Altruistic Surrender

I am Mishri Sharma, a 27 year old interior designer. My husband Rohit, 30 years old, also an interior designer works in a leading architect firm of the city. The problem is that Rohit is a very insipid man. He is no longer the dashing go-getter that I had known in college. He has become rather inconspicuous. What is surprising is that he still comes up with a lot of brilliant ideas but he hold others responsible for whatever good is happening to him. He takes a very affectionate interest in guiding others about their work but is unable to do so for himself. As a result while others progress, he is left in the same position with no advantages. How can I help him? Please advise.

Your husband is suffering from a characteristic called as altruistic surrender. It helps him form valuable positive attachments and consolidate his relationships with others at the cost of fulfillment of desires for the self. Here he would have a lot of desires and demands; he would desire to do everything better than others and be admired for his cleverness. He would be self-centred and therefore be a nuisance because of the urgent and insatiable nature of his desires. But all this is transformed into an unassuming character and modest life-style. This is a total contrast to the internal desires.

There is little sign of envy or ambition and he would compete with other people only if forced to do so by external circumstances. It looks as if his life is emptied of interests and wishes and put into lives of others for whom he expended his energies. He lives the lives of others instead of having experiences of his own. He has surrendered his desires in the gratification of the same for others. This attitude has various factors associated with it. It takes away the envy of people who are better than him because he does not desire anything himself. Therefore, there is no scope for envy. Secondly, it provides a focus for the gratification of all those desire that he considers for himself and knows that he might not be able to fulfill because of the lack of qualifications. So in order to fulfill the desires, he puts them onto others who can fulfill them. He surrenders his own aspirations in the favor of a person better qualified than him. Having made this renunciation, he devotes his strength, his courage and his brains to the service of the more fortunate person and does all he can to help him to attain his desire.

How can you help?

The mechanism guiding the behavior is his fear of failure and his self-image. You will have to address these issues with him. You will have to help him address his own desires and his own experiences rather than the vicarious ones. If he is scared to look at his desires in the full form, he can be motivated to do so in a sublimated form – meaning to achieve them slowly and in a lesser strength but nevertheless achieve them for himself. The second thing you will have to do is to address his self-image. You will have to remind him of those days when he himself was dashing and fulfilling his desires. At the moment you might be doing the opposite.

Reminding him of his present day failures and insipidity would only serve to reinforce his concept that he is not capable of achievement. On the contrary you will have to remind him of his achievements. You will have to dilute his self-criticism by making the fulfillment of his desires attractive to him. The third thing which you will have to do is to decrease his adherence to the fulfillment of desires rather than working for the advancement of the self. At the moment, Rohit has separated the person from the desire. As a result he is ready to work for the fulfillment of desires even if it means benefiting others at the cost of the time and energy that he would rather spend on himself. You will have to remind him gently that a desire is important only as far as the person is concerned. Lastly, for a temporary period, you might imitate him in the sense that you start putting your desires on him and work to fulfill them for him. This will help him understand the state of others and you will be a model for him to understand his state.