“Love is not enough for a relationship to work”

“Love is not enough for a relationship to work”

Couple

The psychologist, psychotherapist and expert in couples therapy Carmen Benítez reveals the signs that indicate whether or not a couple can rebuild

Routine, apathy, almost comfortable silences, lack of intimacy and desire, fantasizing about another life, sadness … Does this sequence sound familiar to you? When we stop watering that “little plant” called a “bond” we begin to Slowly “kill” love. But sometimes it turns out that love is only asleep, latent, fallow, waiting to receive what is necessary for it to emerge again.

Some people go to couples therapy when, despite feeling that they still love each other, they do not see a way to regain what they feel they have lost. What can you find out in a couple therapy? We spoke with the psychologist Carmen Benítez, founder and co-director of El Olivo Humanist Psychotherapy, to find out what are the emotional springs that a couple needs to activate to “start over” and what would be the signs that indicate that it would be more appropriate to initiate the painful process of break up.

What signs indicate that a relationship can be rebuilt?

What we analyze in couples therapy is whether there are indicators that show that the relationship is still alive. One of them is the ability to acceptance of the other as it is, against the desire for it to change, as that would be a negative indicator. Rejoicing in the joys of the other can be another positive sign and another is the ability to create a good intimacy of the couple. Also influences the ability to say «You are the first, not the only one, but the first», that is, the ability to say that the other person is before my parents or my siblings, for example. This is not easy, as it has to do with the way in which each person renounces an individual dream in favor of a shared dream.

But did that mean that they still love each other?

Love in the couple is transforming with the passage of time. What is initially a passion, which depends on instincts, transforms over time. We say that love is a goal that is not achieved from the beginning. There may be from the beginning a good connection, an attraction, but love is something that is created and built over time and sometimes it can even be understood as an attitude, a vital state.

It is true that now what we find frequently in couples therapy are problems of Power fight that have to do with the desire to impose a criterion on the other or with the desire to always be right or with the consequences of the conflicts that arise when the couple begins to live together.

And with coexistence comes problems …

It may be the fact that before coexistence things go more or less well and that, once coexistence, a series of conflicts arise that lead one or the other to try to impose their criteria or what they think is better according to what he has lived or according to his history. Compromising in these situations is what can help create a new unit, a kind of “third party”, a “link” or a “we”.

What are the mistakes in coexistence or the triggers of conflicts?

It is curious because in coexistence the couple can argue with the same intensity for things that are of little importance (leaving or not the toothpaste closed, for example) and for others that are much more important such as the decision of the school where the children are going to go. What we see in the background in these cases is not the content, but the way in which each of them tries to impose, at the beginning of the coexistence, the model that they lived with their parents. It is as if, underneath, there is a kind of struggle over which is the best model, although the conflict is shown through small details.

Something that is common in the first interview in couples therapy is that both of them summarize the reason for their consultation by saying that they have a “communication problem”. But, in general, under this communication problem there are other “traffic jams” that will be discovered throughout the process. The key is that at the beginning of the coexistence there is usually conflicts And it is convenient to reach agreements and not to take old models as valid, but to create something new, totally new, because that way they will be able to look forward.

And also, I understand that building something new must be liberating …

That’s it. The couple is the unit of greater creativity that exists. Through it, new projects such as children, or a business, or the house can come … Or many more. It is one of the living organisms that allows more creativity. For love you can do many things. But, of course, for a relationship to work, love is not enough …

Why is love not enough?

Because sometimes we are not mature, because sometimes we come loaded with past trauma and we want the other person to solve them, because sometimes there is no balance between what we give and what we receive and because love has a measure. Every kind of love has a measure. Love towards one’s partner, towards children, towards friendships, love in general has a measure. When we go from giving we create a very dependent, in which one becomes (let’s put it this way, in a very symbolic way) a “master” and the other a “slave.” Thinking that “I am the one I love the most” is a very ego thing.

But sometimes it is said that “I am the one who loves you the most” thinking that we are “generous” for loving a lot …

No, saying “I’m the one who loves the other the most” is giving yourself a lot of importance. And in a couple it is about “wanting better” not about “wanting more”. Everything in this life has a measure and love too.

