Why we love how we love
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Love partners are getting separated faster and more frequently, hoping to find "the right one" elsewhere. Why do we love that? What are the consequences of this inflation of love attempts?
Jürg Willi: It makes love relationships fragile and superficial. I observe a new phenomenon: The divorce decision is made because one says: "I do not want to waste my time with you, let's finish it, then I can look for a new partner right away." A deepening discussion with the other one is avoided. Time and again, I am astonished how stubbornly, despite all the bad news, even critical and educated men and women think that love and lasting happiness are closely linked.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Are not people afraid of being alone?
Willi: Yes, yes, but unlike in the past, today's Internet offers a downright absurd offer of potential new contacts, and you're left with the illusion that you're not really alone. There are people who chat with a hundred partners, and then the first phone call is enough to end it. This type of "dating" threatens to become a drug whose dosage must be constantly increased. This leads to abuse of natural desire.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: What do you mean?
Willi: The longing comes from a defect: the human being is not enough. In my opinion, it is necessary to suffer and long for a separation for a long time, because a new relationship is built up in the imagination and yearning. You have to enrich the poentenielle willingness to love again to become able to love again at all. But just after a break you feel this lack as particularly distressing. One is at first as amputated. With the ex-partner of a long-lasting relationship, not only shared a common history, the building of existence and family, a world as dwelling, but also a common world of thought, a shared memory. One is accustomed to hear the partner's assessment of all kinds of experiences, his consolation or contradiction. From this world it is necessary to dissociate and to stand on oneself. This can take a long time. Many can not stand it and immediately reconnect to fill the hole. There are often total miscarriages.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why do not we become more mature and better as a lover over the years, just like a good wine?
Willi: Some people succeed. A love relationship is the most intense personal challenge. Many dodge it. It is often missed a great opportunity for personal development. Many go out of a relationship very hurt and say never again. This is more common in women than in men.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is the attitude "Never again!" not pure purpose pessimism - in the hope that life proves the opposite?
Willi: Anyway, such an attitude is highly ambivalent. There are women who from now on emphasize their independence, according to the motto: I do not need a man - and at the same time they are cross-hearted. Others, in turn, want a new partner very quickly, leave no stone unturned, from blind date to the Internet, go to bed very quickly with someone and are always disappointed. For women who want to have children after the age of 36, there is sometimes a real panic.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: But why does not this collective unrestrained love-will of millions of people obviously bear so little good fruit?
Willi: Maybe we hear more about the failure of relationships than about their success. Incidentally, in studies 80 to 90 percent of married people consider themselves lucky. After a broken love, however, many become self-centered - that's why it often goes wrong. You try to be on the safe side, and only with reservations. With the basic idea: I'm looking for a partner that I have under control. But such hedges usually take their toll.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: To what extent?
Willi: Suppose a woman experiences great economic dependency in the first marriage, goes through the whole emancipation mill and then enters into a relationship with a clearly inferior man, conscious that this time she is keeping money and housing under control. And already the old story repeats with the opposite sign. The controlled partner escapes and secretly intervenes with another woman to confirm. Of course, no encounter can take place at eye level.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is such an avoidance strategy in mate choice the reason that second marriages are according to statistics even more unstable than the first?
Willi: Yes, in addition, after a long marriage, it is no longer possible to build life together in the same way. Especially the nest building when starting a family or the first years of work are very connecting years. If each partner already has his position and maybe children from a first marriage, it's much harder to give the same substance to the new relationship.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Since we obviously do not get any smarter - what do you think of recruitment agencies such as Parship, which are supposedly scientifically sound and systematically find the right lid?
Willi: At these recruitment agencies personality profiles of the partner seekers are created and compared with each other. It is assumed that the higher the agreement between two persons, the more likely a match. In my view, this is a wrong conception, which is at best good for determining whether two people have sympathies, similar interests, views of life and a similar level of education; but what can not be programmed, of course, is the spark that has to jump over to fall in love. That comes from deeper motives.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Which one?
Willi: That remains the mystery of love. It is impossible to predict whether two fall in love or not; this is an irrational process for outsiders. There is one ugly, stupid and without special qualities and is still desired. Incidentally, it is very important for the health of human societies that weaknesses do not have to lead to personal isolation, but can also be particularly attractive for a love affair.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: If nothing can be said about the motives of the ignition, then perhaps something about its nature?
Willi: I am convinced that it will ignite when the vision comes up: This person makes it possible for me to develop as I have always wanted. It makes it possible for me to bring what I have provided into life. Here it will be answered. Here I am recognized in my innermost being.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: So it is a prerequisite to know each other well?
Willi: No, I do not think so. For a while, there was a conviction that you had to go to the desert first to find yourself. But the opposite is the case: Only in dealing with the partner to get to know each other. He is the incorruptible critic, telling you the truth, and in this confrontation you find yourself - either by agreeing with the partner or by demarcating your opinion.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: How do I know what I want to bring to fruition?
Willi: This is an intuitive and very subtle process. When asked in the therapy couples, what has attracted them to each other, are often called inconsequential things such as "his funny laugh" or "She was wearing a red dress". The choice is unconscious. Among other things, the criteria are characterized by experiences in the parents' marriage, for example, divorce children often have a special yearning for a "healthy" family. Later stages of life are more about correcting injuries in previous relationships.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is that fundamentally wrong? Do you really have to go from psychotherapy to coping with the past, to yoga to find your own center, and to the fitness center to become a completely new person?
Willi: No, certainly not. One can confidently go into a new relationship with all his anxiety. What matters is the willingness to argue. The biggest challenge for a person's personal development, I am convinced, is an intimate partnership. What it means to be a man, I only feel in the encounter with the woman. And a love relationship is about the innermost core of a person - the part of the personality called by the first name. Even when one is staying in another person, one feels oneself, not only in understanding.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Can one recognize each other at first sight?
Willi: Our study of falling in love with 600 subjects has shown that love at first sight is just as viable as a base, and it takes two months for it to spark.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: You write in your book "Psychology of Love": The divider comes with the Word.
Willi: With the first spoken word, the unquestioning suspension stops. It becomes obvious that the beloved person is different from himself, his own being, with whom there can not be total fusion. On the other hand, there would be no liability without language.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why is communication between two people in a love relationship so difficult?
Willi: Because it's always about power. Just to talk more with each other brings nothing! But to talk differently with each other: It depends on how real that is, what you exchange. And if you can listen to the other as well.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why does power play such a role in a love relationship?
Willi: The love relationship is more of a tennis match than a permanent hug. The partners must be equal to make it a good game. They have to be in conflict with each other because they are the only way to stimulate development. Criticism and resistance are a central part of a happy love relationship and not, as one always thinks, harmony. Love is something dynamic. You have to be on the way as a couple!
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: So you can only be glad that the beloved person remains a mystery?
Willi: Absolutely!
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is the pair behavior really subject to the zeitgeist?
Willi: Very, I think. In the 60s and 70s, for example, many people were really stressed by the demand for free love, because it did not suit them, this "who pisses twice with the same, already belongs to the establishment." And today, I think, many women bow to the pressure of society to be successful both at work and at home. I am not sure if this always meets your own needs.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: But this is not only true for women, but also for men.
Willi: Yes, both genders have to listen to themselves and find out: What do I want? Because you can not have everything: top career, children, friendships, leisure activities. When both aim for a great career, they often develop a paralyzing rivalry between them. Constantly measuring who does more for the community is torturous in many ways. Today there is a great deal of freedom in the choice of roles in a relationship. What is required is the ability of partners to negotiate matching roles. In this context, one should not consider the old distribution of roles fundamentally obsolete.
