Love for life, is it “humanly” possible?
The question may seem curious and yet it deserves to be asked since the vast majority of humans dream of nothing as long as a couple in love, faithful and in CDI (couple of indefinite duration). “Today’s Westerners try to live a long-term monogamy when it is neither their nature (our origin is polygamous or multi-partner), nor the majority culture of humans (only 30% of human societies are by right monogamous!), nor their recent history since until recently, the couple was “drowned” in the extended family, the man and the woman living little together and the couple’s life span being short (thirteen years in the Middle Ages, twenty years in the nineteenth century, fifty years in 1960 and more than sixty years today for couples formed very young) “, argues the psychiatrist and sexologist Philippe Brenot in” Sex and love “(ed. Odile Jacob). So, is the long-term couple necessarily doomed to failure? No, these happy duets exist even if they are not the most frequent. For long-term married life, it undoubtedly requires flexibility, listening, and a perpetual reinvention of the relationship, with, pegged to the body, the idea that the couple is not taken for granted and that the problems will not get better on their own with time.
Is there a manual to make love last?
It would be so wonderful to have a “road list” for love as well as for big rallies. There are, however, a few small avenues that have proven their usefulness over time:
For love to last, you have to start by nurturing it. For that, it is essential to be attentive to oneself and to the other.
Preserve the tenderness essential to the couple with little attentions: a phone call just to hear the voice of the other, a caress or a light word in the evening before falling asleep, a tender or funny message on the breakfast table , an unexpected compliment, a good meal prepared for Petit Chéri because we know that his day was difficult, flowers …
Recognize the other and accept that their way of seeing life is just as respectable as ours. If what the other is asking for is essential for him and it is not unbearable for himself, then it must be accepted.
Maintain the link by being interested in the life (or the opinion) of the other. We marry in love, but twenty years later, what can remain in common if we haven’t told each other a little?
To show him respect or, more exactly, to recognize his qualities. There is always something admirable and “lovable” in the truest sense of the word about someone: their level of temper, their patience, their humor, their enthusiasm, and even the little glance they all throw. in the mornings crossing you, light, so soft and that touches you …
You have to take your time
The absence of strong emotions, even boredom or temporary disenchantment, are not a disaster. The impatience of our time ends up making us confuse the neutral moments of a relationship with conflicts or failures. Couples by nature have ups and downs, to accept for what they are, inevitable and natural. Better still, a couple is not a real couple if they have not gone beyond the wear and tear of everyday life and a certain number of crises, baptism of fire in a way.
Play little games for two
Here is a very effective little game, to be repeated as often as necessary: it consists in expressing in front of the other everything that charms us in him, the other, of course, doing the same. We can vary the pleasures and play “tell me-when-you-are-happy-with-me”, we sometimes discover what years of marriage have never revealed, what is hidden behind an attention or a attitude. We then see that love is lodged more surely in small everyday gestures than in great moments of exaltation: “I am happy when you shake my hand tightly in the street”; “I’m happy when at night, you love yourself against me before you go to sleep” … This exercise is not limited to a delicious slice of complacency, it allows you to establish a positive inventory of the relationship. And to tap into it, on days of famine.
The crises of three years, seven years … Does it really exist?
We often talk about the three-year crisis because it generally corresponds to the arrival of the first child. The time for the situation to deteriorate, and here is the couple on the verge of breaking up. Then, we evoke the crisis of the seven years because of the routine and the fall of the desire, that of the ten years considering the statistics which reveal a peak of the divorces around fourteen years after the marriage, therefore the appearance of the conflicts some years ago. In reality, each new, somewhat upsetting event can lead to a crisis in the couple: a move, return to work, a promotion, unemployment, mourning, the threshold of quarantine, that of retirement, the discovery of a liaison … But let us be reassured too, a crisis is far from always being synonymous with indifference or the end of love. This stage may turn out to be an opportunity for a new start, on different bases. The important thing is to renew the dialogue with his companion. And if it seems too difficult to consider the passage by the box “psy”, one can consider a therapy, marital or only for the one who is going through the ordeal.
