Relationships: Do Some Men’s Childhood's Set Them Up To Develop A Saviour Complex?

While there are some men who offer their assistance when it is needed, there are others who have a different approach. Here, it is not going to be enough for a man to offer their hand from time to time, they will need to take things further.

An Identity

A man can believe that it is not only down to them to save others; they can also believe that it is up to them to save the world. As a result of this, their whole life is likely to revolve around being there for others in one way or another.

Their need to be there for others is going to be far more important than their need to be there for themselves. In fact, they might act as though they don’t even have their own needs; there is then going to be no reason for them to focus on themselves.

Larger Than Life

Through being this way, this man is likely to come across as strong and highly capable, and this means that they might have a lot of charisma. So, even if they are not famous, they could still come across as someone who is.

This man could be a manger at a big company or even a CEO, or he could be found at a lower level. Still, regardless of what he does, his presence will often have a big effect on others.

Needless

When it comes to the people in his life, they may often come across as being incapable and as though they can’t handle life by themselves. This is not going to be a problem though, as this man will generally be on hand to assist them.

If they are in a relationship, they could also be with a woman (or a man), who has a lot in common with these people. This is then not going to be a woman who is able to stand on her own two feet.

Emotional Detached

Along with how this man behaves, there is also the chance that he will come cross as being more rational than emotional. Thus, if he is in a relationship, he could be with a woman who is highly emotional.

Being this way is going to make it easier for him to think clearly and to come up with different solutions to other people’s problems. The downside to this is that it is likely to be hard for him to experience intimacy.

Deep Down

There could be moments when he thinks about how it is up to him to make other people’s lives better; it could be as if he is the chosen one. He is then going to be like some kind of superhero; the only difference is that he won’t have any kind of super power.

The feedback that he receives from others can fill him with energy, so he might not feel as though he needs anything else. Taking all this into account, it can seem as though this man is the epitome of a well-adjusted human being.

One Big Facade

If someone was able to look right into the centre of this man’s being, what they may find is that how he comes across has very little in common with how he feels at a deeper level. He is then going to have a lot in common with a superhero who losses all their power when their suit comes off.

In this instance, the man would lose all his power if he was to let go of the mask that he wears. What this will show is that this mask is a way for him to compensate for how he feels deep down.

Conflict

On one side, he can feel as though he is different or ‘special’, while on the other side, he can feel as though he is worthless, completely powerless, and impotent. Due to this, it will be normal for him to believe that his value is based on what he does and not on who he is.

Therefore, the only way that it is going to be possible for him to feel good about himself is to do things for others. His worth will have been externalised, which is why he acts like a human doing and not a human being.

What’s going on?

When a man experiences life in this way, it can be the result of what took place during his early years. During this time, he might have had a father who was either emotionally unavailable or physically absent.

What this would then have done is caused his mother to look to him to fulfil the needs that his father should have fulfilled. He would then have had to fulfil his mother’s needs, as opposed to his mother fulfilling his needs.

Emotional Incest

His mother wouldn’t have seen him as a separate human being; he would have been seen as an object that was there to fulfil her needs. He would then have had no other choice than to disconnect from his true-self and to create a false-self.

The saviour complex that he has as an adult is then something that he had to develop as a young child in order to survive. Said another way, his desire to save others is simply an indirect way for him to save the mother that lives within him.

An Impossible Task

Being treated in this way as a child would have falsely empowered him, and set him up to believe that it was his responsibility to solve other people problems. Ultimately, it wasn’t up to him to fulfil his mother’s needs; he was a young boy who needed love, care and nurturance, not to be his mothers surrogate husband.

His mother took advantage of him, but this doesn’t mean that she did this knowingly. There is the chance that she was also used in the same way by her father (or mother) when she was younger, with this making it more or less impossible for her to open her heart to another adult.

A Hard Nut to Crack

One of the big problems with this kind of abuse is that is can be extremely hard to identify. For one thing, a man can come be confident and a high-achiever, and as he won’t have been hit or sexually abused, he can believe that he wasn’t abused.

He can then believe that there was nothing wrong with his childhood, or he can just blame his father for not being there. Additionally, a man can have the need to stay loyal to his mother and to protect her, and this can stop him from being able to face up to what happened and to embrace his true feelings.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this, and he is ready to let go of this role, he may need to reach out for external support. This can take place with the assistance of a therapist or a healer.