The Good Marriage
Gained Within
It sometimes happens that a man and a woman can meet, can fall in love at first sight when their dreams become thoroughly involved with one another. This is the seductive draw that lies just beyond flirtation-- when dreams have been worn upon the sleeve, and, more than mutually attracted, a man and a woman become vulnerable to one another, become fascinated with one another, become fastened upon one another.
They fall in love at first sight because they immediately recognize a certain quality about one another that is strangely familiar and yet, strangely, something never experienced before. Moreover, they realize this love is somehow needed, even required. There appears to be no choice.
Being near her seems to heal an ancient wound of his, to soothe scars he had carried upon his heart since early in his childhood. At last there seems to be a cure for a chronic, archaic pain. And she cannot know that what had fascinated her about him will become what frustrates her most, only reminding her of a wound that still will not be healed.
In the past I have written about the five traditional stages of a romantic relationship, which have their origins in the "courts of love" established by Eleanor of Acquitane in 12th Century France. The five stages begin with the first encounter and flirtation; an emotional deepening then takes gradual place throughout the time the two spend dating, learning about one another. Eventually decisions are made to focus upon an exclusive relationship in choosing to go steady, to become engaged, and finally to marry.
This process of falling in love is very much like the Fall from Grace experienced by Adam and Eve, when they were exiled from Eden and began to take on this human condition where most things are learned through the school of hard knocks. My work with my clients, and with myself, has led to some interesting speculation about the inner workings of this very human process, love.
Eroticism seems to be a tension that develops between our persona (the way we like to think of ourselves and want others to think of us, the typically positive, egosyntonic aspects of personality as a conscious identity) and our shadow (the typically negative, egodystonic aspects of the unconscious self that we have rejected and hidden from ourselves, which slip out occasionally to titillate, fascinate and ultimately upset the persona). This tension is then amplified and made known to us consciously when it is played out between ourselves and that significant other person with whom we have fallen in love and upon whom we have projected the shadow in the form of an anima (or animus)-- a "dream lover" or "soul mate".
We sense the gathering of an impending cathartic resolution of this tension, a delicious psychological climax for which we yearn. This psychic orgasm, if you will, redefines our conscious identity to integrate the disparate perspectives held by the persona and the shadow, much as three-dimensional vision (insight, you may call it) results from an integration of the two two-dimensional perspectives held by the right and left eyes.
A "dream lover" then is an unconscious internal ideal figure, a daimon-- an as yet unrealized part of ourselves that can help us to know our fullest potential. Sentimentalism is the reduction of this powerful presence within ourselves to the tangible, literal presence of another person without whom we would feel incomplete, a person whom we have made significant in the belief they can precisely satisfy our desire for a complete relationship. However, that person is more a trigger than a target, a Significant Other only because we have discovered significance for ourselves in that relationship when we feel something within ourselves awakening, like Sleeping Beauty, by a kiss.
Shakespeare's Dark Woman, Dante's Beatrice, remarkable women such as Camille Claudel, Anais Nin and Alma Mahler Werfel, all women who awoke countless young artists-- these muses initiated remarkable discoveries within their lovers. The taste of their wine and the experience of its pleasure is a strictly internal process, defined more by the tongue and palate than by the glass that had brought it to the mouth.
The following dialogue may clarify the difference between that person with whom we have fallen in love and the inner process of loving; it was written spontaneously at a workshop when we were directed to "overhear" and note down a conversation between lovers.
"I feel distant, removed."
"You are. I love you but I am not near you."
"I want you to be closer."
"I cannot be."
"This hurts, to be this close, yet not close enough."
"Close enough for what?"
"Close enough to know you are here."
"I care about you, I love you, and I am here with you. You simply can't find me. I am not near enough for you to find, but I can't be any closer, not just yet."
"If you can't be any closer, how can I find you?"
"You must look for me within you; then I can be closer. If you look for me out here you will find me in the laundry room, or at the sink, or out watering the garden. If you look for me within you, you will find me in your heart. There I am not distracted by chores and errands."
"So I have found you in the laundry room, and at the sink, and in the garden, but I have not found you in my heart."
"You did not think to look within your heart."
The admonition here is clear: falling in love and loving are fundamentally internal experiences, and our struggles with love and loving are ultimately struggles within ourselves. Loving may be inaugurated by falling in love-- perhaps-- but its crowning glory, a perfect marriage, can take place only when we have come finally to rest upon the terra firma of our own heart.
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This article previously appeared in The Listener: volume six, issue three (Fall 2001).