Saturday, May 15, 2010

Love and marriage



I thought everyone knew this but I was supervising the other day and this issue arose. So I told her I would write it down.


Marriage is not about love, marriage is about friendship. Marriage in western cultures is about two people living in close quarters for a very long time and endeavouring to maintain a friendship that is of a good quality. Not an easy thing to do.


Marriage is about this.


If two people are compatible at least to some degree in their Parent values that is a good start and one reason why cross cultural marriages can be a hazardous venture.


If two people can at times be caring and considerate of the other party that is a really good thing in a long term friendship (marriage). Random acts of kindness, unsolicited, can generate so much good will.


But probably most important of all is the Free Child contact. Two people who like each other, enjoy each others company and want to spend time together because its fun for them is doodle dandy thing to have in a long term relationship.


None of these have anything to do with love. I am using love here in the sense of a man and a woman falling in love romantically. What I have described above can happen in any relationship.


Love happens when a man and woman meet and fall in love in what is called the honeymoon stage of the relationship. The romantic stage when one gets all those good feelings about the other. This usually lasts 6 to 18 months. From a psychological point of view this is where the attachment between two people develops exponentially. As they fall in love romantically and add sex in there as well two people can develop a very strong attachment, one of the strongest that can develop between two people. Probably only surpassed by the mother - child attachment.


However as I keep banging on about, with attachment comes the desire to maintain proximity. With a strong attachment there is a very strong drive to seek the other out and be with them. People will expend tremendous efforts to maintain proximity with another where there is a strong attachment.


Of course the best situation is if a couple fall in love, develop an attachment and they are also good friends as I described with the FC contact and so forth. Then they have the desire to maintain proximity because of the attachment and also they like and enjoy each others company. Perfection!


Sometimes that does not happen. People who enter couples counselling often have an attachment. Thus they are very reluctant to leave each other because of the desire to maintain proximity (plus all the societal pressures), but the FC contact and NP caring of the other is a very distant memory. They may not even like each other, in fact they may actively dislike each other but they can’t leave because of the desire to maintain proximity. But there is no FC to FC contact left.


Marriage is about friendship and love is about attachment.


Graffiti

19 comments:

  1. Well! Holy smokes Tony!

    WHY ON EARTH DON'T THEY TELL YOU THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!

    What the....!!!!!

    That was on of THE best things that i've ever read I think and it makes so much sense!

    Thank you so much for saying that... just the way that you've done here in this post. Now all that needs to happen is for the whole wide world to see it!

    This is such a beautiful post!!! Holy Smokes!!!

    ps... i ended up going out to lunch with another lovely lady friend today. So nice! Cheers...

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  2. This I'll tell you brother
    you can't have one without the other
    ;))

    this chart is worth a 1000 words

    why hadn't I known that before.....

    a brilliant entry as usual,

    cheers
    Zbig.

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  3. Hello Roses.

    Glad you like it and enjoy your luch with your FC friend

    Tony

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  4. Hello Evan,

    As you note it would be good for a couple to also have Adult transactions.
    The diagram was originally done from a couples counselling perspective and they were highlighting the most common aspects of relationships from a counselling perspective. So that is why the Adult tansaction is not there.

    Having said that I have counselled one particular couple over many years. Not really as a couple more both individually. They have very little Adult transactions about managing money. He obviously has a good adult as he earns very good money but slowly and surely over the years they have gone backwards financially. He is nearing the age of retirement now and they have very little and one could draw a diagram where they don’t have Adult to Adult transactions about money matters in their relationship.

    So I suppose that could be an example of what you are saying.

    Graffiti

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  5. Yes it is a diagram that was penned in the TAJ many years ago Zbig. One of those ones that slipped through and no one really knows about it anymore. However I have used it many times over the years in relationship workshops and people do seem to like it and relate to it!!

    Graffiti

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  6. decisions decisions, when someone experiences this attachment stress Tony.Settling on the lesser than love option for proximity sake seems like a very good option in some cases, especialy around 70 years of age.

    k

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  7. If one is 70+ kenoath then maybe that is a good idea

    graffiti

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  8. Champione, Champione,
    ole ole ole!

    ;-)

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  9. Hello Kahless.

    It sounds impressive even though a bit cryptic.


    They are really banging on about Robbie Fowler over here in the news.

    Cheers

    Tony

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  10. Hi Tony,
    I was just celebrating Englands comprehensive World Cup cricket victory.
    ;-)

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  11. But K,
    Tony just said that love is all about attachment and that marriage is about friendship. So love and proximity is intermingled. So you can have a loveless marriage or a friendly proximity but, according to this theory... one can't have a lesser than love option for proximity sake. But you can (according to this theory) have a friendless marriage for the sake of proximity.

    Tony? Did I get that right? Or am i totally bamboozled about this love and marriage theory of yours.

    Cheers... roses

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  12. Roses,

    that was one heck of a comment!!!

    You lost me on the second sentence and it was all down hill from then on.

    Tony

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  13. Hi K,

    Good for England and you seem to be enjoying the brit success. Good on them and come the olympics I am sure they will do well.

    Although I must say it K. At times you do not seem to be a gracious winner.

    T

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  14. Well, you (Tony) said...

    "Marriage is about friendship and love is about attachment."

    Explained how this worked like so...

    "Marriage is not about love, marriage is about friendship. Marriage in western cultures is about two people living in close quarters for a very long time and endeavouring to maintain a friendship that is of a good quality. Not an easy thing to do."

    AND...

    "However as I keep banging on about, with attachment comes the desire to maintain proximity. With a strong attachment there is a very strong drive to seek the other out and be with them. People will expend tremendous efforts to maintain proximity with another where there is a strong attachment." = love meaning attachment therefore love meaning a need for close proximity.

    So...

    K said... "Settling on the lesser than love option for proximity sake"

    A thing that (the theory in this post suggests) couldn't happen because love = attachment = close proximity. If there is any love involved then the need for a close proximity is a must.

    But it may be possible (according to this theory) to have a lesser friendship (marriage) for proximity (love/attachment) sake.

    Yes? Maybe? Did that help clear my mess up?

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  15. I am still a bit lost wqoith your second last paragraph Roses,

    If a couple have love that causes there to be a psychological attachemnt between them. That means those two people will have a (very) strong desire to seek each other out and to maintain proximity to each other such they can have face to face contact.

    This drive can make people spend very large sums of money and to travel around the globe sometimes. It can be a very strong motivation indeed.

    If two people are friends with not a very strong attachment then they will be attracted to each other and seek them out because their FC ego states like the other and it feels good to be with them. However the drive to maintain proximity in this case is 100th the strength that can result from a strong attachment.

    Its like a recreational drug user and a drug addicit. The drug addicit's drive to seeks the proximity of the drug is the same as the attachment. The recreational users drive is because it is FC fun and not the attachment.

    Tony

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  16. Tony, I am not arguing with you. It's ok.

    I just got back from visiting my parents. Phew - it was such a lovely day.

    I am so happy that the book is finally finished. It may have only taken 7 months to do, but that was the longest 7 months ever!

    Hope you're out celebrating somewhere with some really nice people! Cheers...

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