What happens if you follow too literally the recommendations of psychotherapists regarding relationships and love? We conducted an experiment and got a very revealing result.
How could ideal love look like if it is experienced by a mature, self-confident, independent person? Remembering and collecting everything that psychologists told us about love and relationships, what we read and thought ourselves, we decided to put it together — in direct speech from “I” to “You”. And then we asked two of our experts to give their feedback. The way sexologist Yuri Prokopenko and family psychologist Inna Shifanova commented on our text turned out to be a complete surprise for us!
Comment by Yuri Prokopenko, sexologist
“This is really a love song of the XNUMXst century – the century of psychologists, the century of WORK with emotions. No naturalness is not a problem, but there is the ability to replace it with an almost genuine product (as they say, “identical to natural”). Putting love on the shelves, hoping that analysis and synthesis will not damage the final result, is like cutting a heart, and then sewing it up so cleverly that the seams are completely invisible. If this heart were still beating…
This is a love song from a time when many people do not see the difference between love and sex, sex and pleasure, pleasure and ejaculation, arousal and attraction, orgasm and happiness, man and woman, reality and virtual relationship. This is not at all the love that poets sang.
«A happy age is a sad song.»
Commentary by Inna Shifanova, family psychologist
“I read it three times in full confidence that this is a letter from a man to a woman. For the fourth time, I read it as a message from a woman to a man. It is interesting that feelings arise different from these assumptions.
If the letter is from a man, then it causes surprise, a feeling of unreality. Such an immersion in relationships, such a desire to take everything into account and do everything right! Striving for the ideal without requiring the same ideal attitude from a partner, even without any requirements at all. At the other end, I want to see a woman who is not just lucky, who deserves this luck.
“I will ask, but I will understand if you keep silent, I will guess desires before they appear. I will mourn and sympathize with you. I reserve only the right not to blame myself for your misfortunes. — It seems to me that a person wanted to list everything and everything and not forget anything, everything should be taken into account according to the rules of a happy partnership. But then it is no longer a song, but a marriage contract. You want to secure love, you want to find the right means for conservation. So much advice, wise, scientific. Only love is either there or not, you can’t bewitch, you can’t conserve, it is a “child of freedom” …
There are two PERSONALITIES and there is freedom – this condition is obligatory, but not sufficient. And what will be sufficient — you will not catch and you will not calculate. Precisely because there are two Personalities and Freedom. Life is unpredictable, love even more so. Constant debriefing will tire.
Can this person always live up to his promises? I think no. But expectations he will cause such that disappointment is inevitable. This will be an extra irritant for their union. At the height of such feelings, you will not last long, constantly checking the words of the role. People tend to make mistakes, despair, doubt, just get tired even from happiness.
Maybe those who are ready to promise the moon are right — you can’t ask them.
I do not want to say that the rules are stupid, they can help in difficult times. “Agreement” also usually happens, you need to carefully listen to your partner. In addition, everyone has their own understanding of love, it is not necessary to detail it in such detail. We must listen carefully.
Why do I have slightly different feelings if this is a woman’s message? For some reason, in this case, I get the feeling that she is ready to obey and save a couple of women in her favorite way — complete immersion with “sacrifice” and a desire to get to the bottom. I’m afraid that such a woman will put all her strength into building relationships, forgetting to be herself. And the partner will simply constantly increase the requirements.
In the «Love Song of the XNUMXst Century» there is one view of the relationship, the partner is not visible. It can be seen that the author has read the literature and is ready to follow the “right path”. But this «contract» involves the work of two. Otherwise, this is an appeal to the ideal, i.e. to the myth.
Perhaps his partner will say to this: “I hate to delve into psychology / sort things out”, or it turns out that the partner is used to believing that a man and a woman are different biological species, and for him the only way to treat another is manipulation or control. If he has such experience, then the transition to other rules of the game is breaking for him. The world is full of those who play little girl and daddy, or little boy and mommy. This game involves whims, quarrels and reconciliation, then it’s not boring. In this game, they feel confident and calm and do not at all strive for «harmonious relations.» In general, the right advice in isolation from the experience of the individual does not work. Because a person understands them in his own way and can use them for manipulation.
Working with the problems of a couple, the psychologist will not start with the rules, he first finds out what the needs of the partners are, whether their usual psychological defenses are violated. Perhaps the client will be interested to know where these protections come from, whether they interfere or help (once they helped, that’s why they developed). Or perhaps his habitual ways of behaving are dearer to him than what is called a harmonious relationship, because in a harmonious relationship he feels defenseless. Of course, everything can be changed if there is a desire, but not by declarations and advice. Unique relationships are being built, for this, and «lapping». Therefore, I repeat: it is important to remember that in love there are two Persons and Freedom. In general, this is the message of a naive person who has not yet considered his partner very much.