Sometimes enough is enough

A couple I know have just broken up. I love them both. They have struggled together for the past few years trying to make things work between them. They've had numerous counselling sessions and tried to change the way they are together, but it has always come back to both of them holding a firm belief – that things would be better if only the other would change! This reminds me of something the renowned couples therapist Harville Hendrix often says: "When a person gets married, he or she often believes, 'Ah, now we two will become one – and I will be the one!'" But no. Two remain two, ideally firmly on their own two feet and with the desire and compassion to see their own shortcomings as well as the other's point of view. Mostly it is sad when a couple who have loved each other decide to separate, especially when children are involved as they can take it very hard, but in this case it feels like a relief. I am probably not their only friend who feels that at last they will stop blaming each other for their own dissatisfaction. They tried, but there were areas where no compromise was ever going to be made. Fortunately no children were harmed in the making of this decision.

Why babies need cuddles and smiles

Propped on my desk is a homemade, hand-drawn postcard from my daughter overseas. It shows a mother rabbit cuddling one of her offspring and the words “I love you… to the stars and back”. It refers to a picture book I used to read to her, a reminder of sweet bed-times when she was little, when I’d make her giggle by adding my own words: “I love you to the stars, through the Milky Way, around the entire universe and back.” Naturally I found her reference to our shared memory very touching. Even before Coco was born, I knew I loved her with the fierceness of a tigress standing guard over her cubs. When she did arrive, I found I also acquired the tenderness and patience of a saint. I was amazed by her beauty – those deep, shiny, crystal-clear eyes, dear little lips at my breast, her tiny starfish hands. Many parents have felt his surge of love for their newborns, which is just as well for the human race. As it turns out, love and affection when we are babies are the essential ingredients of healthy development, with benefits for both the immune system and the brain. Because the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex develops almost entirely after birth, a baby’s experiences then are crucial. So this part of the brain’s development, which largely governs a person’s ability to manage his or her emotional responses, is influenced by the baby’s key relationships. Without even realising it, when we enjoy our babies and give them affection, when we respond warmly to their smiles, sing songs to them and look lovingly into their eyes, we are helping to grow that part of the brain that will enable them to interact socially, including their ability to empathise with others. What happens when that affection is missing was demonstrated by the discovery in 1989 of orphanages full of abandoned children in Romania where a ban on birth control had been in place since the late 1960s, leading to many unwanted births. Although their physical needs had been met, the orphans were left in their cots all day without any interaction with adults – no cuddles, no playing, talking or singing – and this part of the brain failed to develop, leaving them with lifelong emotional, behavioural and physical problems. People with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex can’t relate to others sensitively and will be oblivious to the usual social and emotional cues. At the extreme, they can be sociopathic. In evolutionary terms it is a newer part of the brain and is important in managing the emotional reactions set off in the more primitive parts. It can inhibit rage and fear reactions, for instance, applying the brakes and asserting control. As Sue Gerhardt says in her excellent book Why Love Matters (Routledge, 2007), “This ability to hold back and defer immediate impulses and desires is the basis for our will power and self-control, as well as our capacity for empathy.” She suggests that a possible evolutionary reason why this part of the human brain develops after birth, and is therefore open to social influence, is so each new person can be moulded to fit his or her environment. So there will be fewer 'cuckoos in the nest', if you like. “In a sense, the human baby has to be invited to participate in human culture," she writes. "The first step in the process is to get the baby hooked on social interaction itself by making it highly pleasurable.” All this shouldn’t scare new parents into feeling guilty for being cranky or frustrated at times. That's life. What counts most are the experiences that are frequent and repeated, so as long as you are giving your baby positive looks most of the time that you interact with him or her, you have nothing to fear. If that is not the case and you're feeling overwhelmed and out of control, seek support from friends, family or an organisation such as Lifeline (telephone 13 11 15).

