We are free to choose a partner solely for love, build relationships in any format - from legal marriage to frivolous relationships for one night, meet with an infinite number of candidates in search of the very same one. Marriages are no longer made in heaven, and divorce does not lead to shameful exile from society. And only the dream "they lived happily ever after" did not go anywhere. And even more than that, complete freedom of choice, perhaps, made this dream as urgent as ever. We hope that we will succeed in everything: meet, see, find out the only correct option. And then live happily ever after and die one day - in a very, very distant future. Why, despite all the opportunities given to us, do we continue to make mistakes? Why choose the wrong ones?
In his essay Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person in The New York Times, Alain de Botton writes: “This is partly because we ourselves have a tangle of inner problems that only reveal themselves when we get closer to others. We seem normal only to those who don't know us too well. In a wiser, better self-aware society, the question is, "What's wrong with you?" would be a standard item on a first date.
There are a lot of possible answers: perhaps you fall into a quiet rage whenever they disagree with you, or you are able to relax only at work. Maybe you have your own special thing about intimacy after sex, or you withdraw in response to an insult. Nobody's perfect. The problem is that before marriage, we hardly give ourselves the trouble to sort out our own "complexity." And when our flaws surface in a frivolous relationship, we blame our partner and send him to all four sides. As for friends, our troubles do not bother them so much as to take on the hells of the work of education. In the end, as long as we hang out by ourselves, we are sincerely convinced that living with us is quite easy.
© FRAME FROM THE FILM "Diary of Memory". MODE Nick Cassavetes. 2004
Our partners know themselves no better. We try to understand them: we get to know our family and college friends, look at photographs. It seems to us that we are doing all the necessary work, but this is not so. And marriage becomes a gamble in which two get involved, not really knowing either themselves or their partner. They connect with each other a future about which they have not the slightest idea and whose research they diligently avoided."
“This is what most often causes the divorce of the so-called first wave - after two years of marriage,” explains psychologist Karina Kuranova. - Especially if people get married at a young age. Passion does its job: we don't pay attention to many things. And after a couple of years, when the hormones stop playing, we find that we are absolutely not suitable for each other."
Sometimes lack of experience leads to another trap. The character traits and personality traits that attract us to a man can be a serious obstacle to family happiness. “For example, a woman wants a successful businessman, goal-oriented, decisive, assertive, having weight in society,” says Kuranova. - But at the same time, having married an ideal candidate, she longs for affection, attention, romance, love, caring for children, and not only financial, but also actual: to play football, to go to the cinema with the whole family. And he is now for negotiations, then on a business trip - and such discrepancies are common."
© FRAME FROM THE FILM "Diary of Memory". MODE Nick Cassavetes. 2004
Family happiness turns out to be a shaky and elusive thing. Botton writes of this: “While we believe we are looking for happiness in marriage, things are not so simple. In fact, we strive for the familiar - which can significantly complicate our plans for happiness, whatever they may be. In adult relationships, we try to recreate the sensations that were familiar to us in childhood. In the early stages, we often confuse love with destructive dynamics. These can be feelings we felt when we wanted to help an adult who has lost control, or when we lacked parental warmth, or when we were afraid of father's aggression, when we did not feel safe enough to express our desires. It is quite logical that, as adults, we reject some candidates for marriage, not because something is wrong with them, but, on the contrary, becausethat with them everything is too much - too balanced, mature, too understanding and reliable - after all, this correctness is alien to our heart. We marry the wrong people because we don't associate love with happiness."
In psychology, this phenomenon - when in adult relationships we try to get what we missed in childhood in relationships with parents - are called projections. “Imagine that, being a little girl, you wanted your dad to love and accept you for who you are,” explains Karina Kuranova. - And dad found fault, reproached, criticized, including for appearance. This is an ordeal for a child: we all need unconditional parental love and acceptance. As a result, the girl is psychologically fixed on this frustration, gets stuck on a need that is not realized."
The paradox is that, in an effort to subsequently fulfill this need with a partner, we choose not the one who is ready to accept and love, but the same critic as the father. Because this very scheme - I am criticized, and I am thirsty for acceptance - is associated with love. This is the only familiar format of a relationship with a man, and other options in which we are actually respected and loved may seem boring and incomprehensible to us.
© FRAME FROM THE FILM "Diary of Memory". MODE Nick Cassavetes. 2004
We're all busy finding the perfect partner in one way or another. Sometimes we succeed, more often we make compromises, and that's okay. It happens, however, that the search turns into a desire to find the ideal - in the literal sense. This is also a greeting from childhood, however, the point here is not in fairy tales about a prince on a white horse, but, most likely, in a patriarchal family, where a man is always right, and a woman's role is to be silent or agree.
Observing such a balance of power in parenting relationships, a girl can grow up with the confidence that her husband should remain a “real man” in any situation. He always knows where to get money, always makes the only right decision, worships his woman, he is both a protector and a breadwinner - any gender stereotype will perfectly fit into this list.
It is not difficult to mistake a man for a knight in armor in a romantic period of a relationship. But in everyday family life, of course, he turns out to be a completely ordinary person who is not able to continuously carry a woman in his arms, does not always make the right decisions, just like others, he can get into a difficult life situation and need support. “Having discovered this, the woman tries to 'bring him to his senses', that is, to make him the knight he should be,” explains Kuranova. - She nags him, he wants to be at home less and less, both suffer. The relationship falls apart, and the woman embarks on a quest for a new ideal. However, a happy ending is also possible here: it happens that spouses outgrow this and learn to accept each other."
© FRAME FROM THE FILM "Diary of Memory". MODE Nick Cassavetes. 2004
The patriarchal order in the parental family can lead to another bias. Psychologists call it devaluation. In this case, the woman thinks - most often subconsciously - that she is not worthy of the men she likes. To feel confident, she chooses "worse" partners. It is easy to guess that such a compromise with oneself is unlikely to bring happiness.
What does a healthy relationship look like? Quite prosaic - but there is nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, the romantic "lived happily ever after", if possible, then only when you are ready for this prose. "The person who suits us best is not the one who shares all our preferences (he or she simply does not exist)," Botton writes, "but the one who is able to calmly negotiate when these preferences diverge."
You don't have to be perfect or look for the perfect partner to develop a good relationship. “It is enough to accept the fact that both you and your partner are ordinary people, with their pluses and minuses,” says Karina Kuranova. - You must be able to perceive the other as another, respect him, and if you are generally good together, the rest can and should be negotiated. There is a graphic metaphor. Imagine two sticks that are attached to each other by a house. You take away one stick, the second falls off - this is a dysfunctional marriage. Now imagine the same sticks just standing side by side. Of course, there are circumstances in life when a partner needs to lend his shoulder, but having received support, he again becomes a vertical stick. This is a healthy relationship. " Is it difficult to achieve them? By and large, it's enough to just want.>