Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships

Mothering Partners of Adult Children

Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships is about people who are determined to get their Peter Pan to grow up. The main theme of the story is the conflict between wanting to remain a child, but knowing that one has to become an adult. We all have to grow up. But more today than ever before we fight it. Fantasy worlds seem safer than the daunting thoughts of taking responsibility for a relationship, a partner, kids or even a family system.

The Peter Pan in the story, much like the real life character, makes decisions based on his desire to remain a child forever, even giving up Wendy and the companionship of the Lost Boys, so that he can stay young and continue to go on wild adventures. Peter represents the desire never to get older and never to mature as a person, but to remain immersed in one’s imagination and sense of play. Divorce rates are soaring as people choose Neverland and the fairy dusted experiences offered there. Fifty two percent of marriages today end, and here is the top two reasons why these marriages and relationships end. One, the male withdraws. This is called sullen withdrawal. He watches television, stops talking, goes drinking or spends as much time away from the family as possible. Two, the female nags. Although, it’s a terrible word, just sit with it for a minute. She tries all she can to push her partner to grow up and take responsibility for the family, the future and the fixing of household objects! Wendys are building a nest and need a partner to contribute. Subtly or not so subtly she insists on getting this nest building done. Oftentimes, it comes across, and is understood as nagging.

Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships portray the female as very maternal, and it is suggested that their role in life should be to nurture children. This is a stereotypical depiction of the role of women in society. There is even a suggestion that Wendy is falling in love with Peter, but he tells her he thinks of her more as a mother figure. Part of Peter’s arrested development, his desire to be a child forever, is also wrapped up in a Freudian conundrum in which he can only see the females in his life as potential mothers. Indeed, it is hinted that his primary trauma, what sent him to Never Land in the first place, was being abandoned by his mother. He fled his pram as a child, and when he returned to his nursery, his mother had closed the window and no longer expected him to come home. Peter’s “mommy issues” are, therefore, at the center of his character, why he has become such a reckless and adventure-seeking character, and why he is always in search of a mother.

Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships can affect both sexes, but it appears more often among men and woman as the story suggests. So don’t get caught up on that issues. It is as close as the metaphor can get to making a point about growing up, owning up and showing up in life!Changing our partners instead of ourselves is the ultimate distraction. It is in fact as bad as being distracted from growing up.

Confusion about roles in the relationships is a no-brainer today. Who should take charge, who should be submissive? Discuss roles in marriage. – it leads to one narcissistic partner and one depressed partner a combination that comes straight from hell. So the first step is to know that you may be in a Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationship.

A marital system is described which features an unfaithful and narcissistic husband, Peter Pan, and a long suffering and depressed wife, Wendy. The dynamics of their individual adjustments are examined as well as the symbiotic nature of the dyadic relationship. This sheltering and overprotection is likely to come across as authorative parenting which is the most damaging type of parenting style. It will be reincarnated to the children. Children do as they see not hear. They watch the fights for domination and control. Dad as Pan, being ruled by Wendy is not a pretty site. Adult babies are ugly. Adult babies are not attractive. 

WENDY AND ENABLING PAN

Here is the enabling bit. Peter can do it – but Wendy does it. This makes him feel incompetent and useless. She calls it love, but it is not love, it may be love addiction, it may be codependence. He sits in front of the tv playing video games, or perhaps golf, as there is no longer game in the world to keep him out of the house and on the playground. 

A defining characteristic of Peter Pan is his insatiable thirst for adventure. More than family, romance, or stability, Peter loves a good challenge. He loves to find adventures and he loves a fair fight. The plot of the play is made up of a series of adventures, usually led by the spritely Peter, and always ending in triumph. Adventure becomes one of the most exhilarating elements and defining characteristics of his curious eternal childhood. While adults must grow up, get educations, pursue careers, and leave spontaneity behind, children have the privilege of going on any number of adventures and living always in the moment.

GRANDMOTHERS ROLES IN THE SYNDROME

So perhaps don’t be a mother to your partner be a partner be a wife, a soul mate and a companioning not a teacher and disciplinarian. Food for thought? Then let’s examine Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships a little further. When Peter asks Wendy to accompany him to Never Land, she brings along her brothers, Michael and John. Then, in Never Land, she meets the Lost Boys, orphans whom Peter had discovered in Kensington Gardens. Wendy immediately acts as a mother to the boys, and they create a makeshift family where there never was one.

Finally, at the end of the story, Wendy begins to miss her parents horribly, and decides to go home, bringing the Lost Boys with her. When her mother hears about the Lost Boys, she offers to adopt them, providing them with a mother and a family. Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships has left how many marriages and relationships broken and in the gutter of love? How many people do we all know, have their grandmothers taking care of the children, lost to the syndrome? Probably every single reader knows a handful of victims.

Adult Responsibility as a theme

A major reason Peter does not want to grow up is because he does not want to assume adult responsibilities, but instead wants to stay a child and have fun. In the beginning of the play, we meet Mr. Darling, a character who is rather comical precisely because he has to assume so many adult responsibilities as the breadwinner of the family. Barrie describes Mr. Darling in terms of his adult responsibility as a working man: “He is really a good man as breadwinners go, and it is hard luck for him to be propelled into the room now, when if we had brought him in a few minutes earlier or later he might have made a fairer impression. In the city where he sits on a stool all day, as fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all the others on stools that you recognise him not by his face but by his stool, but at home the way to gratify him is to say that he has a distinct personality.”

With Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships, overprotection of parents can lead children to develop the Peter Pan Syndrome, given “it usually affects dependent people who have been overprotected by their families and haven’t developed the necessary skills to confront life.” The ‘Peter Pans’ of present society “see the adult world as very problematic and glorify adolescence, which is why they want to stay in that state of privilege.”

Wendy needs to feel empowered and potent. She needs to feel as though she is doing her part and more than her part. Wendys can even be hysterical if they don’t get their way. But the hysteria has nothing to do with maturity. They use tantrums in the same way a child would to get their way. Wendys intentions are in fact good. She is trying to get her Peter Pan to grow up and take responsibility so that she has a strong and capable partner to help her navigate to storms of life. 

Authenticity is the answer when it comes to Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships. Wendy is as immature and insecure as peter. But that’s not a bad thing. Because they are the same, this is vulnerability not weakness. In a relationship you get to grow together, and relate to one another, that’s why its called a relate-sion-ship!

10 Signs that the Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships is alive and Kicking:

·         One partner doesn’t like to continue conversations about adult topics.

·         They live in a dream world with loads of ideas and little or no action ever evolving.

·         They act like the jester or the clown at social events, trying to dodge any adult talk about feelings, growth and their own evolution.

·         They still rely on others, especially parents, to help them make all their decisions.

·         He or she acts like a narcissist, and is self centered.

·         He loves hanging around with the lost boys a little too much.

·         He likes Tinkerbell’s fairy dust and is addicted to substances.

·         They make light of everything to the point of annoyance and never deliver.

·         They are unemployed and can’t hold down a steady job and blame it on bad breaks.

·         Wendy and Peter Pan Syndrome in Relationships is all about Fear of commitment. Staying undecided and always in limbo is a sure sign of a Pan

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