No one can stop us from being ourselves if we really found ourselves, the psychotherapist and psychoanalyst Nicole and Philippe Jammet are sure.
Psychologies: To love and be yourself – is it possible?
Nicole Jammet: The problem is not so much in being yourself, but in becoming yourself. At the beginning of our life, this “self” exists only virtually. At the stage of merging with the mother, the infant makes no distinction between himself and her, between inside and outside, good and bad. At this time, his whole work is to separate himself from the other. By the age of one and a half, the child begins to oppose himself to another, gradually building his “I” in interaction.
Philip Jammet: We also know that an isolated, unchanging subject simply does not exist. Our cells are renewed, our genes are manifested depending on the environment, our neural connections are becoming richer … Until the very end, our formation continues in co-creation with those who surround us. Nicole and I met when I was 17 years old. This year we are celebrating 50 years of marriage. Of course, we had moments of carefree easy life …
N. J .: … and there were also very difficult ones …
F. J.: … When our mutual “adjustment” was kept in the balance.
Why are we afraid that our partner will change us?
F. J.: Our love for ourselves is very much dependent on the view from the outside. Each new encounter makes us vulnerable: what is my value? can you love me? The stronger our need for the other, the greater the threat he poses to our autonomy. Opening up to him, we give him power. Since he is different from us, we cannot control his actions. The one who gives pleasure can also cause discontent. We risk experiencing disappointment, the bitterness of separation …
“We ask ourselves anxiously: if the other knew who I really am, would he still love me?” Nicole Jammet
N. J .: Authentic relationships involve the other person influencing us. When meeting with someone, we must be prepared for the fact that we will receive from him our new image, unfamiliar, which means that our self-image may change. In this case, something awakens in us, until then unknown. It feels like a danger… Or like a promise, because through the meeting we get to know ourselves. My husband revealed what was hidden inside me, and let some sides of my “I” manifest, and with another, something else would manifest in me. That is why each meeting is unique and makes a revolution in our life.
There is always fear in love…
F. J.: Love relationships without fear, without anxiety are impossible. Such an encounter throws us off balance, because it awakens again our childhood expectations in the realm of feelings, we again feel the fundamental needs for love, protection, affection, recognition. In addition, this is the only relationship that for most people requires exclusivity. The loyalty of the other, the guarantee of our worth and our place in life, is so important that to violate it is to commit a crime against narcissism, which is why it often becomes the basis for a break.
N. J .: A love meeting is also a great opportunity to review some personal experience. Including in tests. Looking back, for example, I consider myself partly responsible for the difficulties in our relationship. I think that with another man I would have experienced about the same suffering, since they were caused by traumas received in childhood. By experiencing them again, I was able to overcome them. But this was possible only because in our relationship with my husband there was a solid foundation of trust and tenderness gained over the years when we lived through the period of merging.
It turns out that the period of merger is beneficial?
F. J.: For a couple, it serves as cement. Often we are afraid of this merger, fearing that it will lure us and deceive us, but it has an important creative function. Like fertilizer, it helps the good to develop and nourishes the self-confidence of both partners.
N. J .: When we fall in love, we re-experience the illusion of fullness, unconditional maternal love. We want idealization to never end, but we know that we are mistaken, that there is something bad in us … And so we ask ourselves with anxiety: if the other knew what I really am, he would love me all equals? As in childhood, self-confidence is strengthened when each recognizes the bad in himself and in the other, continuing to love. A loving look strengthens us in the consciousness of our worth. It creates a foundation that allows you to then accept the retreat back. After all, disappointment is just a way to reality. Negative feelings are part of the truth of the relationship with the other. It is important that a person can also accept both opposition and disagreement.
F. J.: And in difficult periods, the main thing is not to let them cross out wonderful moments! When we become angry, trample on the past, hate another, it gives a feeling of control over what is happening, but does not make us happy.
The desire to “be yourself” – does it mean the rejection of attachment?
F. J.: Those who do not allow themselves to become attached try to cope with feelings of powerlessness and helplessness in this way. They withdraw into themselves, and it seems to them that they “return to themselves”, “can be themselves.” It’s a bit like a fantasy wish to “become stronger than death”. As if if you find yourself out of all the pleasures, you’ll have nothing to lose. They close in a hole, in a gap that swallows them up. Turning into an empty shell from the “I”, separated from the world, they deprive themselves of a mirror in which they can see and realize themselves, and along with their own ability to empathize.
“The merging period helps the good in us to develop and nourishes the self-confidence of both partners” Philippe Jammet
N. J .: We are constantly torn apart by conflicting feelings: we want a relationship and at the same time be free, be independent and meet respect and approval in the eyes of another person, we are afraid of being abandoned and afraid of being in a cage … Some, in order to get around the contradiction between desire and fear of fusion, they seek to protect themselves from emotions, replacing them with purely physiological sensations, for example, sex, separated from feelings. To get out of the couple as a prison, I think we need to learn to be alone and develop our own talents. The more I increase my value outside of a couple, the more powerful I feel. Then I can agree to give the other freedom.
F. J.: That does not prevent sometimes to feel the desire to reinforce their confidence and cling to the other again.
Provided that the other at this moment does not feel the need to “be himself” away from me …
F. J.: We had the wisdom to set a distance, to wait, not to live together permanently. And do not consider yourself a victim that the other oppresses, but understand that the other is also tormented, suffering, confused. This was made possible because we were able to empathize and were deeply attached to each other.
N. J .: And today it is a great happiness to meet again and rediscover each other. It was worth it!