In a couple, is one plus one equals two?

No, it is not two. It is three. The equation changes and the math fails when we talk about love. In love, a couple is one plus one plus an “us”, that is, a shared dream, an idea of ​​”forever” or at least an idea of ​​challenging the concept of time.

However, in couples therapy sessions we see that sometimes one person fails because he comes with many “jams” from his past, or sometimes the other fails because of another circumstance or even sometimes what fails is the “bond”. This is most often seen in relationships that have children. Somehow that link, which is like a “little plant” that two people have to take care of, is left in the background and is not cared for. The day to day with the children comes first. The years begin to pass and that relationship that was full of “words”, of “intimacy”, of “looks”, of “complicity” and of saying “hello” and then knowing how the other person is, begins to become in a routine machinery stripped of those silent and wonderful elements that only those two people knew. And this is where it starts disappear love. Some couples come to therapy in a state where they do love each other, they care for each other, but they stopped taking care of that union, that bond or that “third party” that is so important.

And what happens when we compare ourselves with other couples?

In the last 60 years, the couple models. Formerly the first thing you had to do is have the family book because the couple was to start a family. There were even marriages that did not join for love but to have children or for a social or economic issue. This has changed a lot and there are many types of couples on the “menu”. If the intention, when we look at other models is to learn to grow, welcome. But if the intention is to harass the other to ask for more, that is something else.

In addition, there is something that we must take into account when making those comparisons. Every couple has two faces, one public and one intimate.. Sometimes we can be surprised by the breakup of that idyllic couple in our group of friends who seemed perfect. But the truth is that it is likely that this couple had a wonderful public face, but then their intimacy was empty or unsatisfactory. Or it may happen that a couple is publicly arguing all day, but then they have a special intimacy, full of details, looks, gestures, rituals, words and bonds … Comparing yourself with other couples is difficult, because you hardly ever see the intimate part. And when looking only at the public part we only see the “facade” of the building. You cannot know “how you would live inside.”

What signs indicate that it is time to break up?

It is not easy. The separation It is the human pain that is most difficult for us to go through. Many people prefer to live badly as a couple than to separate. The most intense pain of the human condition would be the separation, in general, from the children, from the partner … That is why we do everything possible to avoid it. And that makes people who stay like this for a long time and thus find it even more difficult to see those signs.

The presence of a conflict it is not always an indicator that a relationship needs to be broken. Sometimes yes, but other times it doesn’t have to. The clearest indicators are when someone tries to impose himself on the other person, when he tries to have the power or to always be right or when he always tries to change the other.

Another signal occurs when there is little balance between what is given and what is received. When one person gives a lot and the other is in the “receiving”, a “mother-son” or “father-daughter” relationship is created that somehow kills the love of the couple.

La sexuality it is also important, understood as a force or as the muscle of the couple’s relationship. Some couples can spend most of their lives exempt from that part, but they will be couples with weak bonds.

It may also be the case that a lot of damage has been done to one of the members of the couple, because in that case it would also be difficult to rebuild that relationship.

And the same can happen when you break with the “myths” of that couple. Now we are seeing that there is a mythology in the couples of the present that includes concepts as pillars such as communication, trust and fidelity. And that means that if one fails, for example fidelity, the other two pillars fall.

That said, what is true is that sometimes crisis they are generators of important changes in the couple and positive in the couple. A crisis can give a couple muscle, strength and reality.

What’s behind those couples who never argue?

Something weird. In these types of couples there is one of them who has given up being who he is to be like the other person would want him to be. It is true that a high level of conflict is not acceptable but the fact that there is not may indicate that someone is giving up their vision of life or their contribution of who they are to that relationship.

The expert

• Carmen Benítez is a General Health psychologist, psychotherapist, Gestalt therapist, expert in Mindfulness in Health Contexts. Trained in systemic family therapy and couples therapy. Founder and co-director of El Olivo Humanist Psychotherapy.