Over time, desire fades and partners need to make a conscious effort to maintain attraction. Not exactly, our experts clarify, it is much more productive to take care of the relationship as a whole, not concentrating on desire, which, in many ways, is beyond our control.
Spouses need to make sure that sexual desire never fades … No, it’s better to take care of relationships in general, psychoanalysts Elena Zhaluniene and Jean-Michel Irth believe. Our attraction is unpredictable, mysterious, and we cannot directly control it.
Psychologies : So is it necessary to maintain sexual desire?
Elena Zhalyunene Elena Zhalyunene: Our wish it can flare up, fade away, slip away … His nature is psychosexual and rooted in the unconscious. We can care not about desire, but about relationships, about the person who is nearby, not to humiliate him, not to neglect him. We can think about something else, about how he perceives us, wish to be liked. And, more importantly, to be interested in what the partner experiences and feels in connection with us, how he reacts if we do (or do not do) what is important to him.
Jean-Michel Early Jean-Michel Early: Desire is stronger than us, and it is for this reason that we cannot get along with it in any way. It is mysterious, random, unpredictable. The only thing we know is whether we want it now or not. Not so much, actually. We often have no idea what makes us want this particular partner: of course, we can make some arguments, but the reasons for desire are beyond our reach. Like Swann, the hero of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, who, at the end of his long love affair, realized that this woman was not really his type.
Is there a difference between sex for sex and sex for love?
E. J .: E. J .: Certainly. described Eros at one time as an attraction to life and love *. This attraction comes from birth. The child takes the mother’s breast because he wants to eat, but gradually begins to enjoy communication not with her part (breast), but with herself. This is how sexual attraction is transformed into love for the whole object. Sex for the sake of sex is sex for the sake of a thing, a partial object. Following my desire, I do not see another, I consider him the same as myself. This kind of desire quickly dries up, because “the body amuses to a certain limit.” In love, desire becomes much deeper: we want not only the body, but also relationships with this one and only partner. What we first experienced sexually opens other doors for us.
Why do sexual desire and love diverge in some couples, although at first there was a feeling of fullness of unity?
J.-M. AND.: J.-M. AND.: Most often we are talking about regression, a return to the childhood oedipal situation. We all carry within us the desire of a child that we felt for a parent. At one time we realized that these desires are forbidden. Hence the temptation to settle the internal conflict by separating love and sexuality, by loving someone or someone we forbid ourselves to desire, and desiring someone or someone we do not allow ourselves to love. Sometimes the ban is overcome in a relationship in a couple, but like all psychic conquests, this is not forever. And lovers may face coming back.
Is it true that in couples where there is no more desire, there is no love?
E. J .: E. J .: It’s sad, but it’s true. If there is no sexual interaction between partners that satisfies them, they can hardly be called a couple. But at the same time, love relationships can be very different. For example, older people are happy together because their kisses, hugs, even going to the theater are sexy. When 40-year-olds don’t have sex, chances are they won’t be kept by other forms of communication either. The expression of Eros is sexuality, the highest point of erotic relations is the sexual act.
J.-M. AND.: J.-M. AND.: There is a significant change here. Desire always creates an illusion. But over time, we notice that the other is not what we imagined and wanted. Often we narcissistically desire another based on who we are. We aspire to what we perceive as an addition to ourselves. So we decide: I found a kindred spirit. And then, little by little, the other begins to see all his differences. And one day we wake up literally next to a stranger – to such an extent, behind the words “I love him” could hide “I love myself through him.”
Does the end of this illusion mean the end of love?
E. J .: E. J .: Often, the “epiphany” actually leads to the fact that the partners decide to leave. But if divorce occurs only under the influence of this disappointment, thoughtlessly, it is completely destructive – there is no attraction to life.
J.-M. AND.: J.-M. AND.: In fact, at this moment a new phase of love is opening up for us, and we should be happy about it! After all, this “new” person is not the one whom we have already had the opportunity to study inside and out. And it may turn out that we love him infinitely more than the one we wanted at the beginning. Then this is happiness: Eros gave us the most exquisite gift – to finally meet a truly different person.
“NOT EVERYONE IS HAPPY WHO HAVE SEX FREQUENTLY, STATISTICS ARE IMPOSSIBLE HERE”
Is it possible to suddenly, overnight stop wanting someone who is nearby?
E. J .: E. J .: Certainly. When desire flares up or fades away, it is always connected with something, but we cannot always understand what it is.
J.-M. AND.: J.-M. AND.: Although usually there are still disturbing signs: for example, one of the two begins to return later, does not listen to the other, is bored, angry over trifles … The situation deteriorates. The only way out is to try to understand ourselves together. On the other hand, the frequency of having sex in a couple is not an indicator of its strength. No statistics are possible here. Some people have sex every day and are not so happy together.
But what can be done here?
E. J .: E. J .: Nothing directly sexual. Desire is fed by our erotic fantasies, it is strengthened by joint projects, creativity, conversations that are interesting to both … This is also sexuality – sublimated. Probably, it is easier for someone to follow the path of pure seduction: erotic lingerie, bright lipstick … But it will only be a fetish, a relationship with a thing.
J.-M. AND.: J.-M. AND.: It is important to remember that love develops like a living organism – otherwise the desire goes away. There is a lot to be invented here. The path of two is not strewn with roses, one might say, it consists only of crises and searches for a way out. The road of love is not a route to the seventh heaven! In addition, our desire never coincides entirely with the desire of a partner. But what really matters in this life-changing game is the ability to play as a duet. And enjoy it.
* Z. Freud “Beyond the pleasure principle” (Folio, 2010).