How we understand love today it’s not at all the default.
Love relationships, as we currently define them, are more of a modern invention. In the past, people entered relationships and married for various reasons: status, money, skills, political reasons, beauty. Pragmatic reasons that determined a pragmatic and utilitarian relationship. (Therefore, the love between Romeo and Juliet must have been even more shocking in Shakespeare’s time, around 1600). In the 18th century, however, a real revolution occurs through romanticism: love becomes the only foundation for relationships, and all of the other aspects are worthy of contempt or can be ignored. A new expectation is born: to love and be loved by our partners, expectation ever-present in our minds today.
Psychotherapists argue the discussion is much more complicated than that (and, believe me, this is a very common theme in the therapy sessions).
The basic premise (regardless of therapeutic orientation) is that the way we understand relationships and love is strongly shaped by how we’ve experienced relationships and love as children. No, we’re not searching for mom and dad in our partners (as says a distorted and simplistic movie informed perspective), but we know how be in relationships based on our early experiences. How we received affection and what we’ve noticed about the adults around us (parents, grandparents) giving affection becomes a reference point for us. It’s not an algorithm or a direct, one-sided causality (thank heavens!), but looking at these first relationships reveals a lot about us and our relationship patterns.
For example, if I was surrounded by rather reserved and cold adults who did not put love into words and considered it to be implicit, I might find myself as an adult repeating the same pattern and not understanding why my partner keeps telling me that I’m afraid of intimacy or that he/she doesn’t feel I’m involved in the relationship. Or, if I had a parent who alternated great displays of love with loud arguments or absence, I might not tolerate quiet periods very well when I’m in an intimate relationship, find these quiet moments boring and unconsciously seek out conflict (because I know that is what love means). From our first relationships we learn about others (should I rely on others or not), about ourselves (I’m valuable vs. I’m never enough), about what we should do (should I be the first to exit the relationship at the slightest problem or cling onto the other).
What is the purpose of understanding these things? As we are a social species (and not just for that reason), relationships are our source of growth, but also of deep suffering. You cannot change or have agency over something you don’t understand.
Take your time and answer the following questions:
- How did you know you were loved when you were little?
- Who were the people you were attached to and why?
- What did you understand by observing the couple formed by your parents?
- What is your biggest fear when you are in a relationship?
- How do you show love? Are you sure it’s what your partner needs?
