Contents
“Everything is with her, but she is not married,” they often say about those women who (yet) have not found a partner. But what if loneliness is not fate, but our unconscious choice? Giving up a life in a couple always brings hidden benefits, psychoanalyst Sophie Kadalen is convinced.
“Why don’t you register on a dating site?”; “Are your requirements too high?”; “If I were you, I wouldn’t call back right away – let him suffer a little.” For those of us who do not have a couple, conflicting advice from caring relatives, girlfriends and glossy magazines is pouring in from all sides …
But it makes no sense to follow stereotypes, trying to disassemble love and life together into components. Lonely people will have to understand what fears they have unconsciously built walls that fence them off from the world. Forget about the norms and views from the outside, accept your true desire – only this will help to rediscover the great unexpectedness of love.
In itself, the position of an unmarried woman is not a problem. But, unfortunately, in the public mind there is still a single model of a married couple: a man and a woman living under the same roof. Those who are not married have always been perceived as somewhat flawed: unmarried means a loser. This creates an agonizing feeling of guilt.
Instead of rethinking the “standards” that are being offered to us, loners begin to ask themselves, “What is wrong with me?” When a woman manages to start a family, it seems that everyone around just thinks: “Finally! Now that she has received love, her future is assured.”
Celibacy becomes a problem because stereotypes weigh on us. To resist such pressure, extraordinary resilience is needed. We become prisoners of two fatal delusions. And we impose one of them on ourselves: we are alone, because we have a bad character, because we cannot make a choice, we do not know how to adapt. And another thing is actively instilled in us from the outside: love supposedly obeys unshakable rules that must be observed, because otherwise nothing will work!
We are told from all sides: “Love lives for three years”, “No sex on the first date!”, “First impressions are always deceptive.” As long as we take these common truths critically, like astrological forecasts in magazines, everything is in order. But if we start obsessing over them, our chances of meeting the right person drop.
Elena, 43, financial director: “My independence is very important to me”
“I left my second husband with the firm conviction that I would never marry again. Fifteen years have passed since then. During this time, the children grew up, and there was a career – I became the financial director of a construction company. I have an extremely busy life. Not easy, but there is not even the slightest sign of a routine in it. I am comfortable. I never regretted that I gave birth to children, that I left a wealthy husband who does not recognize my freedom, I never wanted to complain about how hard it is to arrange life with two children … My independence is very important to me, and I don’t want to lose it. I am active and self-sufficient. And that stresses men. They are confused by my directness, swiftness and readiness to always make decisions on my own. I know about it, but I have to be accepted for who I am. You can’t change anything: I’m used to the fact that I don’t have to adapt to anyone, look around, give in … I have a bright and meaningful life, and thoughts of loneliness do not visit me. Especially now, when work takes so much strength and energy that you often want silence. In some ways I am absolutely happy, in some ways not very much, sometimes I want to lean on someone and relax. But I am too exacting and strict, and you have to be soft with men … Of course, sometimes I bite my tongue, otherwise I would probably not be able to exist in any relationship at all. But I’m definitely not ready to do this once and for all. Perhaps the man for whom I will stop biting, we have not yet met.
Indeed, these prescriptions go against the very nature of love, which has nothing to do with control, prudence and prescriptions: “you have to”, “you have to”. Love appeals to our emotions, to the unconscious, and besides, it does not obey any general laws. Every love story is as unique as every person. And universal recipes drown out our inner voice.
The stranger, with whom we have brought life can no longer surprise us, since his behavior is predetermined. And if there is no place surprise, there is no place and love. Love is all we concern, unsettling. A ready-made solutions so enticing! They are like a key that allows you to make this vague area of order and clarity. Hide our weaknesses and justify mistakes: “If I carefully followed all the rules, but the relationship is still not developed, so to blame the other.”
Why are you still single: 4 reasons
Finally, they help us get away from the most important question: what do I really want? Do I really like him? I am 35 years old, I would like to start a family. Do I want it? Making your own choices, studying and accepting your desires can be very difficult and uncomfortable, because you have to invent yourself. And although stereotypes limit our freedom, they calm and free us from choice and reflection, so getting rid of them can be difficult.
To understand yourself, for a start it would be good to stop perceiving them uncritically. At the moment when we say to ourselves: “I am alone, because all men are scoundrels,” “I am alone, because all women strive to sit on their necks,” it’s time to ask ourselves the question: are they all like that? And we will definitely find in our environment a few refuting examples. In addition, it would be nice to think about what exactly we mean by “meanness”, what it meant in our personal history.
