Why is a long-term relationship often over-charged with expectations

It seems that in our days the intimate long-term relationships acquire a special and perhaps exaggerated  value, often resulting in a model of a “super-relationship” that if one fails to achieve feels failure and inadequacy. However, is this kind of relationship truly “the best”? Maybe this overvaluation connects with other psychological phenomena?

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I am of the opinion that, nowadays, in our consumer and technocratic societies, although divorces are constantly on the rise, intimate long-term relationships have been imbued with meanings and importance that do not correspond to their essence, whether we call them marriage, cohabitation, “life partnership” or “serious relationship”. The result is that these relationships often get “mutated”, and disoriented from their deep coral nature, leading to disappointment and alienation instead of fulfilling contact processes.

I believe that this “over-charging” of such relationships happens due to several effects of our collective ways to live together and I would “group” such effects in three big “categories”.

The first one includes various hard to accept characteristics of our existence, that become crucially important in our days of so many virtual paradises. Among such characteristics, I can briefly mention the following classical ones.

         a) The terror of existential loneliness, which we can describe verbally but which we can never share, exactly because we are existentially alone: we are physically and psychologically unique beings with unique and completely individual experiences.

         b) The futility born by the failure of the promises of collective prosperity as well as by the failure of suggestions for the “good” and for the “positive thinking” on our planet.

         c) The increasing panic over our complete lack of control over physical reality (as I write this, my first cancer cells might be taking form, my first heart attack or stroke may be in preparation, or an earthquake that will destroy the building I live in might be coming).

         d) The “knowledge” of our ceaseless journey towards old age and death. That is why, as time passes and we simply “survive” without bringing our lives closer to what we are and what we deeply and truly need, the idea of our unavoidable death in the future (the near or distant future - who knows...), takes deeper root in the our minds, freezing and paralysing us. The result is that we attempt to invent countless ways to “forget” our course to death with huge, glorious plans and neurotic projects; however, the more ambitious our projects get, the more hollow they become making it almost impossible to attribute meaning to our simple, little everyday life moments and so discover their secret beauty.

         e) The responsibility of our choices in real life; despite our skills in the illusional space of online simulations and despite our holding our mobile phones as though they were guns ready to fire, we always have to choose in life; and this becomes a harder and harder issue (no matter how long the selfie-stick we buy is, it can never become a magic wand to change reality according to our tastes).

In the end, it would seem that no digital simulation of heaven can suffice to do away with all of these innate existential fears; simulated internet relationships can only cover them up temporarily. They keep on pulsate and so, while we float in online bliss, every now and then we freeze from the imperceptible breath of a constant invisible threat lurking right in our guts. Sometimes, we even come crashing down, as if an ancient and silently “re-activated” hidden wound due to a childhood fear of the unknown, is still bleeding ceaselessly. Then, it is only natural that the Other and his/her embrace can easily be transformed to seem like a warm and friendly cottage in the wild forest, like a safe enough port promising warmth and calmness after terrifying sea storms.

The second category of effects of our collective ways to live together that possibly “over-charge” intimate long-term relationships could be related to raw violence which generally permeates our lives and the air we breath in our modern flats; I think that violence is still dominant in our days, because it is still a characteristic of our species, a pole “balancing” another pole - the one that has to do with our capacity to follow noble spiritual quests.

Of course, nowadays, violence is not only explicit but can be well hidden in many ways. For example, it is hidden behind “customer service” desks and smiles (there are all around “big-brother” style signs: “our company is here for you!”, “you can never loose each other because We take care of your communication!”). Other aspects of disguised violence are terrifying news updates, transformed by mass media in real horror box-office hits; moreover, there is the silent violence of loan payments, of taxes that are presented as a gentle caress but which cut like a knife, friendships and playful Facebook “likes” that only underline our loneliness etc. But none of these disguises can cover effectively the threatening breath of violence, passing through the seams of our so busy everyday lives and freezing our hearts. So, the Other again is enrobed with our often desperate expectations for safety and some traces of tenderness.

