… and seeks its match throughout life. The self yearns for love, this unique trait of the human species to fall in love. Through love, we hope to fulfill vital needs: for admiration, care, support, belonging, so that our foundation of security can become a springboard for our own fulfillment, allowing us to move an entire universe, as Archimedes said. Although we know well what we want, we stumble in finding and maintaining healthy relationships in a contemporary world that facilitates numerous romantic connections. This paradox of the impossibility of closeness can be understood in at least two ways: economically and psychologically.
A significant part of the anxiety related to romantic relationships is caused by the rapid and intense economic and political shifts that have not taken into account our natural pace of adjusting to new behavioral patterns, values, or goals. We were not gently guided through education and, therefore, have been left without the training to discern between external expectations and our own. Practically, we have absorbed romantic consumerism and high standards without question, under the imperative of 'you must like it, it’s good for you,' and we have found ourselves disoriented, flooded with possibilities, with more freedom than ever, and of course, with tons of choices but also with much insecurity and many self-doubts that paralyze us.
From the certainty given by clear partner selection rules (the criteria being heredity, material status, and proximity), today everything operates under the principle of 'do whatever you want, as long as it makes you happy!' which brings with it the fear of making mistakes, the obligation to be happy, and total responsibility for one’s own life. This revs up our internal engines of self-devaluation and implants doubts and suspicions about the other: 'what if I could be happier with someone else and I’m settling for so little?' Let’s consider that today we no longer divorce because we are unhappy. Often, we divorce because we think we could be much happier. We have brought optimization and market economy principles into the romantic sphere. 'Is it a good deal? What else can I find out there in the world?'
Where we once raised our children (a kind of economic asset for much of history and an important help in work) in individualistic capitalism centered on the self, the relationship is the pinnacle of fulfillment.
A pinnacle where we expect the other to look into our inner life, to mirror us in ways we don’t know how to, to help us grow, to dissolve our existential isolation through the unification of our selves, and to achieve a complete 'we' that combats the increasingly prevalent loneliness of the modern era. It is very good to have such hopes, but we forget that these societal ideals do not align with the times: today's men have not been educated to grasp emotional subtleties, and many women do not express their sensuality because it is still associated with shame or the label of being a 'loose woman.' Without these realizations, we won’t have the patience to build the couple’s relationship at a leisurely pace, with gentle expectations, away from the neoliberal narrative that imposes immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness at all costs, perpetually searching for Prince Charming or Princess Ileana.
The obsessive quest for perfection makes us unhappy. We frantically scour dating apps, hoping that we will 'find him/her' and lose the ability to be in relationships with ordinary people, to see their good parts, and to maturely acknowledge that no one can have everything, even if we get a few gray hairs, as happens when two different pasts dance together for the first time. But this way, we have the chance to look at the person in front of us without the fairy tale filters that were handed to us in the past and to decide, lucidly, whether he or she meets our own system of needs and values.
Here is a set of healthy questions, also explained in couple therapy, designed to clarify our fears:
Behind the desire to meet the 'perfect person' may lie a dramatic past where our needs for affection, stability, support, and care were neglected. In such cases, the corresponding defense mechanism – escaping into fantasy – was activated to help us get through an emotional desert and somehow fulfill ourselves in the imaginary realm, constructing an archetype of a good parent, a fictitious character, whom we hope to find later on to fulfill our needs. It’s like pitching a tent in the middle of the room; this mechanism served to protect us and keep us sane. Dissociating from harsh reality through imagination, selective memory of the past (remembering only the positive things), and partial childhood amnesia are all elements that lead us into adulthood with fantastical ideals. We end up unable to see what is in front of us, constantly focusing on what can be changed and only thinking about how wonderful the future will be when he/she transforms. We project qualities onto them that they do not possess and are afraid to face the disappointing reality.
This adaptive mechanism, through which we constructed an ideal life partner, might have been the driving force that helped us escape from home and gave us the wings to seek them out. However, later on, no one seems to match the image in our minds or fill the voids from our past.
Therapy helps us understand that what was not given to us back then cannot have the same effect now and cannot replace the essential years of childhood. It’s like believing that compulsive shopping can substitute for the shame of having worn-out clothes during the magical years. To put it bluntly, the past cannot be compensated for, and neither a partner nor social status will heal the wounds of our destiny or provide what we needed to grow confident, carefree, and balanced.
