Remedies for the Loss of Love

(By: Enrique Rojas, La Naci'n, 2003-04-07)

From the desk of my psychiatric office, I have seen many marriage crises pass in front of me. Sometimes it has been possible to find ways of communication and solution. In other cases, the couple has broken apart, split in half. The phenomenon is very complex and its roots have a rich etiology.

But from the psychological point of view, there are three important factors that should be emphasized:

1) It is an epidemic that has taken the place of old epidemics from preceding centuries and years.
2) It is contagious, which should not surprise us, since fashions spread more quickly than infectious diseases.
3) It takes place within a profound crisis of values that is running through today's society of well-being.

What is happening? Even just a few years ago, who could have told us that that in this time of progress in the great nations of the West, after so many historical difficulties had been overcome, we would encounter this terrible plague? The problem has many aspects. We will examine it from three angles: characteristics of love in general, the ingredients of a couple's love, and lastly, types of conjugal crises and possible therapeutic goals.

What is love? The question seems almost nonsensical. So many books, novels, poems, and treatises have dealt with it, in one way or the other. The word love has many senses; within it, one finds a whole collection of meanings. But its use, abuse, falsification, manipulation, and adulteration demand a special effort of clarification in order to avoid the possibility of reducing its meaning to the level of a materialized and trivialized thing, as is so often happening today.

There are many types of loves. From friendship to affection, crossing the wide span of interpersonal relationships (love for parents, for children, for more distant relatives, for colleagues at work, etc.) to the love of things or inanimate objects (antique furniture, medieval art, the Renaissance, romantic literature). There is also the love for abstract questions (justice, rights, truth, methodological rigor) or for certain themes in life (tradition, life in contact with nature, work well done, the classical style of life). Finally, there is the love of oneÃ???s neighbor, understood in its etymological and literal sense, as love for those who are closest to us, and the love between a man and a woman, which will be the nucleus of our analysis. And finally, there is the love of God, for the man of faith.

Bases of a marriage

The common element in every love is attraction, acceptance, the tendency to adhere to something that is seen as good, a tendency that leads to the possession of that good. Human love is a bridge that is built initially from sentiments. To love someone brings a feeling of delight, of interior joy that tends to union. That sentiment is going to be the motor of this dynamic, although with the passage of time, other components will be needed, as we will see next. Falling in love is first presided over by emotions and sentiments; after, however, a couple's love is built by the will and intellect, by commitment and self-giving. While the first presupposes an adolescent conception, the second houses a more mature meaning.

Let's see the characteristics of conjugal love or the love of a couple. The first thing is the feeling, which is born from that powerful stimulus of attraction. Love is before all else a senteiment, but this does not exhaust its full meaning. It is also a tendency that reaches out in three directions: physico-sexual, psychological, and spiritual.

It must also be founded on a shared philosophy of common life. When the couple lives out some firm and coherent beliefs, the avatars of the future are seen from another perspective. In the man of the West, Christian thought has been capable of resolving all human worries. After this common basis has been established, love comes forth as an act of the will; it is the result of concrete efforts to improve the couple's daily life together, with each one working to overcome his or her own defects. A love without willpower is an immature love'frivolous, superficial, trivial, the typical product of the moral lightweight, whom I call the 'lite man'. For the defenders of this concept, love is only a sentiment that comes and goes as the wind blows. That is the love of the love songs on the radio; it is an insubstantial and superficial construction.

Another important component is the intellect. What does this mean? It means that love, once established, must be an intelligent act; or, said in another way, we have to love both with the heart and with the head. That is how one deciphers the hieroglyphics of living together: one applies the mind, putting order and clarity. That kind of love becomes more personal, individualized, and one becomes capable of understanding the psychology of the other in an objective way' and of course, with the necessary affection and love. The will and intellect are essential ingredients of the love of a couple, but today they are unpopular; they don't get good press and they're not in style. And this is logical, given the hedonistic and permissive environment in which we live.

We would like to add two comments to this collection of elements. Love is a commitment that tends towards fidelity, which is built up through continual, small loyalties. So it is that the freedom of each person is committed in love. Let's not forget that every commitment, in the long run, can appear excessively costly at times. Fidelity is what makes us live our love with integrity and coherence. When everything is fleeting, relative, going only as far as one can put up with the other, we are going to find a subproduct which is 'lite love' love without commitment, without willpower, without thought, without effort, subject to whatever winds blow: it will end up being a cheapened affective product.

And now for the last factor with which we summarize the alchemy of human love: it is a dynamic process. With the passage of time, love may be subjected to changes, oscillations, and turns, but if it is true, it won't get uprooted through it all. The foundations of love will last.

Here, we have given a brief phenomenological analysis of conjugal love as a mixture of sentiment, tendency, a philosophy of common life, will, intellect, commitment, and dynamic change.

Points of rapprochement

The diversity of types of conjugal crises do not allow us to trace out a straight therapeutic line. But we can give a series of remedies for the loss of love in married life. Some psychological observations that can serve as help and guidance for those difficult stages:

 

• In order to begin to remedy a difficult conjugal situation, it is necessary for both sides to take responsibility for the past and work to heal those memories. For this, we need a kind of eraser and a blank slate. If we do this in other areas of life, how can we not put it into practice in this area? The inability to overcome the past can make people neurotic and embittered individuals.
  
• It is important to make the effort not to pull out the list of aggravations, the inventory of little and big faults, mistakes, defects, or failures that can accumulate as a couple lives together.
  
• Mutual respect is needed in three directions: word, deeds, and gestures. How many couples could have stayed together if it hadn't been for the uncontrolled use of strong, hard, cutting words charged with accusations and coldness! Respect expressed through one's deeds is also essential; both service and maltreatment can take many forms. It is also important to take care of body language: in this area, the respect you show through gestures and hand motions can have an enormous value.
  
• Avoid unnecessary arguments. This point has to do with what psychiatrists call 'the acquisition of communication skills'.
  
• Learn to overcome difficult moments, days, or situations. Have the capacity to react well and put the right psychological resources into action.

These five points are just the first steps in a rich field of possibilities. They seek points of rapprochement and understanding. And one must never lose sight of the fact that in married life, the most important things are the small details.

There is no happiness without love, and there is no love without renunciation.