«Is this love?» Many of us have asked this question at different points in our lives and have not always found the answer. However, the question should be put differently. After all, much that we used to believe in does not exist: neither true love, nor absolute truth, nor natural emotions. What then remains?
Family consultant and narrative psychologist Vyacheslav Moskvichev has been working with couples for over 15 years. Among his clients are people of all ages, with and without children, those who have recently started a life together, and those who have already had time to doubt whether it is worth continuing …
Therefore, we turned to him as an expert on love issues with a request to express his opinion on this subject. The opinion was unexpected.
Psychologies:Let’s start with the main thing: is true love possible?
Vyacheslav Moskvichev: Obviously, true love is the one that happens between real men and women. But these two, in turn, are not reality, but invented constructs that are created to normalize people and their relationships. For me, the notion that one can find a universal, culturally independent, universal truth about what a man, a woman, love, a family is, is a tempting idea, but a dangerous one.
What is her danger?
This idea makes real men and women feel inadequate, inferior because they don’t fit the mold. I admit that these constructs really helped someone to shape themselves. But they have internal contradictions, and it is impossible to follow them. For example, a real man should be strong and stern, but at the same time gentle and caring, and a real woman should be a sexually attractive and exemplary hostess.
Love is a surge of hormones, sexual attraction, or, conversely, something divine, a fateful meeting
We are doomed to fall out of them. And when we say to ourselves “I am not a real man”, or “I am not a real woman”, or “This is not real love”, we feel our inferiority and suffer.
And who suffers more, men or women?
Under the pressure of stereotypes accepted in society, its less privileged members always fall first. We live in a male society, and ideas about what we should conform to are largely created by men. Therefore, women are likely to suffer more. But this does not mean that men are free from pressure.
Inconsistency with the patterns fixed in the public mind causes a feeling of failure. Many couples come to me in a pre-divorce state. And often they are brought into this state by their own ideas about true love, family, expectations from a partner that he does not meet.
What kind of ideas can bring a couple to the brink of divorce?
For example, such: there was love, now it has passed. Once gone, nothing can be done, we must part. Or maybe I mistook something else for love. And since this is not love, what can you do, they were mistaken.
But isn’t it?
Not! Such a representation turns us into passive «experiencers» of a feeling that cannot be influenced in any way. We all explain to ourselves what love is in different ways. It is interesting that among these explanations there are opposite ones: for example, that love is something biological, a surge of hormones, sexual attraction, or, conversely, that something is divine, a fateful meeting. But such explanations cover far from the entire spectrum of our relations.
If we do not like something in our partner, in his actions, our interaction, then it would be logical to deal with these specific issues. And instead we begin to worry: maybe we made the wrong choice. This is how the “true love” trap arises.
What does it mean — the trap of «true love»?
It is such a thought that if love is real, you have to endure — and you endure. Women are ordered to endure one thing, men another. For women, for example, the rudeness of men, breakdowns, drinking alcohol, his flirting with others, failure to perform culturally prescribed male functions, such as providing for the family and its safety.
Human relationships are unnatural in and of themselves. They are part of culture, not nature
What does a man endure?
Women’s emotional instability, tears, whims, inconsistency with the ideals of beauty, the fact that the wife began to care less about herself or about a man. But he, according to culture, should not tolerate flirting. And if it turns out that someone can’t stand it anymore, then there is only one option left — to recognize this marriage as a mistake (“it hurts, but there’s nothing to be done”), consider this love fake and go in search of a new one. It is assumed that there is no point in improving relations, searching, experimenting, and negotiating.
And how can a psychologist help here?
I encourage couples to try other forms of interaction. I can invite one of the partners to tell about his view of the situation, about what worries him in the relationship, how it affects family life, what disappears from it and what he would like to save or restore. And to the other at this moment I suggest to be an attentive and, if possible, a benevolent listener who can write down what attracted him in the partner’s words. Then they switch roles.
