psychological somersaults

"...Love is scary. We can be hurt; the lover has power over us; we need to be #1 in his/her life. How does someone become so important in our emotional life? In the same way The Little Prince loved his rose bush (Saints-Exupery, 1943). It's a neat part of the story; I'll summarize: The Little Prince lived on a tiny planet all his own. He had only one rose bush. He loved it. It was so beautiful, it gave him so much pleasure. He remembers tenderly planting the little bush in his richest soil, building a fence to protect it and a trellis to hold it, trimming it and watering it every day. With pride he watched his rose bush grow into a healthy, mature rose bush which faithfully produced beautiful blossoms year after year. Then he went to another planet, Earth, and saw thousands of roses, much bigger and more beautiful than his one little bush. At first, he felt foolish for having liked his rose bush so much. After all, there was nothing special about his bush. Then he realized he didn't love his rose bush for its bigness or its outstanding beauty, he loved it because he had personally cared for his bush and because so much of his time and pleasure had been with only one rose bush, "his" roses. Like the Little Prince, we hurt when we lose "our" love. The hurting doesn't necessarily mean we lack confidence or that we believe we possess the other person; it means we are human, we long for things we have lost." Taken from this web article.