Does happiness need a couple so that children develop harmoniously? And what is a good couple? Answers psychoanalyst.
Psychoanatician, as well as a teacher of psychopathology at the University of Paris-XIII and a member of the psychoanalytic association of France. He is, in particular, the author of the book “Insolence of Love, Fictions of Sexual Life” (L’Comor, Fictions de la vie Sexuelle) (Albin Michel, 2007.
Psychologies: Successfully arranging your life in pairs and in the family – this is the desire in our time is experienced by almost all. What do you think is meant by success? How to achieve this ideal?
Jean-Michel Hirt: Success is a word that is rather applicable to business than a couple or love, but at the same time it perfectly reflects the current state of minds. We live in a culture of effectiveness, and everyone is called to succeed in everything that he does: his professional, social, love and family life. It seems to me that in our time it means first of all to “realize oneself”. But the logic of the couple is not necessarily compatible with the logic of the family. The couple is built on the development of the feelings of two people. It is at the same time the goal and process, this is its impudence. And the purpose of the family is to continue the genus and the integration of the family group into society. Therefore, the family is on the side of the society that it strengthens, it interacts with it, and the couple born of desire and love avoids this, it does not give a report, except for itself. A good couple is unique in the sense that it invents itself, evolves depending on its desires and needs. The situation is different with a family that is associated with what society expects what imposes, determines what gives value in terms of education or determining the roles of each. I would say that a happy couple is a living organism, the center of gravity of which is located inside his very. Children are not an indispensable condition for her happiness, they can be the fruit of Luvi of two, but these two are self -sufficient.
Today everyone can create a couple and a family to their taste. Do you think that such a variety of accessible “formulas” is beneficial for children?
AND.-M. X.: This is a very difficult question that can only be answered for each specific case. Each couple, each family carries its own history and its own dynamics, and it would be arrogant and dangerous to make generalizations. But in my clinical practice, I note that two dangers threaten a couple, and therefore the well -being of children: a family merger (a couple does not exist as an essence different from the family, partners are exclusively parents, not lovers) and reckless individualism. During merging, children are considered as the cause of the pair and its continuation, which subjects them to a huge psychological pressure. Parents live for children and through children, children are strangled and doomed to fulfill the requirements of parents or, even worse, correct their mistakes. As for thoughtless individualism, it suppresses everything that prevents the development and well -being of the person himself. The individualist strives for everything that reinforces his image, his ego, his comfort. Children are considered as narcissistic additions or as an obstacle to personal success. Although – fortunately – there are no recipes for creating a perfect couple and an ideal family (the existence of which is impossible), it is important that every couple is looking for their own harmony and their goals. Not succumbing to the name of the siren of fashion or the trends of time. Choosing your pair means choosing a relationship between two people who contribute to personal development. Relations that allow us to grow, nourish us, help to believe in our strength, while realizing our otherness. These relations are based on tenderness, sensuality, cruelty.
What do you mean by “cruelty”?
AND.-M. X.: This is not perversion and self -destruction, but the ability of lovers to integrate their aggressive impulses into the life of a couple, a resource that allows two to create something living from the differences between them, without fear of clashes fruitful for development, and without ignoring the “shadow part” of each. Recognizing that love does not happen without hatred, the couple gains maturity. Based on this “trilogy of love”, in which these three currents – tenderness, sensuality, rigidity – are not separated, but merged, all forms of steam are possible. Otherwise, if one current excludes the other two, the couple will be in danger. So, a couple, where there is only tenderness alone, does not shine like a couple who accepts his sexuality, shows tenderness and is not afraid of a share of cruelty. At the same time, until the couple is alive, until it has lost its taste for the differences of two and extracts a healthy experience from difficulties that have fallen to her, children get a good psychological “nutrition”.
So, happiness in the family depends on internal relations in the parental pair?
AND.-M. X.: I would say that the couple necessary for children is the one in which sexy love serves the compass. That is, love as a fantasy, feeling and ideal in combination with sexuality, which is the embodiment of love. The type of energy that revives these pairs is transmitted to children. As a result, children are not afraid of the power of love and even its excesses, this conveys them to experience this strange and delightful feeling, the desire to survive this adventure for two. In such families, the child breathes easier, he is not suppressed by the expectations and desires of his parents. He is respected as a full -fledged personality, he is accompanied by a man and a woman who fuel each other and therefore nourish their children, instead of manipulating them for their purposes. It is this – a living family that is able to accept under their wing and a couple, and children, in which there is a constant dialogue.
But when the desire of the couple runs out, dissolves in family life, when a woman feels more than a mother than a woman, and her companion becomes difficult for her, as it affects children?
AND.-M. X.: Desire is not a constant property of the couple. It fluctuates, following the vicissitudes of life in general and the life of a couple, who has peaks, but also falls. At the same time, I consider it important not to use children to strengthen my pair. Sometimes we see mothers, much more tactful, delicate and sensual with their children than with their companion of life. Such eroticization of the child is harmful to him. The child should not have access to the intimate life of his parents, and in the same way it cannot be used to compensate for the lack of love or desire in the parental pair. A man should take the place of a man-the place of the one who makes the separation between the mother and the child possible, and the woman should realize that she can be a woman and a mother, although at first the merger of the “mother-mare” is inevitable. To educate a child means to accompany him so that he can love and desire outside the family. Aware of this, each couple then acts as it considers it necessary in order to find the way to desire, to survive the inevitable periods of droughts or even together to decide on the termination of relations if they became destructive for two. But in all cases, this should remain their personal affair, which does not take the children hostage – the work of adults who are responsible for the fate of their pair.