Many couples say it helps them. Because often the partner reacts to the first words spoken to others or to their own interpretations: “if you didn’t cook dinner, then you fell out of love.” But if you listen to the end, give the other the opportunity to fully speak out, you can learn something completely unexpected and important about him. For many, this is an amazing experience that opens up new opportunities for them to live together. Then I say: if you like this experience, maybe you can try to use it in other moments of your life?
And it turns out?
Change doesn’t always happen right away. Often couples have already developed familiar ways of interacting, and new ones found at a meeting with a psychologist may seem “unnatural”. It seems natural for us to interrupt each other, to swear, to show emotions as soon as they arise.
But human relationships are not natural in themselves. They are part of culture, not nature. If we are natural, we will become a pack of primates. Primates are natural, but this is not the kind of relationship that people call romantic love.
We do not require a woman to have hairy legs, even if the hair on them naturally grows according to nature. Our ideal of «naturalness» is in fact also a product of culture. Look at fashion — to look «natural», you have to go to a lot of tricks.
It’s good to be aware of this! If the idea of naturalness, naturalness, naturalness is not questioned, we have very little chance to part with suffering and start looking and trying, finding and building those relationships that suit each of us, taking into account the cultural context.
Does love depend on cultural context?
Of course. The universality of love is as much a myth as its naturalness. Because of this, many misunderstandings arise, and sometimes tragedies.
For example, a woman from Moscow marries an Egyptian who was brought up in a traditionalist culture. Often Arab men are active during courtship, they show their willingness to take care of a woman, to be responsible for her, and many women like this.
Those who have gone through the experience of long-term relationships know that it is impossible to maintain constant heat.
But when it comes to marriage, it turns out that a woman has an idea that her opinion must be considered, that she must be reckoned with, and in a traditionalist culture this is questioned.
There is a myth in our culture that true love blows the roof, that it is the strongest emotional intensity. And if we can think rationally, then there is no love. But those who have gone through the experience of long-term relationships know that maintaining a constant heat is not only impossible, but also unhealthy. So you can’t live in ordinary life, because then how to be with friends, with work?
So what then is love, if not a natural state and not the intensity of passions?
Love is first and foremost a special personal state. It includes not only our feeling, but also our way of thinking about it. If love is not framed by an idea, a fantasy about another, hopes, expectations, then the physiological state left from it will most likely not be very pleasant.
Probably, throughout life, not only the feeling changes, but also this way of understanding?
Definitely changing! Partners enter into relationships on the basis of some interests, which are then replaced by others. The participants in the relationship are also changing — their physical condition, their statuses, ideas about themselves, about life, about everything. And if one has made up a firm idea of the other, and this other has ceased to fit into it, then the relationship suffers. Rigidity of ideas is dangerous in itself.
What makes a relationship stable and constructive?
Readiness for difference. Understanding that we are different. That if we have different interests, this is not fatal for relationships, on the contrary, it can become an additional reason for interesting communication, for getting to know each other. It also helps to be willing to negotiate. Not those that are aimed at finding one common truth for all, but those that help find ways for both to coexist with each other.
It seems that you are against the truth. This is true?
The truth seems to exist even before we started talking. And I see how often couples enter into negotiations, believing that there is a truth about the relationship, about each of them, it remains only to be found, and each thinks that he has found it, and the other is wrong.
Often, clients come into my office with the idea of “finding the real you”—as if they weren’t real right now! And when a couple comes along, they want to find a real relationship. They hope that a professional who has studied for a long time and has seen many different couples has an answer for what this relationship should look like, and all they have to do is find out this correct answer.
But I invite you to explore the path together: I do not reveal the truth, but help create a unique product, their joint project, just for this couple. Then I want to offer it to others, to say: “See how cool we did it, let’s do the same!”. But this project will not suit others, because each couple has their own love.
It turns out that you need to ask yourself not “is this love?”, But something else …
I find it helpful to ask questions such as: Am I okay with my partner? What about him with me? What can we do to better understand each other, so that we can live together more interestingly? And then the relationship can get out of the rut of stereotypes and prescriptions, and life together will become an exciting journey full of discoveries.