The Impossibility of Marriage
Coping with Obstacles to Long-Term Relationships (Vol. 5, Issue 29)
Those silly cliches, like “familiarity breeds contempt,” partially explain why it is so difficult to make romantic relationships last. The disdain emerges from boredom that, in turn, occurs when couples fail to keep their relationship lively. Psychoanalyst Phillip Ringstrom (2012, 2014) thinks escape from this dark trend requires couples to maintain a tension between stability, on the one hand, and instability, on the other.
Creating this kind of dynamic equilibrium involves balancing various oppositions: reality versus fantasy, convention versus novelty, order versus chaos, spontaneity versus inhibition, routine versus adventure, control versus passion, and security versus risk. Couples walk along a tightrope with the mundane on one side, and the extraordinary on the other. Leaning too far on the safe side brings lethargy; leaning too far on the vibrant side brings danger.
Sustaining such dynamism also requires a capability for a nearly constant awareness of needs, desires, and feelings. These experiences need to be clearly communicated. If the dinner routine becomes boring, someone has to cry out. The same goes for bedtime routines, weekend plans, family visits, and more. Walking the relationship tightrope is anything but easy.
Furthermore, individuals engaged in effective intimacy typically show an interest in actualizing themselves, in mutually recognizing one another’s subjectivities, and in acknowledging the relationship itself. I often tell couples in my own practice that we will be working towards three goals: helping make party A’s life as fulfilling as possible, doing the same for party B, and making the relationship between them meaningful and alive.
Even if you’ve somehow managed to achieve all I’ve described thus far, consider these two tricky, additional difficulties, both of which involve projection. No one has the perfect childhood, and we are particularly sensitive to how we’re treated by our caregivers in the first few years of life. We internalize these relationships. If you had a critical father, you might be prone to expect criticism from others. Part of your internal drama (Karbelnig, 2024) will include a critical “other” (an ego-suborganization highly identified with parents or other authority figures). And, you will also have a part of your self, another type of ego-suborganization, that anticipates criticism.
Once any steady relationship passes a few months, these projections inevitably create complications. By then, you’ve shared the stories of your past relationships; you’ve met one another’s sets of families and friends; you’ve (hopefully) had enough sexual encounters to reduce or eliminate anxieties you might have about styles, preferences, or performance. Just when you feel a stable and satisfying dynamic exists, your partner proclaims:
I really don’t like the way you clean up the kitchen. Would you mind wiping off the counter and stacking the dishes properly in the dishwasher?
From that moment forward, and if you can achieve it, a lifelong process of discernment begins.
Is the criticism legitimate, resulting in an apology and an effort to improve? Or, did your partner become possessed by your own projection because you unconsciously expect criticism from others? Or, did you feel deeply offended by what was a fair critique because of your own sensitivity to criticism?
Just in case this seems too complex, it is also possible that all three levels are activated. In other words, the criticism was fair, you are sensitive to it, and you projected persecution onto your partner. Further convolutions occur if, for example, the person making the criticism did, in fact, deliver it angrily. And, what if the recipient of the criticism, however it was offered, reacted in an intensely hostile way (unrelated to projection)?
These are the kinds of normal human dynamics that keep couples counselors busy (Karbelnig, 2017). Whether or not they ever get help, couples certainly need to work—diligently, carefully, patiently—to evaluate and discuss these various options. Also, they should be capable of exploring all possible variations with one another. Perhaps my use of the word, impossible, was not overly provocative after all.
Given that the “normal” is rather arduous, imagine what serious relationship abnormality looks like. As an illustration, consider what occurs with persons with paranoid personality styles. These persons, by definition, fear they will be persecuted by others. For them, the kitchen critique would be received with the intensity of a solar storm. Discernment would become nearly impossible because, given the propensity to project persecution, the paranoid person would almost certainly respond with anger, even possibly with violence.
These types of individuals cannot discriminate or negotiate. Their reactions typically trigger accelerating cycles bringing relationships to an end. Because of their lack of insight into their own internal worlds, they not only over-react, but they also reverse roles. After becoming enraged at the critique, they might become the persecutor themselves, shouting something like, “You are so cruel to judge how I clean the kitchen!”
Imagining how persons with paranoid styles react to work environments offers another, non-romantic illustration of projection. Say they got a job as a software engineer for Google. In terms of their self-images, they feel fearful and suspicious; regarding others, they fear not only criticism, but outright rejection. Let’s say that, initially, they were welcomed to a particular software group and encouraged to join in lunch meetings or after-work outings. Because of their suspicious nature, they hesitate to join in these activities. They prefer to remain alone. The way they look at their coworkers elicits thoughts in them like, “that’s a weird guy” or “what’s up with her?”
The paranoid person, already afraid of being seen as strange, notices the looks and imagines the thoughts. These confirm what’s happening in their internal drama, creating the same type of cycle described above—but with greater intensity and velocity. Should their manager criticize them, the cycle would accelerate still more.
Fortunately for those of us in long-term relationships, paranoia is usually not the problem. That severe type of psychopathology helpfully (if painfully) demonstrates how projection works. It is unavoidable. We cannot help but view the “other” or the “self” through various filters. Complete distillation forever evades us. The most we can hope for is using sieves to clarify our views of self and other as much as we can.
Concluding with another metaphor, lasting love involves a kind of wrestling match. The two parties tussle, fall to the ground, get up, brush each other off, and then they carefully look and listen. They engage in intimate dialogue to understand and retrieve projections. They repeatedly go through processes of “disruption and repair” (Lachman, 2008, p. 3). The sparring encompasses arguments and lovemaking, rearing children and meeting up with friends, doing mundane chores and planning trips (Gnaulati, 2024). Long term love is not really impossible, but it is really difficult, a continuous, unfolding set of balancing acts and skirmishes. If reduced to a single word, romantic partners need the capacity to dialogue to make their love last.
Enjoying this newsletter?
And check out my book, Lover, Exorcist, Critic: Understanding Depth Psychotherapy, available on Amazon.
References
Gnaulati, E. (2024). Flourishing Love: A Secular Guide to Lasting Intimate Relationships. London: Karnac Books.
Karbelnig, A.M. (2017). The geometry of intimacy: love triangles and couples therapy. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 35(1):70–82.
Karbelnig, A.M. (2024). Lover, Exorcist, Critic: Understanding Depth Psychotherapy. London: Karnac.
Lachmann, F. M. (2008) The Process of Transforming. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 3:1-15
Ringstrom, P. A. (2012). A relational intersubjective approach to conjoint treatment. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 7:85–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15551024.2011.606642
Ringstrom, P. (2014). A relational psychoanalytic approach to couples psychotherapy. New York, NY: Routledge.
I agree that dialogue is necessary, but I may need further convincing that marriage is not impossible.