You are the love of my life! You complete me. I am
nothing without you. We are soul mates. You are my other half. My
universe begins and ends with you! I will die without you.
What's
wrong with this picture? We know almost instinctively that these
statements are not only dramatic hyperbole but patently untrue. Even
if we have met the love our life, the incontrovertible truth remains
that we were alive before we met this paragon, and we must have made
enough of ourselves for our lover to want to spend eternity with us.
We also have the evidence of others who have managed to pick and go
on when a primary relation ends.
One of the
above statements of star-struck lovers is actually true: the last
one, but not in the way intended. I will die without you.
The maudlin lover means, I will die now, this instant (if I
cannot manipulate you into saying you love me/say you will never
leave my side, etc.) It is factually true, not now (unless suicide
follows), but ultimately. All relationships end, one way or
another, in either separation or death. If one is in a logical
frame of mind, this statement seems obvious. If one is feeling
vulnerable or inadequate, this statement seems shocking if not
horrifying, because it puts us face to face with the existential
truth that ultimately we are alone. Someone may hold our hand when
we pass, but after that we are alone or no longer exist– depending
on one's belief – just we were when we came into this world.
Culture influences us to adumbrate this fact with panic and then with
denial. In his treatise on mortality and meaning, Starring at
the Sun (2008, pp.81-82), Irvin Yalom references many ideas that
have been advanced to normalize mortality and the transitory nature
of our existence, such as the so-called “argument of symmetry,”
advanced by the ancient philosopher, Epicurus, who observed that our
life is but a brief spark between two eternal voids. It is ironic,
Yalom observes that we are concerned immensely about the void after
our relatively brief life, but usually fail to consider the equally
immense void that preceded it. Culturally induced denial of
mortality affects all aspects of the way we life our lives:
everything seems less precious if one is assumed to live forever.
Not only does it shift us away from valuing our relationships; living
as if one is eternal adds apparent value to things and fosters
materialism and competitiveness. It is a feedback loop of denial:
materialistic pursuits and reification of relationships serve the
neurotic purpose of diverting attention away from our fear of death
which is the motivation for the neurosis. Coming back to the fact of
our finitude brings perspective to many aspects of life.
Avoiding
awareness of mortality has a profound influence on the way one
conducts relationships. If today might be one's last, even one's
enemy has a defining meaning. All relationships become important.
People are not things, nuisances
blocking the path of desire, nor are they vehicles to attaining it.
Neither are they jig saw puzzle pieces that magically make us whole.
Avoiding
awareness of one's essential and ultimate aloneness also clouds our
sense of self-responsibility, takes focus off the plight of the human
condition shared by others, blurs boundaries, fosters neediness,
fuels expectations, unfairness, aggression and all the emotions that
go with these distorted states of mind –in a word, denying
existential responsibility for oneself is toxic to relationship.
Avoiding self-responsibility also
inhibits our understanding and estimation of ourselves by deflecting the search for self-worth and mean onto others. Distortion
of where one's self-esteem comes
from is not unrelated to this discussion and has a profound impact on
the nature of our connections with others and
our ability to have a healthy primary relationship that is free of
co-dependence and abuse.
Terrence Real defines self-esteem in an existential way:
Self-esteem is your capacity
to recognize your worth and value, despite your human flaws and
weaknesses. Your value as a person isn't earned; it isn't
conditional; it can't be added to or subtracted from. Your essential
worth is neither greater nor lesser than that of any other human
being. It can't be. Self-esteem is about being, not doing. You have
worth simply because you're alive.
Self-esteem comes from the
inside out. Thinking otherwise is a delusion. We understand this
fundamental ethic in theory. It is the central principle of
democracy itself: "All men are created equal." We
understand the essential quality of human beings in times of crisis.
Medical triage, for example, is based on a patient's need, never on
his or her status. ... Yet despite its being central to our morality
and the very bedrock of our form of government, somehow most of us
manage to all but obliterate the vital truth of essential equality
when we think about ourselves. (2008, pp.133-134)
In the search for a mate, one can date from a stance of personal
responsibility or from an emotional stance of attempting to fill some
unadmitted need, to make up for some assumed inadequacy, to solve
some avoided problem, to reinstate some fused family dynamic or to
heal attachment wounds that originated in childhood. Perhaps one
believes one is too old/ fat/short/stupid/etc. and can be made whole
by snagging a partner who is young, fit/tall/smart/etc. Or one needs
a partner to be what one's mother/father was not: a history of
failing to receive parental approval or attention drives the
selection of a partner who is enough like that parent to act as a
surrogate in this endlessly repeating drama of never quite believing
one is good enough. If taking charge of one's own life is not
something one learned or one has arrived in adulthood feeling
generally incompetent, hitching oneself to someone else's energy
(positive or negative) in order to avoid these feelings, or to feel
secure or complete keeps one in denial of the biggest fear of all,
that ultimately nobody can provide that security and nobody can
augment what one cannot accept about oneself.
When
one
gets
into a relationship to escape
the insecurities of one's
origins, the diversion may
work for a time, but one's
growth beyond these old wounds has only been arrested. Bringing
existential avoidance into one's
closest adult relationship, one
is not seeking a
relationship; rather a
cure or a crutch.
Real
relationship begins with
the premise that a partner
is not a surrogate for religion, a
medicine or
a prosthetic limb, but a
human being just like
oneself. If one can avoid
non-relationships
that are really
theatres in which to do one's
personal development work, all
of one's
relationships have a better
chance of succeeding and flourishing. Knowing and accepting that
life is finite, that one's time on this earth is short, that what one
makes of one's
life is no one else's project, one is far less likely to lose sight
of the same limitations faced by others and
who we really are. One's
understanding of others
and what one has
a right to expect of them and they of us shifts in
the direction of healthier
interpersonal boundaries and greater
authenticity, cherishing
what one has, even if it's
not perfect.
Once
the transitory nature of relationships and life itself are
acknowledged as well as the ways in which partners are forever
separate and incapable of fully melding with the other,
sentiments such as you are my other half
or I cannot bear to be without you come
into focus as formulae
to inhibit living as a whole person and being
responsible in relation to others.
While we
can feel
connection, we
recognize that the dream fusion is illusion.
As Budda
observed, everything has a beginning and an end; make peace with that
and all will be well.
REFERENCES
Real, T. (2008) The New Rules of Marriage. New York:
Ballantine
Yalom, I. (2010) Staring at the Sun: overcoming the terror of
death. New York: Wiley.