Love without the cynicism

My last post discussed the first two of the three key stages of love. They were exciting and passionate and gifted with a wonderful ability to overlook the loved one’s flaws. They also had a use-by date and then the blinkers were off.
Here is what anthropologist Helen Fisher says about the third stage, which she calls the attachment phase:
“Perhaps this is the most elegant of human feelings, that sense of contentment, of sharing, of oneness with another human being. As you walk together holding hands, when you sit next to each other reading in the evening, as you laugh simultaneously at a movie or stroll through a park or on the beach, your souls are merged. All the world’s your paradise.”
Beautiful, isn’t it? Or perhaps it makes you cringe? Typing those words, it occurred to me that although it’s okay for poets or songwriters to express thoughts of love, it’s not something most people are comfortable doing. It’s almost as if it’s smarter or cooler to be cynical about it, which is fair enough, but I personally feel there’s not enough love in the world and I make no apologies for knowing exactly what Helen Fisher means.
If you do too, it's because you know how nourishing that kind of love is and that it exists alongside the whole range of emotions, including even flashes of rage. It can take many years, decades even, to achieve, and it’s absolutely worth the voyage, which is often parallel to the route to self-love. Acknowledging this love fills my heart with tenderness and thanks.
Many people are justifiably sceptical about love and marriage, especially with divorce skyrocketing and so many children living in single-parent households. But if almost half of all marriages break up, that means that more than half survive, which is quite an achievement. What’s more, the majority of people who divorce tend to marry again, so no doubt many eventually find that deeper, more “elegant” love with someone new.
Marriage isn’t compulsory, of course, and it is expected that it will occur less frequently in the future. Regardless of the form partnerships take, however, it’s a fair bet that people will continue to fall in love, pair up and try to find harmony together just as they always have.
Having the desire and intention to create that harmony is a major factor in achieving it. The high success rate of arranged marriages in India, where only 4 per cent of marriages end in divorce, seems to back this up. According to Helen Fisher, Hindu children are taught that marital love is the essence of life. Indian couples often enter married life with the expectation that romance will blossom and love will grow, and very often it does.
For those of us without such rules to live by, who make the big decisions all by ourselves, falling in love can be scary. “We’re never so defenceless against suffering as when we love,” said Sigmund Freud. Too true. Love takes courage.
Opening ourselves to love makes us vulnerable to loss. Many people, particularly if they lost someone close in their early lives, protect themselves from this pain by keeping love, and lovers, at a safe distance. Unfortunately, they miss out, and so does everyone around them.
To understand the nature of love, it's useful to consider its opposite. Although we learn in primary school that the opposite of love is hate, just as the opposite of hot is cold, it’s probably more accurate to think of the opposite of love as indifference or apathy. Love is caring, the opposite of indifference, and caring is also a component of hate – a person has to care enough to hate. It’s also possible, and a completely normal part of the human repertoire of feelings, to experience temporary flashes of hate for someone you love. Even a mother’s love, often held up as the ideal form, will include moments of less than ideal feelings, and women need to be able to accept this as normal and forgive themselves.
I will write more on the importance of love and affection for our babies in my next post.
Until then, I wish you love, and the ability to give it with abandon.