At the same time, a possible third category of effects “over-charging” intimate long-term relationships could be the spiritual and personal growth aspects projected on the long-term intimate relationship; I think that a more general tendency for spiritual quests is in part due to the role and influence of the commercialized former “New Age” movement. It seems to me that nowadays this influence has contributed greatly to an exaggerated focus on a somewhat superficial notion of spirituality and personal growth, naming them ultimate goals for this life and also the main goals of an intimate long-term relationship; in other words, the relationship becomes primarily a means for spirituality and personal growth instead of a way just to “be” in simple satisfying ways with the Other. Personally, I believe that such spiritual and personal growth over-demands from our long-term relationships, take away the earthy “blood and sand” aspects of our needs, resulting in our becoming somewhat “soft” and maybe “too gentle” in our encounters with the Other.

Thus, our existential features, the viciousness of our times and some kind of beliefs and values are already composing an effective trio of dynamics that contribute as a background to the overvaluation of the long-term intimate relationship.

On an overall background such as the one described till this point, the search for the Other and a deep and continuous relationship with them takes on incredible importance; however, it is likely that this “too much” importance, that this torturous necessity itself is what completely mutates the encounter with the Other into a “monster relationship”.

In such a distorted framework to see our need for long-term relationships, what is it that we actually ask from the Other when we engage with them in a “serious” encounter? Joy? Pleasure? Safety? Tension and sexual excitement? Dreamy moments? For them to become the donor of everything we have needed and have never received, and which we will never receive in this life?

Often we seek all of this at once, as though the Other is a “relationship champion”, able to satisfy all that we need. The perfect companion, exciting friend, unsurpassed lover that constantly shakes us up with the best sex of our life, our most powerful and eternal tender love, a source of exciting ideas and intensity, the understanding father or mother of our children, the endless source of a unique combination of safety and freedom, our eternal partner with whom we care for our home, pay our bills, our taxes, shop at the super market, with whom we raise our children and we put up with our parents and our parents in law etc. And when one of these requirements is not met or when we are not satisfied with all this, we blame the Other (as if he/she were a champion-failure) or we feel guilty ourselves about our relationship not going well because of our not being “good enough”.

Undoubtedly, the experience of love is exceptionally complicated. It is a multi-layered and very deep experience, very different to eros and desire; and long-term intimate relationships (with love as the central characteristic) are certainly the most profound form of connection two people can have. Such relationships are also a significant and absolutely necessary phase on our personal course, because they stir and motivate our existence in all its depth and layers; they push our being towards a search for new “states of equilibrium”, as we learn to combine the terrifying awareness of our mortality's limitations with our innate ability to transcend them.

However, all of the above thoughts:

         a) Do not axiomatically imbue the intimate long-term relationship with some “objectively” great importance, no matter if we see it or not as a chance for personal growth or spiritual development.

         b) Do not make it some axiomatically necessary goal, degrading into primitive immaturity the passions, impasses, desires and other aspects of each of our little “secret” personal dramas regarding our needs for eros and for sex. 

Perhaps it is a fact that eros creates only an illusion of touching the Other's core and that sex brings peace to our deepest existential terrors only for a short time. But both eros and sex cannot cease to be necessary experiences and deepest human needs, flourishing on different grounds than love (for example eros is based on the illusion of similarities with the Other and love on the struggle to accept differentiation). And of course there is no “objective” value system according to which these needs must be devalued because long-term intimate relationships are named in our days as an ideal way to advance in our spiritual pathway and in our personal growth - in other words no one can say that we must absolutely “reach” love and leave behind eros and sexuality.

