Some accept things they don’t want or share just to avoid being left out. Some fear betrayal and decide to always be clear up front, turning the relationship into a contract. Some erase themselves just to please. Can you hear the echoes of the wounded children to whom each of these individuals, far from taking care of, stubbornly clings? The reverberation of a past that each of them seems absurdly intent on repairing in the present? Can you sense the smell of repressed emotions and dysfunctional emotional patterns? Can you perceive the dynamics of emotional dependence? Something more subtle and tortuous than couples in need animates them, something less manifest, played out in the paths of memory and recognition, attachment, and relationship. Scripts from the past that are replayed every time, stories that repeat themselves. The actors we relate to may change, but the plot always remains the same. We believe that very few of us haven’t experienced at least one such story, simply because very few of us have had access to an infant attachment truly made of emotional closeness, mutual tuning, intimacy, and healthy mirroring. An attachment that includes disappointments and frustrations, light and darkness – both necessary – but in which we could learn the art of flowing through opposites, the value of emptiness and solitude, as well as enjoy fullness and sharing. This was the case for our parents as well, and here is the transgenerational transmission of emotional scripts. Today, we know that a mother’s emotions even influence the regulatory microRNAs of the fetus, and this memory persists for up to three successive generations. These are the genetic foundations of family constellations.
If we add that all of psychology from the 20th century to the present day is still a victim of a misunderstanding about the causative nature of trauma, it’s challenging to think that relationships can be as free, erotic, deep, creative, and generative as they could be. The misunderstanding concerns the doomed attempt to explain the present through the past, the idea that an individual has a particular issue today because they had a specific negative experience or trauma in the past. This leads to the belief that finding the trauma will solve the problem, which invariably doesn’t happen. It’s a temporal deception, as if time were genuinely linear as if there were a before creating an after. The problem now is of now. This is the only time. And it is itself beyond time. What matters are not the events that occurred, but what has been made of them and, above all, how much we are still attached to them, instead of entrusting them to the simple story of our existence in the time of life, as timeless beings that we are. So, the same beliefs that psychology has offered us – and how not to accept them? – continue to make us seek repair for our past in present relationships. We keep asking those with us now to do what we wish others had done in the past. What we should do instead is learn the art of non-attachment and the new that is created every moment. When we open our eyes to a new day, the whole world is reborn. Why perpetuate what has already been? In the couples in desire, the past dominates the present. Often, all of this is unconscious. Wounded children seek each other, find each other, come together, and seek to repair a past already lived. In doing so, they often recreate it. The happiness they know is conditioned happiness, that which comes from external events, linked to what happens, linked to what others do or don’t do. We are in the realm of the limbic brain system, where every action is primarily a reaction, where the memory of before guides responses, and where the automatisms of emotional scripts decide before and faster than our consciousness. In couples in need, everything is basic – the other is essentially fine as long as it gives us what we need. In couples in desire, the other is never truly fine; deep down, we want them to be different because it’s the script of lack and dissatisfaction that we enact. There’s always a “but” and an “if” in front of our happiness. We wish he or she were… did… wanted… something different from what they are, do, or want.
In couples in desire, unlike in couples in need, which can remain stable and the same throughout life, there is always a parabola or a cyclicity, an alternation of phases. There’s usually a first phase of great infatuation, enthusiasm, and passion… in couples in desire, it’s not “I’m with you because I need you” but “I’m with you because I like you.” Being appreciated and loved makes us happy; if we please, we’re happy; if we are loved, we’re happy, and usually, we believe we are loved if we are good if we do what they want, or if we think we are loved if we become indispensable. But after this initial phase, disillusionment begins, along with complaints. He isn’t caring enough; she isn’t uninhibited enough. If only he were more present, he would be perfect. If only she didn’t stick to me so much, I would feel more willing to commit. In couples in desire, we project our unresolved issues. We don’t enter into a relationship to be happy but to evolve. When your partner does something you don’t like, at that moment, they are your greatest teacher, and you have the opportunity to learn. It’s true, dramatically true. But fortunately, it’s only a passage. Living in the dimension of a couple in desire is a stroke of luck if we confront the dysfunctional script and finally let it go, a condemnation if we content ourselves with thinking that the couple is not a place of the soul to enjoy and access the mystery and forces of nature, but an eternal school for repairing emotions. Couples in desire serve precisely this purpose. They mirror the emotional burdens we haven’t let go of yet. In these couples, passion exists, but quite often, the difficulty lies in the transmutation of this passion.
When the couple surpasses the initial infatuation phase and becomes stable, the desire could experience an intense season of experiences and deepening. Instead, the difficulty of accepting the other, mirroring the difficulty of accepting ourselves, means that the other has never truly been accepted for who they are but only for the reparative function they can have. This generates a terrible sabotage of the relationship. The partner turns into a kind of scapegoat onto which doubts, revenges, and claims are poured. “He will have to change!” or “She will have to give in!” They engage in this task, as impossible as it is infinite, squandering much of their energies. Behind the game of “It’s all your fault if,” there are fears and vulnerabilities shielded through the partner. This fundamental attitude of not accepting the other for who they are, in their diversity, leads to conflict that ends up also affecting desire. Thus, impossible sexuality becomes a way to express discontent and complaints that remain unsaid outside the bedroom. Moreover, it may seem contradictory to what I’ve said, but couples in desire are entirely animated by the pleasure principle. If we choose the fulfillment of desire and instant pleasure, if we don’t know how to distinguish at the moment of our true destiny’s accomplishment, then we fall into dependence; in essence, we lose ourselves, bartering our uniqueness and originality, the mission of our soul, for the repair of scripts that are mere simulacra of ourselves.
While people living in couples in need haven’t structured that basic sense of autonomy and the ability to provide for themselves, those living in the dimension of couples in desire often haven’t had the opportunity to structure and then overcome what Freud would call the stage of healthy narcissism and healthy dependence. They are still dominated by the principle of immediate pleasure. What matters is what makes us feel good now, and anything that the mind categorizes as displeasure is to be avoided. Experiencing pain or taking a risk seems intolerable, and fear dominates choices. Pain is only an enemy, not a force necessary for our individuation. Better to tolerate an unfaithful man than experience the pain of absence. Better to tolerate an uncertain and unresolved woman than confront the power of the feminine. Yet, when we accept to encounter what scares us, what causes us pain, and say to fear, “Come, seize me,” and say to pain, “Come, cross me,” that’s when we undergo an inner transmutation. There, we know who we are and what we are here to do. Then the soul begins to build itself, and that’s what couples in union do. They co-create the manifestation of their own soul together. So, when couples in desire begin to become aware of the past dominating their present, they go through a phase where they convince themselves that cultivating love means resolving tensions in the relationship, discovering the secret of lasting love, finding ways to invent novelty every day, and things of that nature. On a neurophysiological level, from pure limbic activation, we move to the involvement of the prefrontal cortex. As we know from all studies on emotional intelligence, when we activate the ability for self-observation, emotional awareness, and a mindful attitude, we activate a precious brain network that involves both the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, synergistically. The plastic prefrontal cortex can then perform its functions of superior integration and literally contribute to shaping experiences, reactions, and behaviors. When two partners who have lived in the dimension of couples in desire up to that point begin to observe, question, and reflect on themselves, going beyond judgment, and increasingly understanding the importance of going beyond fear and expectations, the first miracle of neuroplasticity occurs. The same prefrontal cortex that activates when working with the body or through meditation and prayer also activates with the so-called secure attachment. It should be what we experienced as children, but if that didn’t happen, the good news is that we have the opportunity for a brain upgrade at any time.
