Relationship Dysmorphia

It’s me, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s you?

In relationships people will point to problems in their relationship being all about themselves or all about the other person and in the end, it doesn’t matter one-bit which way they are pointing. All the pointing and discussing, all the effort to resolve things, “deal” with things, make things work and on and on is just a means of managing relationship dysmorphia. The word dysmorphia has become familiar over the past few years in connection with body image. It refers to the fun house mirror way in which some people see themselves. They see fat where they are dangerously skinny, they see flaws where there is symmetry, and on and on and on. It’s not about beauty standards, per se, where people see the reality of themselves, measure it against impossible expectations for physical beauty and fail therefore feel bad about themselves and seek a resolution to what is in reality a manufactured problem. In contrast, dysmorphia is the inability to see the reality of the physical situation: actually seeing fat where there is none, seeing crookedness or blemishes, or imperfections where there are none. This is problematic in itself because they then react to the world in a skewed manner, but worse if they take action to correct perceived failings which aren’t there and even worse as it can warp their self-perception beyond the physical.