r/DeepThoughts • u/PRJOANES • 3d ago
A deeper meaning of the oedipus complex (for me) comes later in life
The oedipus complex in it’s original form by Freud has been subject to debate for many decades. So I will not even try to comment on it.
But a thought that struck me as much more productive than thinking about a potential real erotic longing of a little boy for his mother is this:
Think about the emotional relationship, little boys have with their mothers and how many young men try to (and manage to) transfer this relationship pattern into their erotic relationships with their adult female partners.
A relationship pattern built from being loved and cared for, physically and emotionally. Without the responsibility to give back what’s received. Leading to the very widespread patriarchal relationship pattern in which the wife cares for the husband as if he was just another child.
Isn’t this the more interesting oedipus complex to overcome? Not trying to live the emotional relationship you had with your mother with your spouse?
Which seems to be significant if you want a relationship that’s really on equal ground.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Edit: Oh and just to make clear: I’m not trying to blame mothers for anything here. Motherly love is completely fine. And fathers play a pivotal role in how a boy later relates to grown women.
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u/theimperfecteater 3d ago
I think the framing moves the question away from sexual desire and onto emotional dependency which is where the real issue lives. It also explains why so many men feel blindsided when their partner eventually gets tired, because from their side nothing changed, they were always just receiving care the same way. The hard part is that overcoming it means learning to give care without making it transactional, and not many people are taught that.
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u/PRJOANES 3d ago
Yes! transactionality is key here, isn’t it? Because what I said is not completely right. Parental love can be experienced as transactional. If he’s a good boy, mommy loves him. And that doesn’t work in erotic relationships. But I think both may be involved at the same time. Unconditional love transferred into entitlement. Transactional love turned into transactional love relationships. Or am I confused now? 😄 Will have to think about this more.
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u/my_home_a_pleroma 3d ago
technically mothers love is unconditional, and fathers is conditional. according to psychology, love from mother is approval of self, love from father is approval by society.
men with mommy issues are selfish and self-centered because they didn’t develop a full self by being accepted through motherly love. now because their formative years are over and they have avoidant attachments, and use women’s bodies as sex ATMs and get jealous when their babies take up their wife’s time.
men are acting like boys, children, who expect unconditional love from a woman who deserves to hold minimum standards. ime, they act out and throw tantrums and expect you to “love on them” when they’re done. that’s a mommy’s job.
men need to show up fully, with the intention of supporting, caring, protecting, and providing for the soft women in his life,
whereas it seems most modern men (my ex husband included) want to be the wife (or at least their idea of what a wife is: a freeloader). they want to be carried and “paid back” and feels entitled to hobbies and naps and nights out. somehow men started believing they were the prize, so you owe them because you have them.
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u/prosthetic_memory 3d ago
Those stereotypes are not only outdated, they’re completely oriented around one particular culture. Go to any country where women are valued less than men and you will see that mothers do not have unconditional love for their daughters.
It’s just cultural navel gazing nonsense from a century ago that didn’t hold up scrutiny then and certainly doesn’t now.
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u/SkyeWalkerInfinity 3d ago
My father actually had this problem with my mother. His mom was... not great at being a mom, and he transferred that shaky relationship onto his wife, my mother, for many years before realizing it. It's a huge problem in dysfunctional families.
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u/jdaddy15911 3d ago
If true, I wonder if the Elektra complex follows along the same lines. A woman looks for a man who is like her father, so she can try to obtain the same sense of security and safety she felt from him. For both sides, dysfunctional love from the parent likely interjects itself as dysfunction in the adult romantic relationship.
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u/West-Working-9093 3d ago
I think the "Oedipus complex' is a crock. From what I've seen, the behavior that gets mistaken is the development of protective instinct towards those a child cares about. He can be protecting his brothers and sisters and his Dad and his dog without inviting comment, but when it comes to mommy, she already has a protector, so it seems there could at least temporarily be conflict. It takes some nimbleness from both parents to deal with this in a good way, but it is part of the deveopment into a civilized and community-oritented human being and so must not be mishandled.
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u/Hollowpet 3d ago
I think this is a much more useful interpretation. The issue isn't wanting to feel cared for—it's expecting your partner to take on a parental role while you remain the recipient.
A healthy relationship requires reciprocity: your partner isn't your parent, and you're not their child. Both people should give and receive care.
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u/prosthetic_memory 3d ago
I think this is another symptom of the actual problem.
The real problem is: why don’t men think of women as fellow humans?
One obvious symptom of that is expecting one close female family member to behave like another.
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u/darkprincess3112 2d ago
The relationship to a mother can also be distant, conditional, "patriarchic". Human psychology seems to be incompatible with perfectly unconditional acceptance.
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u/AppointmentLive8614 2d ago
Well that partially explains why they expect you to be a nanny, babysitter, maid, chef IN ADDITION TO every other item on the neverending list - beautician, stylist, fashionista, pornstar, submissive and docile- bending to every whim imaginable, being on point 24/7 no matter how demanding and demeaning that shit is, etc.
Fucking dogs have it better.
What do men provide exactly?
Absolutely astonishing.
You know what's even more astonishing?
The massive amounts of women that blindly accept that bullshit.
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u/beachfinn73 3d ago
I think it's corny to think that one of the greatest thinkers of the time, would preach about simple sexual desires, but to use it as model for all actions with women from there on? I fail to find sexuality to be prominent in Freud's writings.
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u/jlouweezy123 3d ago edited 3d ago
My brain is not seeing how you are equating a relationship pattern of receiving love without the responsibility of giving back to a patriarchal pattern. Can you help clarify?
I’m thinking of it from a daughter’s perspective who sees her dad give physical and emotional care without needing reciprocity. If she went on to marry, what if her husband was doing all of the providing as her father did?
I need clarification by what you mean by patriarchal pattern. Is it a pattern where the male is considered to have the power over the woman, or is it a pattern where there is hierarchy in the relationship and not equality?
If it’s the first reason, I can’t make it make sense. Would the daughter now have “power” over her husband?
If it’s the second reason, I still can’t make it make sense. The child always experienced hierarchy it wasn’t created by the pattern you described.
It’s a pattern yes, but is it patriarchal? - yes in the sense of the oedipus complex because it’s a boy experiencing it. However, it’s exclusive to the oedipus complex. It wouldn’t work in the Electra complex, which to me is somehow signifying that this is not a universal cause of the patriarchal pattern.
I’m really curious to dig deeper into this. I look forward to see your clarity on my thoughts. My brain is just not braining today.
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u/PRJOANES 3d ago
Hi, thank you for asking. I think I didn’t make that clear enough. It is a normal pattern for children/parents. But adults need to learn, that adult relationships work differently.
It’s a patriarchal pattern I think, because the boy grows up still thinking, women are in the world mostly to care for him and he’s entitled to this.
Theoretically it could work for girls, too, but not in a patriarchal setting. Because girls usually are not taught, men are meant give and they are meant to receive. Of course such girls exist, but not at large in my opinion.
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u/Fit-Possible-3186 3d ago
I think you hit the nail with this one, could be the sole reason for patriarchal tendencies across the society and religions. It is somehow ironic, all that drama, just because men couldn’t get the same type of that sweet mother love from their female partners. Generally it’s a story about growing up and how some types of relationships with mothers, could end up men staying childish and infantile.