A crazy person cannot survive with a "normal" person. There is something about goodness of fit when it comes to relationships. It helps when one of the two never go crazy at the same time. And when one of the partners starts to heal, the other will do his or her best to keep one in a state of madness by creating chaos - or, what I like to call, crazy making behaviors.
Folie a Duex
I remember reading in the diagnostic manual of psychology of a condition called Folie a Duex - a madness shared by two. In this illness, the healthy person to survive in a relationship with a mentally ill person (especially one who is delusional) that one must adapt to the madness and literally become mad oneself. After a while, it is hard to distinguish who was the crazy one and who was the sane one because the relationship itself becomes insane.
My Way or the Highway
When one pushes the insane one, it become apparent that one has to accomodate and join in the delusion or one has to leave. There is no compromise with madness. There is only an agreement to join in the journey into madness or to escape to a place that is more safe and closer to the consensus reality of the larger culture.
People who are crazy are exciting.
Once one has been in a relationship with one who is truly insane, it is impossible to find anything as exciting ever again. While it might be more peaceful, life is never as interesting. Madness has a magic to it that cannot be compared to the dull reality that the majority of people express. Only the very strong can go on this roller coaster ride through life. The weak sneak away to quieter places and less intense pleasures. The brave wear their battle scars with honor and learn to walk a path less traveled.
folie a deux - a definition
Folie a deux is the situation where a paranoid delusional system appears to have developed in a person as a result of a close relationship with another person who has an established and similar delusional system.
This condition is rare and is usually seen in two people who are members of the same family. Generally there is a dominant partner with fixed delusions who appears to induce similar delusions in a dependent or suggestible partner. This sometimes will occur after initial resistance. Usually the two people have lived together for a long time in close intimacy. There is often isolation from the outside world.
The delusions of the second person quickly weaken if the two are separated.
