Contents
We expect from a partner that he will become everything in the world for us, fulfill all desires, like a genie from Aladdin’s lamp. And most importantly, that it will give us the freedom to behave as we want and as we are used to. Living in a couple, remaining yourself: is it possible?
Basic Ideas
- You can’t be yourself, but you can be yourself. And today we are different from ourselves yesterday. We are affected by every meeting, every event.
- Love is the power that transforms us. And under its influence, we not only dissolve in another, but also find ourselves.
- To change means to become different. By giving up our old desires and views, we can get closer to our new “I”.
When our grandparents happened to see an American or French love drama in the cinema, they must have been surprised by the strange actions of the characters. Who broke off relations every now and then, uttering words similar to spells about the fact that they want to remain themselves, but love interferes with them. Today, these spells are clear to everyone. And 30-year-old fitness instructor Dmitry, leaving his wife with a one-year-old child, quite sincerely explains that the family prevents him from developing and he is afraid of losing himself. And the 37-year-old businesswoman Veronika does not intend to commit herself, since she wants to spend rare weekends in pajamas and without makeup or in a cafe with her friends. “Otherwise I won’t feel like myself,” she shrugs. In a word, the story about the “two halves”, which must be united into a whole, inspires few people today.
Love and Economics
In the old days, things were much easier. The creation of a family had serious economic reasons. The poor, by marrying, multiplied the labor force and could expect to make ends meet. The rich needed this in order to continue their lineage and pass on wealth through inheritance. If these urgent needs were happily combined with some pleasant feelings – cheers. No – well, what can you do, endure, fall in love.
And only a hundred years ago the union entered into by two ceased to be primarily economic. Love came first. Yes, not alone, but in the company of a whole set of images, archetypes and dreams: princes on white horses, princesses in high towers and other Romeo and Juliet. And it would be time to rejoice, but the trouble is: images and archetypes are good for falling in love – the stage of relationships, when we are even glad to completely dissolve in another person. About what happens next, Romeo and Juliet did not know. And the writers of fairy tales, apparently, knew – that’s why they ended them with weddings. Because further passion recedes, love becomes calmer, desire ceases to be every minute and sizzling. And it turns out that life together consists of hundreds of daily concessions. Which I have to go to when I want something or don’t want it at all, not me, but another person. It’s hard to come to terms with this: our narcissism prevents us from understanding “why is this even needed if I don’t need it.”
Our era constantly calls us to “be ourselves”
But what if “being oneself” is more a hope than a reality, more a belief than an essence, asks the philosopher Charles Pepin. “Yes, and how could I live without believing in the reality of my “I”? How could I take responsibility for my actions if, for example, the “I” who committed the theft is no longer the same person who will be accused of stealing the next day? What does “I think, therefore I am” mean if the “I” that thinks is no longer the “I” that exists? We need to believe in our identity. But that doesn’t mean it’s real. Where can this indivisible core of “identity” nest? What remains in me over time “equal to myself”? My face? Organs? place in society? Beliefs and values? It is difficult to identify such a core … But let’s go further: maybe it is precisely because it cannot be found that we are able to change it, open ourselves to another person? We have no “being”, no “ourselves”, no “essence”. But that is why we can become everything. Our ego is not in any core, but always throws itself outside of itself, into the adventure of interpersonal communication. Sh. P.
Philosophy, 2012, № 65.
consumer boom
“In our time, more than ever, love is necessary for self-awareness, and at the same time it is impossible precisely because in a love relationship we are not looking for another, but self-awareness,” explains psychoanalyst Umberto Galimberti (Umberto Galimberti) . The more we become accustomed to prioritizing the satisfaction of our own needs (to which modern mores are pushing us), the harder it is for us to give in. It seems that we are already quite accustomed to the consumer society. Sociologist Anthony Giddens directly linked the concern for the “self” with “the desire to consume, characteristic of the flowering of individualism”*. And, probably, I was not mistaken: reaching (albeit with a stretch and only in big cities) the stage of a consumer society, we are no longer only in foreign cinema, but also in our friends, and often in ourselves we find this feature – the desire to be consumers and in relationships, accept without giving anything in return. And therefore we proudly straighten our shoulders and declare that our personality, our “I” is more valuable than love and family. If we have to sacrifice, we will sacrifice love. And with pleasure we will spend the day in pajamas on the couch or go spiritually to grow somewhere far away from our wife and son.
