The withdrawal of romantic projections also gives him the power to see woman as she is, to relate to her and value her as a person rather than as the carrier of his lost soul and of his unlived life. It opens the possibility of relating to a woman as an individual, as an equal, as a being in her own right. It enables him to begin to know her as she is, in all her complexity, in all her strengths and gifts—so different from his own and yet so necessary for his world. Strangely, most men react to this stage of romantic love—this breaking of the spell—as though it were a great misfortune! It is
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