5 sure signs of true love

«Why are you still with him (her)?» How many times have we asked this question to friends stuck in painful love relationships, how many times have we thought about what makes people cling to their burdensome connection … Oh no, this is not love. But then what is love? A feeling that can make us happy forever? Of course not, answers psychoanalysis. Love, if it is real, does not give serenity. Even when the initial delight from the merging of souls subsides, contrary to popular belief, she does not calm down — she excites and shocks us, mysteriously weaving two destinies into a single plot that defies logic. Let’s take a look at some of its facets.

1. Feel the secret in the other

Love is a mystery both for those who are seized by it and for those who become its witnesses. We see it, we feel it, but we don’t understand it. Why? Yes, because the bonds that bind us to a loved one are inexplicable. To the one we truly love, we are attracted not only by his appearance (beauty, resemblance to someone) and not only by the images or values ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthat he symbolizes for us (father, mother, power, money), but by the mystery, that we feel in it. It is impossible to call it words, but it seems to be addressed to everything that we ourselves secretly keep in our souls: longing for what we did not receive in childhood, some kind of unaccountable suffering … “Two people, even merging in a single feeling, nevertheless remain separate people — each with their own inner world, their own secret,” says analytical psychotherapist Galina Berezovskaya.

“Love affects that part of our personality that is unfamiliar to ourselves,” explains psychoanalyst Patrick Lamboulet. — In the soul of each of us lies a particle of destructive emptiness that can destroy us. Love is nothing but the meeting of two sufferings, two imperfections. In love, we share with another person what is painfully lacking in ourselves. True love is expressed not by asking, «Give me what you have and what I lack,» but rather by confessing, «I love the path you found to healing, the way you deal with your trouble.»

And here the legend of “two halves” has absolutely nothing to do with it, according to which love, connecting us into a perfect whole, thereby makes us happy! — When a person notices that, despite a love relationship, he still feels some dissatisfaction with life, he may decide that he simply has not found «his soul mate» and should change his partner. But this, of course, is not the case.» To truly love means to admit: «I’m interested in you.»

2. Be afraid to lose him

To love means to be afraid. And constantly. In his work The Dissatisfaction with Culture, Freud explains it this way: we fall into dependence on the other because we constantly need him to support us in our existence. Hence the fear of loss.

“Love involves risk,” explains philosopher and psychoanalyst Monica Schneider. — This feeling is dizzying, sometimes we are even drawn to reject it, push it away: a person, fearing the power of his love, can destroy it or diminish its significance, plunging into affairs that will strengthen his self-sufficiency. All this is to protect ourselves from the frightening power over us of another person.

After all, as Freud emphasized, Eros and Thanatos are inseparable: I love you — I destroy you. Eros is our desire to connect with each other in a loving feeling; Thanatos is the death drive that pushes us to break this connection so that our «I» remains omnipotent. And since love takes us beyond ourselves, our «I» fights with it.

“It’s hard to give up on yourself,” explains psychoanalyst Jean-Jacques Moskowitz. “Love always brings pain. It touches our very being—what we are in this world. Only a few realize this. Once alone, they enjoy it because they feel protected from the love-related impulse of death. But if we manage to overcome the torments and strife of love, we enter into a different, wonderful space, where the feeling is revealed with renewed vigor.

True love is not a business contract. Her fury is a danger to both partners. We should not forget about this if we are visited by doubts, if it seems that we have been “out of love”. If the other tries to pull away, it does not always mean that he does not love. Perhaps he is just afraid of losing himself.

3. Willingness to go into the unknown

In love, nothing is predetermined. “None of us can either guarantee the constancy of mutual feelings, or predict the future life and development of relationships with a loved one,” says Galina Berezovskaya. We habitually believe that passion first flares up and then declines predictably, but this is just a prejudice. Love in its development can also go in an ascending direction.

“Having fallen in love, we enter a world in which will and reason are not in power,” adds Monika Schneider. — And on this way we will have to go through completely different segments. Of course, having once soared to the heights of happiness, then by contrast we can feel that we are falling into the abyss. But if we are convinced in advance that love is always unreliable, this only means that our past prevents us from believing in ourselves and in another person. To truly love, one must almost believe in a miracle. Freud speaks of expectation filled with faith. It is necessary to maintain a fire that can flare up again without requiring an immediate outbreak. Embrace the unknown, be patient…

4. Feel desire

There is no doubt: to love a person means to desire him. Moreover, confirms Jean-Jacques Moskowitz: “Physical intimacy really helps us to love. Without an exchange of caresses in love, something important remains unfulfilled. Lovers who love each other deeply enjoy sex in a special way. In the act of love, the difference between the sexes disappears: the two merge into one. Their members themselves are no longer given independent value — lovers in moments of passion have one body for two. Pleasure is all-conquering.» Without love, we can find relaxation in sex, relieve tension with pleasure, but in order to fully enjoy, you need to love for real. “When we love, we reach other heights of pleasure,” confirms Galina Berezovskaya.

And if desire weakens, does this mean the end of love? Not at all, Galina Berezovskaya is sure: “There are happy moments when it is enough for us that the beloved exists, that he simply is.”

However, there are women who separate love from sexual desire outside of such moments of blissful contemplation. “It’s not that their feelings are weaker,” explains Jean-Jacques Moskowitz. — Against. They are afraid that, indulging in love too selflessly, they can disappear into it. In all likelihood, they are fettered by some unresolved problem of childhood, an ideal of love that is too closely connected with the image of the father. Experiencing a strong feeling, these adult women seem to become little girls again … and what is happening is more like incest. For them, the image of the father comes to the fore, perhaps as a defense against the fear of dissolving in physical intimacy.

Such women seek refuge in love-adoration and are wary of sexual relations. They allow themselves to be tamed only gradually, passing through the stage of a less intimate physical connection — hugs that allow you to surround your loved one with caress, as if carrying him inside you. And when the desire returns, the sex drive inevitably follows. The ebb and flow of love never stops in its perpetual motion.

5. Feel the fullness of life

“To be loved is to feel that you have the right to exist,” said the philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre. True love is a unique feeling of the justification of one’s being in this world, it is an illusion that our love is the only one. Love returns us to the position of a child, confident in his omnipotence, convinced that if he were not in the world, the world would lack something important.

By choosing each other, we make the other one the chosen one. In making a distinction between true love and loving-kindness for the good of one’s neighbor, Freud uses the biblical theme of the Chosen One, the Messiah. In love, we endow the other with special significance. We recognize its indisputable importance: we respect it, we appreciate it, we believe that it is irreplaceable. We made a find, found a treasure. We are no longer alone in the world.

Another person brings us his world, openness to other horizons, feelings that we did not experience with such vivacity before meeting him. We seem to be awakening to a new life. We have a sense of security — because he was able to see our value. “Love helps to find the meaning of existence,” sums up Galina Berezovskaya. “When we truly love, we feel more strongly that we are alive.”

* Plato «Dialogues» (ABC Classics, 2007).