Change with every meeting
To be yourself means to live, feeling your value, overcoming your boundaries, finding your own “I”.
What does it even mean to be yourself? Does this mean, for example, to do whatever you want? No, it’s not. “To be yourself means to feel your own value,” says existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. – And the consequence of such a sense of self will be … modesty. When it is absolutely clear to me that I am valuable, I am calm: “I am someone of value. Always, not as a result of something, but simply by the right of the fact that I live. On the occasion of any of their desires are just those who are still proving their own worth.
Figuring out which aspirations to follow is a very difficult task. To do this, in fact, you need to become yourself. It is to become, because, in fact, it is impossible to be yourself. We are not born into the world by ourselves, we become. Looking at the world with the same eyes all your life, year after year clinging to the same beliefs and, moreover, delusions, without trying to check and comprehend them, is a prospect that you would not wish even on your enemy. Fortunately, this does not happen. Every meeting, every event shapes our unique experience again and again. And with him and ourselves. The brighter the event, the deeper its trace. And in this sense, little can be compared with love.
Lost and found
So do we lose ourselves in love? Maybe we’re just asking the wrong question. After all, you can change in different ways: by giving up yourself or becoming different. “Love is an interruption of ourselves because another person crosses our path. At our peril and risk, he is able to break our independence, change our personality, destroy all defense mechanisms, says Umberto Galimberti. “But if there weren’t these changes that break me, hurt me, endanger me, then how would I allow another to cross my path – him, who alone can allow me to go beyond myself?” Don’t lose yourself, mind you – go beyond yourself. Remaining himself, but already different – at a new stage of life.
Intersecting Worlds
Of course, partnerships inevitably require concessions, or even a complete rejection of what seems important. However, the idea that we have to give up something seems almost blasphemous to us! We give up a career for a family, we become a shadow of the one we love, we cannot develop because we have obligations …
“Self-denial is sometimes necessary,” says Svetlana Krivtsova. “But only by clearly understanding what exactly we are losing and for what we are sacrificing what was dear to us, only by mourning the lost on the way to the goal, we can become ourselves again.” But it is also necessary to defend your opinion. And for this, it is necessary that our “I” be strong and wise enough, able to listen, reflect and defend our own decision. It needs to be trained by overcoming difficulties, of which there are enough every day. “Being yourself in a partnership is a task that is completely impossible, because relationships develop, circumstances change,” continues Svetlana Krivtsova. “Today we live harmoniously, but then life does one thing with one partner, another with another, and we find that there is suddenly less in common between us. The development of partnerships, in my opinion, consists in the fact that everyone forms a belief in their own value and there is more and more autonomy.
If such a prospect frightens young lovers, then adults treat it calmly. Ultimately, if she loves movies and he loves football, it will be even better for their relationship if everyone in such a situation distances themselves and spends time the way they like best. The length of this distance everyone determines for himself. As, in the end, and whether love brings death to his precious “I” or promises the birth of a new person. Either fear takes over and we resist the sacrifices that love requires of us, or we surrender to love and believe that the losses will be compensated by something else, better. In these throwing between the desire to remain oneself and the need to become someone else, perhaps, one of the main mysteries of love is hidden.
* E. Giddens “The Transformation of Intimacy” (Peter, 2004).
Alla, 48 years old, actress
“I already happened to start novels in which I was afraid to be who I am: I seemed to myself too tall, too white, too loud … I certainly wanted to match what the other expected of me. And since I’m a real chameleon, I easily turn into anyone. But at some point, I realized that I was in danger of completely ceasing to be myself. And in this case, the relationship cannot be strong: we love in the other what we saw in him as genuine, real, and not what he portrays, or what he hopes to become. This proves that you can only be loved when you remain yourself. But how to do that?
My answer is: don’t spend all the time together, don’t do everything together, be able to keep your circle of friends and not feel obliged to visit them with a partner, don’t mix work and personal life. In general, in order to love and remain yourself, you must first fall in love with being alone. At least sometimes”.