This thing called love

A couple in their 30s came to see me to work out whether their marriage had a chance. They sat facing me, as far away from each other as possible at opposite ends of the couch, the woman’s jaw firm and uncompromising, the husband sitting forward, hands clasped tightly, elbows on his knees. He jiggled his right leg incessantly, looking down at the floor.
It’s bittersweet, this thing called love, because its other side is pain.
It wasn’t so long ago that this pair, let’s call them Lance and Debbie, just couldn’t get enough of each other. It started with a lunch date, which led to dinner that same night and many wonderful times after that. They sizzled and sparkled; they were ‘in love’. Two years later, they married. And now, you could say, the honeymoon is over.
Where did the love go?
According to the songs, love “hurts”, “makes the world go around”, is “all there is” and it’s “in the air”, but what is love, actually?
Philosophers, religious leaders and psychologists have long tried to define love. Plato, who revered the love of knowledge, thought romantic love was a kind of madness – and he was a little bit right. Chemicals released in the brains of the newly ‘in love’ act like natural amphetamines, increasing the sense of excitement and making scans of their brains resemble those of people with mental illness.
Human beings have a huge capacity for love in many forms – from the romantic, passionate love we might feel for a lover to the protective love for a child or friend to a love of concepts like freedom or knowledge, and things, such as a beautiful painting or treasured object. All of these enrich us.
Love is the ideal espoused by the great religions. At its most spiritual, it’s a state of grace that makes forgiveness possible.
Nearly all of us will love something or someone in the course of our lives. It’s hard to put into words, it just is – something we feel, in our bodies, hearts and souls rather than rationalise in our minds.
The anthropologists, ‘evolutionary psychologists’ and neuroscientists of our modern world have joined the attempt to examine love. One of these, anthropologist Helen Fisher, made a fascinating study of the evolution of human mating habits and observed that love has three distinct and overlapping stages – lust (short-lived), then attraction (a bit more enduring), then attachment (more enduring still).
The first phase is like a green light when you telegraph messages of your availability to each other. It’s hot, it feels great – due to a rush of testosterone and oestrogen – and its effects are brief, just a few weeks or months at the most.
The attraction phase that follows is when lovers decide this particular person is ‘the one’. They’re committed, and ‘in love’; they think of each other all the time. This is a glorious, luminous period that highlights all the handsome/beautiful, good and lovable qualities of the other; they have no flaws, or if they do, it’s easy to overlook them.
This phase also feels great, again thanks to a range of chemicals flooding the brain, and it too has a use-by date. Apparently the brain can only cope with all this excitement for so long, usually for no more than 18 months to three years, when things change again.
And now the blinkers come off. Until now what the lovers have seen in each other has been largely their own creation, projections of what they wanted to see. If they weren’t ‘whole’, or complete, in themselves at the start (and who is?), they probably expected the other person to make them feel worthwhile. But it hasn’t happened.
My clients Lance and Debbie married during the attraction phase, otherwise known as infatuation, and now they’re having to come to grips with a different reality. They’re getting to know each other’s less appealing sides and adjusting to living with another unique individual from a completely different family culture.
They thought what they had was love, rather than a time-limited stage of love, and they’re feeling very uncertain and disappointed.
In a mature love people can ideally hold onto themselves, not being drawn into the drama or reacting defensively if their partner throws a tantrum. It’s a love of others for themselves, with all their quirks and vulnerabilities, rather than for some idea of how they might enhance one’s life. This kind of love is more possible when individuals can be authentic rather than what some marital therapists call their “pseudo selves”, trying to impress or please others and denying their real feelings and fears. The bottom line is that our relationships will only be as satisfactory as we are in ourselves.
Interestingly, Buddhists turn the truism about having to love yourself before you can love another on its head, saying you come to love yourself through the practice of loving others first. Now there’s food for thought.
After finding out what had brought Lance and Debbie to therapy and letting them vent their frustrations, I found what seemed an appropriate moment to ask what attracted them to each other in the first place. Smiles flickered across their faces as their memories flooded in.
“She was really pretty and smart and happy,” said Lance, sounding wistful.
“He was romantic and funny, he made me laugh,” said Deb. The atmosphere lightened, a break in the clouds.
Later it emerges that Deb came from an expressive family where arguments raged and were settled and forgotten. Lance’s family, on the other hand, went about life quietly, not feeling the need to talk much, just “knowing”, and certainly never raising their voices. His reluctance to argue drove Deb crazy because she never felt heard by him, which translated into feeling he didn’t care and further into not being “enough” for him. At the same time, her rages made Lance feel the end was near, which was frightening for him, and he protected himself by withdrawing even further.
When they could see how their different styles evolved and how their beliefs about arguing differed (to him it was disastrous, to her it was normal and no big deal), they were starting to have some chance of getting to the next stage of love. They also seemed to take heart from hearing me talk positively about the role of conflict and resolution in making relationships stronger. Conflict is part of the package, with the most successful couples the ones who can argue well.
Okay, so we’ve covered the phases of love that don’t last. What about the one that does? I will write about that in my next post. Till then, I wish you love and the ability to receive it.

