Carlos Peguer and Mariang Maturana, better known as La Pija and La Quinqui - nicknames that in turn give their podcast their name - began their meteoric journey with a chapter called
We are bridge girls.
We are talking about a term, also known as 'workshop girl', that many were unaware of until that moment and that pushed many listeners to see themselves recognized in it.
“Bridge girls are the ones who reform toxic men, emotionally inaccessible and in stages of sexual frenzy, to turn them into good people, in love and faithful (with the next person they are with, of course, not with us),” they explain. .
A footnote: the bridge person does not understand gender, since anyone can become the emotional gateway for a couple.
“Being a bridge girl implies the existence of an engineer boy: you know that he hurts you, but the other ignores it, because for him you are a work of engineering that will take him from one place to another.
It's something that happens a lot on Temptation Island,” explains Peguer.
They comment that it is not strange to go out with someone and after breaking up the relationship, discover through social networks that they are with another person.
“Obviously, nothing happened with you, because you didn't exist in his imagination.
"He will be happy with his new partner: they are going to live together, they have adopted a poodle and they are leading the life he wanted to lead with someone who is not you," they say.
Painful?
Very painful.
Usual?
More than it might seem.
Workshop or bridge people help others move from one stage of their life to another, providing learning, changes and lessons along the way.
If there is no constant and honest communication, they find themselves in a situation of imbalance, since the other is not in the same emotional situation, so when they cross the catwalk and head to their next relationship, frustration can invade whoever they are. After having invested time and emotions in another person, he discovers that the improved version of his now ex is in the arms of another person.
“If you have the feeling of having been a bridge person, it is because of the frustration of feeling that the relationship did not work out with you, but that it did work out with another person.
It is also because we think that we are not valuable enough to be the person chosen, that what we had was not convincing enough for him to stay with us, that we did not know how to make it work, that he did not love us enough... In reality, these They are totally biased conclusions that we can fall into,” explains Montse Cazcarra, author of
Amor Sano, Amor del Bueno.
Bridge people come into this relationship to fix what is broken in the other, and by healing their wounds, they leave them perfectly renewed and prepared for their next relationship.
The painful thing is that in this new stage he will behave as the bridge person wanted.
So it is common to have the feeling of having invested time, energy and emotional resources in trying to get our partner to change certain aspects, so it is not unusual to feel like a kind of Formula 1 box in an emotional key.
Psychologist Laura Morán wants to point out that having made an effort to make the relationship work and considering that we have implemented changes that have resulted in clear improvements in the other, we assume that our actions will facilitate pairing again and having an idyllic relationship with someone. that you will enjoy those advances.
“However, it is a trap in our head, because we do not know if the next couple will have our same needs.
Imagine that you have managed to make him an organized person or that he exercises, but his next partner doesn't care about those aspects.
Let's imagine that we buy a house and put in a paddle tennis court, and the next tenant not only hates paddle tennis, but wants a pool.
Something like this happens in the area of couples.
I would encourage us to ignore this idea that our heads can produce,” warns the author of 'Perfectly imperfecta'.
The illustrator Mamen Diaz has in her work an illustration that perfectly explains what a bridge relationship is.
The copy that accompanies the image?
“You are getting a very nice bridge relationship.”
We contacted her to find out her opinion regarding this type of relationship.
“My impression is that all bridge people do social work that should be paid.
At the same time, I feel great gratitude to all the ex-partners/bridge people who shaped all the good people I have encountered in life in goodness,” she explains.
Her words make us see that we may have been bridge people, but also the beneficiaries of someone who has fulfilled his role.
Montse Cazcarra comments that when it becomes a personal challenge to make our partner change, we insist on achieving it at all costs.
Having invested so much effort—both in terms of time and emotions—we have the feeling of not being able to allow it to be any other way.
“We feel that the reward for our efforts and our tireless fight is none other than that the relationship works.
However, if we do not obtain the reward and if in the end our partner does not stay by our side, we will experience it as a defeat and it will seem unfair: it is another person, who, as if that were not enough, has invested much less time, energy and emotional resources, who will enjoy the fruit of those efforts, the “person our ex-partner is now” and that “prize” that we consider should have been ours.
And this is accompanied by frustration, helplessness, a feeling of injustice, incomprehension regarding our internal logic of deservingness and anger,” says Cazcarra.
A bridge to the light
Psychologist Laura Morán points out that while we are in a relationship, everything we have invested in it may have been beneficial, harmful or harmless, but as long as we have tried to make the changes we needed, it has actually been beneficial for us, because We have actively worked to make the relationship work.
“If the other person accepted, attended to and modified what you needed, you have not wasted your time, because they listened to you, accepted the proposal and tried to change what you needed, because they could modify it.
The problem is that our imagination plays tricks on us and we imagine who he will be with next.
As we tend to compare ourselves, we will imagine that it will be better with the other person and that they will enjoy the improvements, but we are not sure that this will be the case,” explains the psychologist.
It is important to emphasize that, in reality, the bridge relationship does not have to be toxic for the bridge person as long as honesty and communication are involved.
If the other person makes it known that they are not interested in a serious relationship, and the bridge person thinks it is correct, both are implementing a healthy exercise of emotional responsibility.
Whether or not to stay depends on the bridge person.
Let us be those transitions who walk that evolutionary and emotional catwalk, the essential thing is to always be honest with each other so that this sentimental Golden Bridge is devoid of great dramas.