Three stages of libido development: from first love to a happy marriage

Lack of understanding with a partner, lack of intimacy, dissatisfaction with sexual life or lack of relationship at all – both women and men face such problems today. In big cities, difficulties in establishing contact and developing relationships are often attributed to the influence of stress: eternal time pressure, hard work, traffic jams, endless obligations.

Of course, the influence of stress and external factors is enormous, but more often the root of the problems lies in ourselves, in the level of our psychosexual development. Have all the stages of the formation of libido been passed? How complete? These questions can be answered independently by analyzing relationships with the opposite sex throughout life.

Thanks to Sigmund Freud, the concept of “libido” (from Latin libido – “attraction”, “desire”) acquired the meaning of vital, sexual energy, unconsciously aimed at obtaining pleasure and satisfaction. Libido in a broad sense is not only about sex, but also about life satisfaction and harmonious relationships.

In the development of libido, psychologists distinguish three phases: platonic, erotic and sexual. Ideally, a person should live each of them at a certain age and under certain circumstances.

Platonic phase

The time of that “first love”. When did you first fall in love? At school? In kindergarten? What did you feel?

Libido in the platonic phase is when, at the sight of the object of love, the heart begins to beat harder, the palms sweat, the words disappear, and the cheeks turn red. This desire to be near, to dedicate poems and songs to him or her, these are fantasies of heroic deeds committed for the sake of love.

First love is characterized by a feeling of loneliness, a feeling that your feelings are unique and no one has ever loved like you. The object of platonic love can be both a peer and an adult, including a stranger – for example, an artist. Platonic love is most often not mutual, which exacerbates feelings even more – and this is normal, it should be so.

Parents and teachers, wanting to support a teenager during this period, make a big mistake, saying: “Yes, you forget about him / her”, “I found something to suffer because of, you don’t think about it”, “Yes, you will have a hundred more of these “,” there is nothing to run after her, look how proud. At best, these words will weaken contact with the child; at worst, they will prevent him from fully experiencing this basic phase of psychosexual development.

These first emotions and experiences are extremely important for the transition to the next level of libido development and, as a result, for the formation of harmonious relationships with the opposite sex in the future. The platonic libido is considered complete, formed if there was no ban on feelings and the teenager had the opportunity to immerse himself in experiences and make attempts to attract the attention of the object of adoration – even if these attempts were unsuccessful.

Erotic phase

And then one day she or he reciprocates, a relationship is established. This is not yet a full-fledged “adult” relationship, but a stage of knowledge, discoveries and experiments. As a rule, the erotic phase occurs during puberty. There is an interest in the intimate side of the relationship, there is a desire for tenderness and affection. The task during this period is to get to know yourself as best as possible: how certain parts of the body react to touch, what gives pleasure, and what can be unpleasant. Also at this stage, the first, so far very superficial acquaintance with the body of the partner takes place.

This is the time when parents take sedatives, do not allow teenagers to close the door to the room, try to “save” their son or daughter from the “debauchery” of the adult world. However, this is a necessary period of growing up, and parental attitudes and prohibitions can greatly slow down the development of sexuality, which will negatively affect a person’s ability to build full-fledged relationships in the future.

The erotic phase is especially important in the development of the female libido. In boys, it often passes very quickly, and because of this discrepancy, girls can experience this stage incompletely. As a result, at the next stage, when sexual life begins with a partner, a woman always feels a lack of affection and attention. In the worst case, she does not enjoy sex at all and tries to avoid it in every possible way, which leads to conflicts with her partner and mutual dissatisfaction with the relationship.

Sexual phase

An unformed sexual libido is familiar to us from jokes in which the wife always has a “headache”, sex is called “marital duty” and becomes the subject of bargaining and blackmail: if the husband behaves “good”, there will be sex, “bad” – there will not be. Ideally, partners should approach the sexual phase “ready”: fully saturated with caresses and erotica of the previous period, with a wealth of knowledge about their own body and its reactions. The task of this period is to establish a stable sex life, when sex is not a way to achieve goals and not an instrument of influence, not an experiment and not a simple way of physical “release”, but the most natural form of intimacy in a couple.

The first partner plays an important role in the formation of sexual libido. Much depends on what phase of psychosexual development he is in, how literate and delicate he is. At this stage, the needs of boys and girls, as a rule, differ: young men are characterized by hypersexuality (the desire for frequent sexual intercourse), which is due to physiology.

Regardless of gender, only after a period of regular sexual life does the sexual desire become mature, and the sexual libido – formed. It is then that sex takes the form of intimacy, becomes an integral part of the relationship of two, an important and pleasant process of unity, where there is no place for manipulation and conflict. It is these relationships that will become the best basis for a happy family life.

In any relationship, we briefly go through all the phases: first the platonic (“candy-bouquet” courtship period), then the erotic (kissing and hugging), then moving on to the sexual. Have you noticed that all your relationships are interrupted in one of the phases? Look back and try to understand that you did not live at the appropriate stage of growing up and at the preliminary stage of it. You can extend this or that stage in the relationship to compensate for its lack in the past.

Sometimes all you need to do is to have the courage to recognize your wildest desires and honestly talk about them with your partner. Yes, it’s scary to take the first step, but this is perhaps the only sure way to establish or re-build harmonious relationships, create a family, fill your life with energy and become happier here and now.