How to refresh your relationship

Of course, if the horse is dead, as the saying goes, it’s time to dismount. Get out of the saddle, leave the track, call for the undertaker. But if there’s some life in the old nag yet, and you really would miss her if she were gone, step up into those stirrups and kick.

The subject of your relationship is a serious one, of course. I’m being intentionally playful here because an element of fun is often what’s missing, particularly when we start to think about what’s not working. The idea of ‘trying’ to make a relationship work can seem all too hard. Shouldn’t it just work if it’s good, if it’s ‘meant to be’?

Well, no. Every long-term relationship that ever was has had times of conflict, boredom and uncertainty (even HM The Queen's, I read recently). Relationships are not static things; they’re dynamic, thank goodness, and this means they need fresh creative input from time to time to keep them alive.

Obviously, if you have decided to read this article, chances are your relationship is feeling a bit flat just now. Maybe you have even thought about leaving, but you know deep down you’d really rather not. So how do you go about getting happier?

Here are a few ideas.

• Take an honest look at yourself in the relationship. Consider the possibility that if you’re not happy, it’s likely your partner isn’t either. Perhaps you are sexually restless and the resentment you consequently feel is making you criticise him (or her) more. Perhaps your partner’s ageing is a reminder of something you’d prefer not to remember about yourself. How are you making him feel? And how does that make you feel?

• Think about what you would like from your lover that might help you to feel more connected and appreciated. Now do those things for him, generously and with no expectation of receiving them in turn. Why? Because it is absolutely true that you can’t change the other person. Even trying to do so sends the wrong message because we all want to be loved just as we are. What you can improve is your behaviour towards him, and that will in turn begin to improve your relationship.

• Remember what attracted you to this partner in the first place. Which of those qualities do you still admire and what else have you come to appreciate along the way? Write a list. Could you share this information with him?

Sometimes in long-term relationships people forget to compliment their partners, yet this can be so nurturing.

Apart from just making your partner feel good, it’s important to let him [or her, of course*] know you find him attractive if you want to keep your sex life alive. It’s likely he will start to compliment you more often as well, but this is not the purpose of the exercise. Just wait and see, with no expectations. It’s very important not to start a ledger.

• How are you feeling about yourself? Are you happy at work, stressed or needing a change? Do you need some more variety or just a more balanced existence, for example? Quite apart from having fun with your partner, do you need to pursue more interests of your own?

Ideally, both partners in a marriage or similar relationship have a solid sense of who they are and are free to keep developing as individuals. It is when one person leans too heavily on the other for their identity and fulfilment, or when both are going in completely separate directions that things tend to go wrong. Interdependence in the form of teamwork, as well as a high level of respect for each other’s individuality, are important factors in successful marriages.

• Think of your partner as someone you don’t know rather than someone you know all too well. Turn off the TV and talk. Find out more about him. Ask questions about his childhood, for example, and how he felt growing up. What could be sexier than having someone lovingly interested in who you are and what’s important to you? I’m betting that your interest will be returned.

• Tell him how you’re feeling about your relationship – sad, for instance, that you seem to take each other for granted now, or whatever is true for you. Do this without blaming and with love. This will help him to understand your new behaviour towards him and he will see what you’re trying to do. The worst that can happen is that he doesn’t respond; mostly likely though, he will appreciate your efforts, intimacy will grow, and you’ll both start to have a lot more fun.

* In order not to have clumsy him/her constructions, I have written as though to heterosexual women. In doing this, I do not intend to exclude straight men or homosexual people.