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Psychoanalyst and sexologist Alain Eril spoke about relationships in a couple, passion and love, strong attraction and its absence at a lecture on October 23, 2015 in Moscow, which was organized with the support of Psychologies. Psychologist Konstantin Karakutsa attended this lecture and summarized its main ideas.
Life in a couple and family is in many ways a cultural phenomenon. It is not inherent in human nature from the very beginning. In addition, our unconscious is not distinguished by fidelity. Loyalty is a choice, as is life with one partner, as is family. Just because we’ve chosen a mate doesn’t mean we won’t be attracted to someone else. Rather, the point is that during our life together with a person, we choose him over and over again when life provides us with some other opportunities to develop relationships.
Pass the tests
- Are you asking too much of your partner?
Attraction is unstable
At the beginning of a relationship, we can experience a very strong attraction to a partner, and it is good when such an attraction is present. After all, it is one of the important prerequisites for rapprochement, the possibility of further deepening relations.
However, it cannot be constant and remain at the same level. It is quite natural that in the process of living together in the 2-3rd year, attraction may weaken, and sometimes even disappear altogether.
Some of us get scared and start looking for a new partner with whom we want to re-experience strong attraction. But is this the way out? For a boy or girl, perhaps yes. But for a person of mature age who has never been married?.. Here you can already think: is he (she) capable of love?
In this case, we can talk about the separation of love and attraction. Love is a constant, but attraction is a variable. In the attraction we experience for one partner, there can be both ups and downs, like on a roller coaster. It is important to learn not to be afraid of the lack of attraction to a partner or to perceive a stronger attraction of one and a weaker one of the other not as a disaster, but as something temporary that can change in the process of further life together.
Read more:
- How to Maintain a Happy Marriage: 6 Simple Solutions
Relationships fade not when we lose attraction to a partner, but when we become indifferent. If we don’t care what happens to the partner, this is the end of the relationship.
In overcoming the crisis of partial or complete loss of attraction, love plays an important role, relying on which partners find hope. And it is this hope that makes it possible to withstand the recession without perceiving it as a catastrophe or as something irreversible. When attraction disappears, love begins its work. When we truly love another, we can tell him, “I don’t need you, but I love you.” Autonomy and maturity of feelings are hidden in these words.
Possessing, do not dominate
One of the undermining aspects of the relationship in a couple of aspects is the struggle for power. It is a fairly common story when one of the partners tries to dominate the other in many ways: brute force, humiliation, depreciation, caring control. There are many possibilities. It also happens when someone intentionally gives away their responsibility / freedom to another: “If we are together, you must do this and that for me … Take care of me … You are a woman – you must … You are a man – you are obliged to me … ” . These power plays undermine authentic intimacy and undermine relationships, causing tension, anger, and a desire to harm the other.
Bridget Martel
“Sexuality, Love and Gestalt”
Bridget Martel presents the theory of sexuality in an interesting, concise and structured way; answers complex and atypical questions about a person’s intimate life; cites numerous themes most frequently encountered in Gestalt therapy sessions, and these examples add to the book’s appeal.
Hospitality or hostility is a choice. And we do it inside the relationship when we go towards the other or turn away from him. We have the ability to seize power over another, or remain vulnerable and allow ourselves to love by laying down our weapons and trying to accept the other. After all, in order to be vulnerable next to another, you need much more strength than if you close yourself from him, having secured yourself with the seized power.
The issue of power in a relationship is one aspect that influences the dynamics of attraction, but it’s far from the only one.
Presence Quality
Alain Eril encourages the couples he works with to practice slowing down. When we live with a person for a long time, a lot of stereotyped and formal actions appear in our relationship. We seem to be having lunch together, but we formally ask for bread, staring at the TV screen, not noticing who is nearby. The same happens in sex, tenderness and caresses. We formally stroke another, habitually make love and gradually lose attraction, falling into monotony.
Read more:
- “Slow Sex”: Conscious Pleasure
We can restore attraction by increasing awareness of our actions, investing in every touch, subtly feeling the slightest changes in emotional colors. To do this, we can slow down our actions. Touch another, stroke it slowly and gently. Look into the eyes for a long time, maintaining contact. In order to restore the faded attraction (provided that we love the other), we can increase the quality of our presence in contact, in relationships, in intimacy. The less formal and illusory habitual in sex, the more we are involved in this process, the deeper and thinner we try to feel our loved one, the brighter the experience will be.
Overcoming difficulties in a relationship is the work of both partners. And here it is very important to be allies, not enemies, reproaching each other that something is going wrong.
See more at psychologist Konstantin Karakutsa.