Before considering leaving a relationship, I would invite you to abandon some of the dogmas of romantic love that still shape our way of loving. Although we consider ourselves modern and realize that there is no “happily ever after” or “half an orange,” few of us free ourselves from the bond-suffocating dynamics that, all too often, we choose ourselves to do.
At the beginning of every relationship there is a kind of “prison romance” that we live in an atmosphere of “the two of us and a cabin.” In love, we dropped a philosophy course, canceled trips with friends, gave up extra work for a future promotion…everything to make room for present love.
We reenact the Platonic idea of fused love, without realizing it, as if it were emotional revenge for the castration that Freud described as inevitable and which we have experienced so many times when we realize that we are not everything to the one we loved. Being someone’s priority has something numbing: it reignites the fantasy of perfection, our lost paradise.
But after the golden months of falling in love, the routine brings with it an extra burden: work, children, bills, aging parents, a tired body… and there is less time for yourself and to develop the relationship. Adhering to the logic that love is about thinking “we” before “me,” we build relationships based on the exchange of compromises: “I’m giving up my career so we can change cities and you can grow professionally, but I hope you’ll give up surfing trips with friends.”; “I gave up my course to stay the night with the kids, but I want you to give up your poker game on Tuesday.” Thus, love becomes accountability.
A negative spiral is then created: no one does what they want, the moments together are no longer good, you feel frustrated, you give up more and more things in an attempt to make the relationship better, and as your lives become closer, the relationship becomes poorer and more dissatisfied. Poor because without room to breathe we become less interesting people; Resentful because every concession “out of love” carries with it the expectation that the other will do the same. In this scenario, it seems that the only form of freedom is to free oneself from marriage – while the calling might be to live more freely within it.
But to do that, you have to free yourself from another prison: the idea that we have to row in the same direction to get there. Getting where, after all? And when everyone wants to explore different river banks? Maybe you no longer want to save money to buy a place in the future and would rather invest in the experiences of the present. Maybe you want to go back to school and discover new cultures, while your partner is looking for silence and routine. When we grow up believing that love “follows the same script,” we engage in “emotional arm wrestling,” trying to fit the other into our version of the story, thus making the seas more turbulent than they otherwise would be. In love, the survival of a couple lies in understanding that we are more spectacle than rowboats: we change our shape according to the flow of life and will not always be consistent with our desires. And that’s good.
It’s okay as long as we have the courage to name and own our desires – as well as our own renunciation and the consequences of our actions, rather than holding the other person responsible for their empty life. It reminds me of the movie “Anatomy of a Fall” (watch it if you can). At the height of the argument in which the husband blames his wife for his professional and personal crisis, she responds: “You are complaining about the life you chose, and you are not a victim of anything. Your generosity hides something dirtier: fear. You are unable to face your ambitions and you resent me because of that. But I was not the one who put you in your place. You are not sacrificing yourself. As I said, you chose to stay on the sidelines because you are afraid; because your pride makes me live a better life.” Your head explodes before you can even come up with a good idea, and now you wake up at 40 and need to find someone to blame.
Just like him, we blame our partner for the frustrations and limitations we face. The fruits of choices that may have once been logical, but today have become heavy. Instead of continuing the accusation game, why don’t we talk and accept the discomfort and need to find a new way around this kaleidoscope?
What suffocates us is not the relationship, but the delegation of our desire in the name of love. While you say “I do it for him”, “I do it for the relationship”, you are outsourcing what is yours. Outsourcing sounds noble, but it is childish. Therefore, to be faithful to the love of the couple, free yourself to establish spaces of fidelity to your own desire: moments in which each person can be whole, without feeling guilty, without confusing individual pleasure with neglect. Independence is not selfish. Go out alone with your friends, go to the shows you want, and allow yourself to say no to your mother-in-law’s lunch to say yes to your Sunday yoga class. When another person looks for pleasure outside—in people, hobbies, or projects—it’s not a lack of love, it’s a lack of oxygen. Freedom in love does not mean breaking ties, but rather leaving space for two worlds to coexist without fear of losing each other.
And if you also have a dilemma or doubt about your romantic relationships, write to me at columnamorcronico@amorespossiveis.love. Every Wednesday I answer a question here.
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