“Relationships are a container, everything is stored in it and nothing is lost”

“We combine two poles in ourselves: intimacy and openness to the world. Each of us is a personality, personality, Person. We must be able to be on good terms with ourselves, to do without others. But at the same time, we need a society, a world of others. This fundamental duality is rooted in the essence of each of us.

We can be with other people or with another person, but we cannot be only with him (them). We must be able to be with ourselves. The couple is constantly in this “field of tension”: we live between selfishness and bestowal, dissolution, loss of ourselves in another, in relationships. It seems to us that if we cannot figure it out with ourselves, we cannot withstand ourselves, then the other one should seem to replace for us what we ourselves cannot realize for ourselves. But it’s not.

• Always put a couple first

What is a couple? A couple is something that belongs to both. Two is not a couple. For example, a pair of shoes: together they make a whole. But if both shoes are left, they will not be a pair. A couple of people form «We». But just two people cannot become «We». If in this «We» one is missing, the other feels it: «I miss him.» A couple who lives life together usually have an emotional relationship — we call it love. The “I” builds itself up to the whole through the Other, becomes a whole: due to this experience, a new quality arises. A pair is always more than the sum of two people.

Our singularity in a couple is partly lost, but through being in a couple, we have an additional value. The right shoe receives additional value from the left shoe. As a couple, people are interconnected and experience themselves as part of a certain community: “I receive through you what I myself do not have.”

• Handsome and ugly: why are they together?

Relationships and meeting

What is a relationship? It’s a kind of constant interaction. One person relates to another person, constantly has him in mind. If two people meet, they cannot help but enter into a relationship. There is some compulsion here. We are constantly related to something, we are constantly present in the world. Therefore, relationships last, it is a long-term thing, and they contain the totality of the experience that we have acquired throughout life. And it stays there forever. When a couple comes to therapy, it often happens that the wife, for example, says to her husband: “Remember, 30 years ago you really hurt me?” Perhaps the husband does not remember this, but the relationship is a container in which everything is collected and everything is stored, nothing is lost. Naturally, new experience is added there, which can change everything.

What is a meeting? «I» meets «You» and «You» meets «I». These two poles are connected to each other not through a line, but through a field (that which is “between” us). This field exists only when «I» and «You» actually meet. If they do not match, do not resonate, then this field collapses, and the meeting does not occur. Therefore, you can want a meeting, strive for it, make a decision about it. The meeting is punctual — it always happens at the chosen moment.

Lasting relationships need meetings to happen. If meetings occur, then the relationship changes. Through meetings, we can work with relationships. If meetings do not occur, the relationship becomes automatic. Naturally, in the life of every couple there is both: both relationships and meetings. Both of these are necessary. But relationships live through meetings.

Relationship structure in a couple

1. In any couple, each person has a need, desire, motivation «to be able to be in this relationship.» «With you I can be.» For example, live together or go on vacation together. «You give me protection, support, you are ready (a) to help me.» Or give something material, an apartment where to live. «I can trust you because you are faithful, reliable.»
2. The second motivation: «I want to live with this person.» Here I feel life. This person touches me. It makes me feel warm. I want to experience a relationship with him, I want to spend time with him. His proximity is desirable for me, it revives me. I feel his attraction, he attracts me. The couple has common values ​​that both share: for example, sports, music, or something else.
3. The third dimension of being in a pair: «With this person, I have the right to be who I am.» Moreover, with him I become more myself than outside of this relationship — not only who I am, but who I can be. That is, through it I become even more myself. I feel recognized and seen by him. I have respect. He takes me seriously and he is fair to me. I see that he accepts me, and I am an unconditional value for him. Although he may not agree with all my thoughts and actions. But just the way I am suits him, he accepts it.
4. General meaning: “Together we want to build the world, share some common values, do something for the future.” We want to work on something, either on ourselves or on something in the world outside of our relationship, and that binds us.

When all four structures are in order, this is the ideal form of relationship.

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

What keeps a couple together?

Each of the four motivations listed holds the couple together.

The first plane is a certain practical meaning that allows a person to live in the world. For example, we have a common apartment — where else can I go? A quarter of couples, and maybe more, live together for this very reason. No romance, no personality either. The reality is that there is nowhere to go. There is a common money, division of labor. Together we can go on vacation, but alone it does not work.

The second level is the warmth that I can experience with another, tenderness, sexuality. It happens that there seems to be nothing to talk about, but there is warmth.

The third motivation is the personal level. I am not alone, when I come home, there is at least someone there, not just a cat or a dog.

And fourthly, we have a common project, a common task in the world, and therefore it is reasonable to stay together. Most often, children act as such a project while they are small. Or, for example, a joint business.

All four fundamental motivations hold the couple together, but especially the third. In a good relationship, two independent people converge who do not need one another, each of them can live on his own. But they feel that together they are better, more beautiful.

• Sports therapy: how (still) to build relationships in a couple

A few questions

If you want to analyze your relationship, ask yourself some questions.

What is important to me in a relationship? What do I want from a relationship? What would I like, what am I drawn to, attracted to? What do I assume is important to my partner? Did we ever talk about it at all? Or maybe I have a fear of getting into a relationship? How much of this fear, fear of expectations, do I have? What is the worst thing about this relationship for me? A man’s fear is to be consumed by a woman. A woman’s fear is to be used, the fear that she will be «abused».

What is my idea of ​​a relationship? Should there be certain roles in the family: the husband has one, the wife has another? How close, open should the relationship be? How much free space do we want to give each other? Which need is more pronounced for me — for merger or autonomy? To what extent should these relationships be partnerships? Or is hierarchical better because… easier?

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