Sheer physicality

[MJontheMend]

Hmmm. That's where I am still trying to understand this. To me if you are connected to someone then you would feel sad for them when they are sad about something that affects only them - say something at their workplace upset them. The difference between that and fusion is that if you are fused with the other person you don't feel sad for them, you ARE sad. Also I think it would not be good for a relationship if there was not a connection so that if you saw your spouse sad, you felt NOTHING.

I think that maybe the line of dysfunction is crossed when you in any sense take responsibility for your partner's emotions. It's just natural fo people to feel emotions that other people reflect to some extent(For instance, I am frequently amused when I take my dog for a walk because he's such a funny looking dog that passerbys often start spontaneously chuckling when they see him.)If I examine my own marital fusion dysfunction it would have gone something like - My H suffers from severe anhedonia therefore he doesn't feel like anything would be fun. I would like to do something fun with him like have sex or go to a movie, therefore I need to take responsibility for changing his emotional state in order to get what I want. Clearly, what I needed to do was take responsibility for my own emotional state instead of trying to get a down dog to dance and ending up with bite marks for my trouble. Frankly, I still struggle a bit with trying to figure out to what extent my desire for more sexual or social interaction within a relationship is healthy and what is reflective of my own slightly manic edge - kind of like trying to feed a healthy hunger rather than encouraging a voracious appetite. Another dangerous thing about being slightly manic is that you do attract depressives. I really need to watch out for that. You seem like a very balanced person to me. Do you have a brother? - lol