What do we expect from a relationship, are these expectations different from what lovers of yesteryear wanted, and what does it mean to “love truly”? We talked about this with family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova.
They lived happily ever after and died on the same day. Is such a romantic scenario possible today? Or do we love differently today, but expect something completely different from relationships? These questions are answered by family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova.
Psychologies: How and when do we learn to love?
Inna Khamitova: This is what our parents teach us in childhood. If they really love us, accept, satisfy our needs, but at the same time allow us to grow independent and independent (and not like and continue ourselves), then we form the core, the core of the personality — self, «I», self. This means that we are capable of open contact with another person, we can accept him as he is, become interested in him in all his diversity. Not just to be trapped in a biological mechanism — desire, passion, but also to show interest in the person himself, his inner world.
If at the same time we stumble upon an acute angle — the otherness of the partner, we will not perceive this as an insult and will not immediately begin to remake it. In mature couples, such relationships are mutual: both partners remain themselves, but at the same time, each of them is interested in the other.
Many people mistake violent passion for love. And as soon as it passes, it seems to them that everything is over …
Most love relationships begin with physiological passion. Another thing is that during stormy experiences we find ourselves so absorbed in feelings that we do not realize what kind of person is nearby. We just revel in ourselves and our experiences. After a couple of years, the concentration of hormones decreases and the partners either begin to study each other, or, like a drug, are drawn to new vivid emotions.
In fact, it is very difficult to allow oneself to open up to another, to become interested in his world, but not to dissolve in it, not to lose one’s “I” is very difficult. A person who suffers from a lack of himself needs passions to fill him. If they are not there, he feels tremendous loneliness. And he tries again and again to fill the void with vivid experiences. That is why only being self-sufficient, independent, free, you can truly love another person.
What happens when violent feelings end?
The concentration of hormones in the blood decreases sharply, and we begin to see a person with all his shortcomings. Therefore, very often two years after they met, people either disperse or get married. When partners begin to live together, they become so close to each other that everything immediately becomes clear to them. If a woman, for example, idealized a partner, and now instead of a prince, with whom she counted on endless happiness, she sees an ordinary person next to her with her weaknesses, she is forced to reconsider her vision of the couple.
There is “he”, there is “she”, and there is “we”. Two successful people. People who feel good apart, feel good together
Partners study each other, adapt to each other, create their own world. Or it turns out that he (or she) is not able to bear the fact that he (she) turned out to be … just a person. Faced with reality, you need to do something — overcome your disappointment, part with illusions, allow yourself to be happy, or rather scatter in different directions. The main thing is to understand that if we expect that we will live together and we will not have a single conflict, not a single tense conversation, not a single quarrel, this is a utopia.
What does it look like — «they really love each other»?
There is “he”, there is “she”, and there is “we”. Two successful people. Everyone has something of their own, while they like to be together, they have common affairs, hobbies, they like to talk with each other, they are not bored, they know how to agree on important issues (but this does not mean that they are in everything agree with each other). People who feel good apart are good together.
If one partner does not accept the other, he is forced to defend public discourses, and there are many of them: «the husband must …», «the wife must …». As a result, he is constantly trying to impose some kind of tracing paper on a real person, and if it doesn’t work out, he is very disappointed.
He also experiences disappointment if he tried at all costs to remake the other «for himself», he did everything — but there is no happiness. But he is not there, not because the other is bad, but because he himself has emptiness inside.
How much are we willing to pay for what we seek in love?
Each person has their own basic life values. Something that he will never sacrifice, because otherwise he will cease to be himself. There is also a set of attitudes, rules that he can easily refuse. For example, how to “correctly” cut bread… If you are constantly struggling to get the other person to stop cutting that way, try asking yourself the question: “Still, why do I get so worked up over trifles? Do I want to be happy or right?
Love requires mental work, but also courage and courage: not everyone has the courage to take a step from passion to love
Such a struggle is more like a desire to build everything according to your own rules, to declare yourself the main one. But why is it so important for you to control the space around you? Where does it come from? If from childhood, most likely, today’s marital relationship is a kind of continuation of relations with parents. But you can already relax! And live by your own rules, not seeing a “strict parent” in your partner.
What does true love require?
Be yourself, be honest with yourself, open with another person, ready to accept it. Realism is important: a love relationship is a process that needs to be worked on, it is not something that falls on us just like that, unlike falling in love, which is easy and pleasant to feel. Love is an exciting journey into the world of another person. Love, like life, is work on yourself, not on another person. Love requires mental work, and also courage and courage: not everyone has the courage to take a step from passion to love.
Jealousy and love are synonyms?
Jealousy is not a relationship with a partner, but with someone we are jealous of. Such a triangle. If a husband is jealous of his wife for men, then this is his relationship with other men. His self-doubt. Or a mirror situation. “I am jealous of all women. Even when he is not around, I walk down the street and think — this woman is better built, so he could pay attention to her. This is not a conversation about him, he is not even around, this is a story about her, about the fact that she compares herself with other women.
Does the Internet help us treat love in a consumer way?
It simplifies the dating scheme. Everything else is as usual. It all depends on what we managed to agree on. And for that, you have to speak.