Jean-Michel Hirt: «Couple, family: different goals»

Psychologies: To successfully arrange your life in a couple and in a family is a desire that almost everyone experiences in our time. What do you think is meant by success? How to achieve this ideal?

Jean-Michel Hirt: Success is a word more applicable to business than to a couple or to love, but at the same time it perfectly reflects the current state of mind. We live in a culture of efficiency and everyone is encouraged to excel in everything they undertake: their professional, social, love and family lives. It seems to me that «to succeed» in our time means, first of all, «to realize oneself.» But the logic of the couple is not necessarily compatible with the logic of the family. A couple is built on the development of the feelings of two people. It is both a goal and a process, and therein lies its audacity. And the purpose of the family is the continuation of the family and the integration of the family group into society. Therefore, the family is on the side of society, which it strengthens, it interacts with it, and the couple, born of desire and love, avoids this, it does not give an account to anyone but itself. A good couple is unique in the sense that they invent themselves, evolve according to their desires and needs. The situation is different with the family, which is connected with what society expects, what it imposes, determines what it gives value in terms of education or defining the roles of each. I would say that a happy couple is a living organism, the center of gravity of which is located inside itself. Children are not an indispensable condition for her happiness, they can be the fruit of the love of two, but in themselves these two as a couple are self-sufficient.

Today, everyone can create a couple and a family to their taste. Do you think that such a variety of available «formulas» is beneficial for children?

J.-M. X.: This is a very complex question that can only be answered on a case-by-case basis. Every couple, every family carries its own story and its own dynamics, and it would be presumptuous and dangerous to generalize. But in my clinical practice, I note that the couple, and hence the well-being of children, are threatened by two dangers: family fusion (the couple does not exist as an entity distinct from the family, partners are exclusively parents, not lovers) and reckless individualism. In a merger, the children are seen as both the reason for the couple’s existence and its continuation, which puts them under tremendous psychological pressure. Parents live for and through their children, children are strangled and doomed to fulfill their parents’ demands or, worse, to correct their mistakes. As for thoughtless individualism, it suppresses everything that hinders the development and well-being of the person himself. The individualist strives for everything that reinforces his image, his ego, his comfort. Children are seen as narcissistic additions or as obstacles to personal success. While there are – fortunately – no recipes for creating the perfect couple and the perfect family (whose existence is impossible), it is important that each couple seek their own harmony and their own goals. Not succumbing to the call of the sirens of fashion or the trends of the times. Choosing your couple means choosing a relationship between two people that contributes to personal development. Relationships that allow us to grow, nourish us, help us to believe in our strengths, at the same time realizing our otherness. At the heart of these relationships are tenderness, sensuality, cruelty.

What do you mean by «cruelty»?

J.-M. X.: This is not perversion or self-destruction, but the ability of lovers to integrate their aggressive impulses into the couple’s life, a resource that allows the two to create something alive from the differences between them, without fear of collisions that are fruitful for development, and without ignoring the «shadow part» of each. Recognizing that there is no love without hatred, the couple gains maturity. On the basis of this «trilogy of love», in which these three currents — tenderness, sensuality, rigidity — are not separated, but merged, all forms of couples are possible. Otherwise, if one current excludes the other two, the couple will be in danger. So, a couple where there is only tenderness does not shine like a couple who accepts their sexuality, shows tenderness and is not afraid of a bit of cruelty. At the same time, as long as the couple is alive, as long as it has not lost its taste for the differences of the two and gains useful experience from the difficulties that have fallen to its lot, the children receive good psychological «nutrition».

Does this mean that happiness in the family depends on the internal relations in the parental couple?

J.-M. X.: I would say that the couple needed for children is one in which sexual love serves as a compass. That is, love as a fantasy, feeling and ideal, combined with sexuality, which is the embodiment of love. The type of energy that animates these couples is passed on to the children. As a result, children are not afraid of the power of love and even its excesses, this conveys to them the desire to experience this strange and delightful feeling, the desire to experience this adventure for two. In such families, the child breathes easier, he is not overwhelmed by the expectations and desires of his parents. He is respected as a full person, he is accompanied on the path of life by a man and a woman who feed on each other and therefore feed their children, instead of manipulating them for their own purposes. This is exactly what a living family is, which is able to take both a couple and children under its wing, in which there is a constant dialogue.

But when the desire of a couple dries up, dissolves into family life, when a woman feels more like a mother than a woman, and her companion finds it difficult to desire her, how does this affect children?

J.-M. X.: Desire is not a permanent property of a couple. It fluctuates, following the vicissitudes of life in general and the life of a couple, which has peaks, but also falls. At the same time, I consider it important not to use children in order to strengthen my couple. Sometimes we see mothers much more tactile, tender and sensual with their children than with their life partner. Such eroticization of the child is harmful to him. The child should not have access to the intimate life of his parents, nor should he be used to compensate for the lack of love or desire in the parent couple. The man should take the place of the man, the one who makes possible the separation between mother and child, and the woman should realize that she can be both woman and mother, although at first mother-child fusion is inevitable. To raise a child means to accompany him so that he can love and desire outside the family. Aware of this, each couple then does as it sees fit to find a path to desire, get through the inevitable periods of drought together, or even decide together to end the relationship if it has become destructive to the two. But in all cases, this should remain their personal affair, which does not take children hostage, — the affair of adults who are responsible for the fate of their couple.