If we see a love relationship as an idealised situation which is an end in itself, then, we start feeling that we need to “conserve” it anyway, because dealing with its difficulties is considered making some more steps in our personal growth or in our course for spirituality. Yet, I believe that we do not need to “squeeze blood from a stone” to feel that we are developing as human beings. As in every experience, if something in a long-term intimate relationship moves us ahead regarding our development, it is not any projected on the relationship “value” per se; what may move us ahead is only our direct experience itself while actively relating with the Other; it is only whether or not and to what degree we are able to become through direct experience more aware of our needs and our ways to deal with them. I think that loving is not seeing the Other and ourselves as beings dedicated to the “duty” of personal growth and spirituality but as grounded and whole human beings attempting to mutually build a space comfortable for both during their encounter. Besides, our relationships are to “serve” us in our meetings and not to “be served” by us.

Summarizing, I believe that in our days there are many ways in which, both in life and in several related texts, this undoubtedly very important long-term intimate relationship is overvalued and somehow mutated. These ways, for me, include:

         a) Naming it as “the” absolute means for personal growth and/or spiritual development (and consequently over-highlighting these aspects) while undervaluing its enormous difficulties and costs.

         b) Arbitrarily considering this relationship a “life raft”, able to provide meaning to our life, like a conveniently shinning beacon in the desert of present day life emptiness.

         c) Seeing eros and sexual desire as expressions of “immaturity” and, therefore, of secondary importance for the spiritual person of today - in other words, they are arbitrarily knocked down to lower levels of the personal “growth scale”, in comparison to love.

         d) In a lot of theoretical works (also in the psychotherapeutic field), sexuality and eros are often detached from the image of a concrete “Other” person; they are not seen as tremendous tendencies towards “this” or “that” very concrete person in flesh and bones fascinating us to madness; instead eros and sexuality are often delusionally turned into a vague, abstract and “harmless” opening of our vital energy to the vast impersonal universe; or, eros and sexuality  are not talked honestly being placed in the cupboard as forbidden fruits, to be eaten in secret, in the dark.       

         e) We arbitrarily believe that in love, the role of the Other is to provide us with what life has not provided us with so far, thus we are entitled to demand of them “earth and water.” Thus, it is a logical consequence to stigmatize this hapless relationship as a “failure”, at the moment that the Other, charged to be a companion and life-vest in all (literally “all”) that we need, cannot anymore supply us with steady and satisfying doses of support, safety, eros, friendship, excitement, calmness, sex etc.

In conclusion, I think that sometimes, both in our day-to-day life and, in part, in the psychotherapy - psychology bibliography on relationships, there may be a one-sidedness as far as the importance of long-term intimate relationships is concerned. A one-sidedness that, as we saw above, may be related (a) to how we are experiencing today several of our deep existential needs, (b) to the disguised violence of our times, (c) to the beliefs and values that make up the background for our choices as to what exactly do we mean by saying “personal growth” and “spiritual development”.

As though when someone manages to love they no longer have the need to experience eros.

As though the enormous (for me) importance of the tragedy and paradox in every moment of the experience of eros is lessened and unimportant; I underline again that I always mean an experience of eros in which the “person in eros” does not orient to the abstract endless horizon ahead; instead, he or she turns to these or these or these very specific eyes of this very concrete and very beautiful Other that are looking now, at this very moment, just through the eyes of the “person in eros”, pulling him or her like a magnet into their bottomless abyss - an abyss capable of spreading, just through the looking, from the Other deeply into the “person in eros”, capable of reaching in one instant the depths of his or her world, capable of stirring his or her own abyss.

As though when we love, we must strip our sexuality of its primal, pagan and dark roots that reach “elsewhere”, to a different psychic area from our spirituality (even if one assumes that this “elsewhere” is of a lesser value than our spiritual landscapes, it still is an “elsewhere” with its own unique experiential colors and demands).

As though our sexuality is able to automatically mutate into a simple, soft cosmic vibration or into a caress made of tender pink clouds, instead of also being an unbearable gnawing down below, in our guts, that makes our knees tremble and causes our mouth to water, just like when we stand in front of an exceptional dish leaking our lips while dreaming the oncoming burst of tastes...