Couples therapy can clarify the wounds that stand between us as partners and prevent us from meeting in the present we live in. In therapy, our inner child learns that what was lost cannot be recovered. It’s not easy to acknowledge the lack of love, our disproportionate reactions to concrete situations, but we can develop an inner parent’s voice to take care of us and guide us forward.
After realizing that I didn’t receive the love I needed as a child and fled into a mind that created scenarios to cope, another emotional escape occurred. Specifically, when we recognize intense emotions that are hard to control, which can make us lose control or when we have symbiotic relational needs that put us in the position of asking for or receiving help, we escape into rationalization and find cold explanations. We flee from attachment. From a young age, in early childhood, we learned to rely only on ourselves, to fend for ourselves, and when we place our hope in others, we won't get exactly what we asked for, as in the past. The burden of this 'I can manage alone' is that we have to succeed on our own, to prove our hypothesis.
The lack of commitment was greatly supported by the sexual liberalization of the modernist era. Monogamy means being with one person at a time, not with one person for life, as it used to be. Today, we only talk about exclusivity for a certain period of time. The awareness that it is so easy to enter and exit relationships always keeps us with one foot outside the relationship. We have a comforting thought next to us, like a cup of sweet milk, whispering that we won't be abandoned and we won't suffer (as it happened in the past parental relationship) because we always have a Plan B to provide us with psychological comfort. The hidden cost is self-sabotage; we can no longer develop and evolve in a relationship. We can no longer develop new skills for management and reach deeper levels in a mature relationship. We choose loneliness, which may seem like a soothing tea, but it’s damn bitter.
The fear of attachment projects the opposite sex as untrustworthy, capable of causing harm, so they should be avoided, and if we do enter a relationship, we make sure to emphasize all the inadvertencies to convince ourselves that it’s not right. The pursuer-followed dyad emerges where we seek to assign difficult tasks for them to perform, then criticize them for minor mistakes in a disproportionate manner.
The trap we set for ourselves is unconsciously choosing exactly the wrong people to convince ourselves that we are right and that there is no one good enough for us in this world. Compulsive repetition can be resolved in therapy to cultivate trust in our ability to overcome difficulties and separations without collapsing. It's like saying we can't enjoy the sunrise because we know it will set. Or that if we don't get involved, we won't have to separate, so we remain on the sidelines, but deprive ourselves of the most important gifts of personal development.
It's not easy to accept that there are no guarantees in life, that everything is fragile, and that unpleasant, disastrous, and painful things can happen to anyone, anytime. But this means giving up innocence and naivety for adequate emotional maturity, robust maturity. It's as if the mind tells us not to enjoy the love offered to us because it's not eternal, and we will suffer, so it’s better to remain unhappy all our lives, hiding under the covers.
Regaining trust in ourselves and in each other is achieved through couples therapy. Today, 'we have a thousand relationships and virtual friends and none to feed our cat when we're away.' We've lost strong, sincere connections, deep conversations. We're afraid to enter a relationship, whether it's a friendship or to stay long enough for feelings of belonging, trust, and firm friendship to develop. In couples therapy, we learn to listen without judgment, to listen to each other's fears and wounds, to speak from our perspective, not to blame each other. Listening is something we rarely do these days. We write to each other a lot, but we've forgotten what intimacy sounds like in each other's voices.
We also learn that the relationship is a separate entity that exists between us, the two partners. It’s us and our relationship with our communion. For its sake, we avoid filling it with insults, punishments because it’s the product of our interaction, built by both of us, with its own dynamics where each contributed 50%, so the 'blame' is shared. Understanding this aspect, we think more about the common entity we created, which mirrors both behaviors, and we are more cautious about blurting out everything that comes to mind, as if we are absolved of any guilt. We will pay attention to what we ask for, what we give, what we receive, and what we refuse.
We will formulate from the perspective of our belief:
When you did X, I felt very bad, and I ask that in the future, you do Y. – Bringing a solution so that the other understands what we want.
Therapy helps us look at our own relationships and distinguish between those with a solid foundation that can easily regenerate, vibrant, and those in clinical death, barely surviving (the living dead). Relationships are what gives us the most meaning, joy, and trust. Because, after all, the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.
