to the distress of a loved one is human and more than necessary within a couple, where the two protagonists choose each other to weld a team.
But what is problematic is when the need to help becomes so compulsive that it infiltrates the dynamics of this couple, to become a goal in its own right,” he points out.
What is problematic is when the need to help becomes so compulsive that it infiltrates the dynamics of this couplechristophe andré, psychiatrist
“There was always dissatisfaction on both sides, remembers Philippe.
On one side, there was my partner, whom I indirectly confronted with difficulties that she was perhaps trying to silence.
On the other side, there always came a time when I said to myself: "And me, then?".
And to conclude: “Little by little, I got used to the idea that there were people who, by their liabilities, were not programmed to be happy.”
A familiar trauma
According to psychotherapist Béatrice Demon, this attraction to trauma is no coincidence.
“We tend to go to people who send us back a reflection of ourselves.
What we call “love at first sight”, are therefore two unconscious minds that fit together perfectly”, she describes.
“There was always something very familial, maternal or fraternal within the feeling of love that I felt for my partners,” Chloé recalls.
By shining the spotlight on the traumas of others, it is ultimately a bit of their personal history that the savior or the nurse tries to disguise.
“From an early age, we feel the vital need to be safe, to be loved and to have a place in life.
If the parents respond to it naturally, it happens that an unfortunate event - divorce or illness for example - comes to shake up the benchmarks and the configuration of this family pattern, ”underlines the psychiatrist Christophe Fauré.
To face it, and prevent his whole universe from being shaken by it, the child then develops "a strategy of affront".
To be worthy of his efforts and love, I had to make some sacrificesChloé, 27
After her parents separated when she was 6, Chloe had to take it upon herself to take care of her father.
"When my mother left, he was constantly anxious, and seeing the chaotic pace that our lifestyle was taking, I had the impression that he was overwhelmed," recalls the young woman.
Dishes, laundry, meal preparation… Despite her young age, she is transformed into “the little woman of the house”, as her father likes to call her.
“These are words that will remain deeply engraved, in particular because they magnify the role carried by the young person, observes the psychiatrist.
And this valorization becomes all the more alienating as it poses the child as a bastion of the well-being and balance of the family.
But a child's shoulders will always be too small to support adult problems.
Listen: the editorial staff podcast
Mourning the past
Years later, to the test of the couple, a new defeat seems unthinkable for those who suffer from this syndrome.
“Once an adult, we replay the same pattern to, somewhere, make it evolve, underlines Béatrice Demon, psychotherapist.
The primary goal is to finally declare victory in the face of this past ambition, when in reality, we should rather mourn it”.
By playing the savior, I felt like I was indispensablephilippe, 58 years old
Philippe took this step, in particular via psychotherapy.
“I realize today that committing to relieve a third person is not an act of generosity, he judges.
By playing the saviors, I felt like I was indispensable.
It was a way of building a rampart around our relationship, of protecting it.”
And to add: “It was also a way of giving me the beautiful role.
By seeing women who had suffered unfortunate experiences with men, I also intended to restore a soiled masculine image.
find freedom
Are these relationships thus constructed necessarily doomed to failure?
Béatrice Demon considers that it is indeed impossible to save the other, but that it "is possible to save oneself", she maintains.
More nuanced, the psychiatrist Christophe Fauré considers love to be “fertile ground”, provided that it is nurtured by healthy and clairvoyant people.
He insists: “The right words chosen by the partner can change the perspective that the nurse has of himself and of the relationship.
These can be very simple, such as "I love you for who you are, and you don't have to bend over backwards to deserve this love".
(1) Christophe Fauré is the author of
Now or Never!
The transition of the living environment
, Ed.
Albin Michel, 336 pages, 18 euros.
The editorial staff advises you
"Women would want to make love more if the mental load didn't crush their desire so much"
Childhood terrors, insomnia, libido: when men go to the shrink (and the couple toasts)
The heightened emotion, the unsuspected strength of the hypersensitive