Tatyana, 40, designer, photographer: “There was something unacceptable to me in this relationship”
“I am not a feminist, I love men and cannot imagine my life without them. Moreover, I tried more than once to create a family, giving both myself and the man a chance to open up, enrich each other with experience, get something new from him for development and share something of my own with him. However, there always came a moment when something absolutely unacceptable for me interfered in our relations – despotism, hypocrisy, jealousy, helplessness … Each man had something of his own that narrowed the path of our life together to a narrow path along which it was no longer possible to go together . And I went on alone with the hope of meeting a like-minded person, a person to whom I would be close in spirit and way of life. It is important for me that joys and difficulties are within our reach, that two streams, equal in strength, merge into a single river of life … There are so few strong men! Now I am alone, but I always have something to fill my living space, I am happy to immerse myself in creativity, travel, do what is close and dear to me … But at the same time, I understand that it is possible to achieve inner harmony only with a man: only two energies, male and female, give a couple a unique opportunity to reveal themselves in all the variety of feelings, live with a gleam in their eyes, and radiate real happiness.”
To doubt is to make a hole in our prejudices through which we can regain our ability to be surprised. This means that space for love will also be freed up. Having moved away from the prejudices imposed by society, we find ourselves alone with ourselves. And then you have to deal with your own clamps, so that later you can get rid of them. But unlike universal recipes, here the answer is not known in advance.
Some of us have a personality built around a lack of love, and then we wait for the other to fill that void within us. We feel not just a desire, but an irresistible need: there is no talk of another, so the chances that our expectations from the meeting will be fulfilled are extremely small.
Others know how unhappy their parents were in family life, and are afraid to repeat their fate. Still others prefer not to start a relationship, because they are afraid not to survive the end of love. There are those who are afraid of losing part of themselves in love.
Without love, no one wants to live. But some prefer the suffering of loneliness vicissitudes of love
Love always makes us wonder: are we what believe yourself? As a loved one, we see a different reflection of himself, which often do not know. Sometimes calmer live with a false self-image, but would not know himself present. Whatever the nature of these fears, the psychic mechanism is always the same: the instinct of preservation that is, winning attraction to life and development.
We prefer loneliness to risk because internal barriers or universal norms protect us. No one wants to live alone and without love. But some of us prefer the suffering of loneliness to the vicissitudes of love. Ultimately, we can find inner balance outside of marriage—a single life brings us indirect benefits that we often don’t realize.
But there comes a day when the cost of peace is too great. Another failure, another break, and the scales will tip: the desire to love and be loved will prevail over our fears. But it will be a real desire – our own, one and only, in which there is neither a desire nor a need to conform to the norm. We will finally agree to give and give, to invest a part of ourselves in the relationship. That’s the only way to get something in return.
Rimma, 45, pharmacist: “I depended too much on the opinion of my parents”
“I have never been married, although all my life it seemed to me that the main purpose of a woman is home, family, children … Apparently, the fact is that I have always been very dependent on my parents and their opinions. At first they told me that I needed to get an education, and only then think about marriage. And when grooms appeared on the horizon, neither mother nor father categorically liked them. I can’t say that my parents openly forbade me something, but I always felt their cold, jealous attitude towards my choice. To be honest, it never really bothered me. It was even convenient to live with my parents – habitually, predictably. I didn’t feel hurt, lonely, or a recluse… Only, perhaps, I regretted that I never became a mother. My attitude to life changed five years ago when my father died. I grieved a lot, I was simply destroyed by guilt for not being able to give him more warmth and my love. Trying to help, a friend invited me to a psychological training. After him, I realized that I was living some kind of far-fetched life … I have changed a lot since then, I have taken a different, more conscious look at life, my own parents, men and people in general … Today I am comfortable with myself. But I’m much more ready for a long-term relationship, although I know that it will not be easy for my partner: I’m used to being alone, I like to do everything and decide for myself. However, I am ready to seek compromises. And I try to understand and respect men.”
What should we do to make this happen? Just wait for insight or go to a psychotherapist? I would say this: let go. Reflecting on yourself, opening up to another person is an active process, and it can be difficult to endure these changes alone. If the pain and suffering are strong, then contacting a psychotherapist can alleviate them.
He will not dispel fears with a wave of his hand, but will help to get along with them. Psychoanalysis paradoxically leads not to knowledge, but to ignorance. Letting go of prejudice means admitting that we don’t know anything for sure. In the face of the complexities of love, its elusive secret, it is better to say to yourself: “Since no one understands love anyway, boldly go ahead!” And then you can fall in love like a child – freely, unlimitedly, forgetting about everything in the world.
About the expert
Sophie Cadalen – psychoanalyst, couples specialist, writer, co-author of the book “Everything with her … and still not married” (Albin Michel, 2009).