"It's the commitment that makes a relationship possible"

Relationships - "It's the commitment that makes a relationship possible"

Ms. Perry, you have written a guidebook in which you explain how we can have good relationships. Have we forgotten how to do this?since the internet came along, each and every one of us knows so many people. I think we know too many to be able to connectand we fail to choose?there is this experiment by the American psychologist Barry Schwartz in which he gave out chocolate: One group of participants was given a box of six different types of chocolate, the other group was given a box of 140 different types. He asked people to choose a chocolate. It was easy for those who only had a choice of six chocolates. The other group took much longer to decide and the test subjects were less satisfied with their choice.But don't we feel and decide who we really want to get involved with?If we can be friends or partners with an infinite number of people, we think that someone better might come along. And we no longer feel responsible for the other person,what do you mean?Before the Internet, each of us knew 140 to 150 people, including family and friends. If someone threw their friends to the wind, then at some point they had a bad reputation and no more friends. Today, you can get away with this kind of behavior by simply moving on, which is why you compare online dating with online shopping -yes, we date as if we were looking for the perfect pair of jeans. If someone knows 140 people and wants to get married, then maybe four men or women come into question, and only two of them are interested. And only one person turns out to be the best. And that's the one we settle on. A relationship doesn't work because he or she is the "right one". It's the commitment that makes a relationship possible. A friend of mine has been looking for a partner for eight years. She now goes on her dates with the same attitude that others take cold showers with: brave. Why do none of the men seem to be compatible with her?It's probably not just the men, but also your friend. Perhaps she and the candidates realize: "You're not quite what I want you to be. But being in a relationship means influencing each other. But people today have clear ideas about their partner and life as a couple and are not willing to change and grow together.so the "perfect match" is an illusion.yes, there is only the person who is just good enough.but doesn't online dating promise to have the right person ready?i think online dating is great because it opens up so many possibilities. But meeting people in real life is really great too! That's where we meet people we work with, for example, who we really get to know. And one day we realize: Oh my God, I really like this person. If we had just met for a coffee, that would never have happened. It takes longer than 30 minutes to get to know each other.

Love at first sight is different: in these moments, we are attracted to a person before we have even met them.sexual attraction arises in many ways, not just on a physical level. We may not even like our friends after meeting them once at a party. But as we get used to them, we start to like them.I find people get prettier and younger the longer I'm with them.I've never heard that before, but I like it. Maybe you stop seeing people's age at some point. Age is the first thing we look at each other.In your book, you also examine how we form relationships. We look for partners who trigger the same feelings in us as we experienced with the people who raised us.So if you had a relationship in which you could trust that someone would be there for you, you will feel secure in relationships. You will find it easy to accept yourself and others. But if you never received attention, if you could not rely on being loved and held, then you will have developed a longing, a desire for it. And you later mistake this longing for love. How does this manifest itself? For example, you become angry and controlling. In this case, you find it difficult to trust. This means that you think you have to manipulate and control. You lock your partner up so that they can't get to know anyone. Or you become longing and choose a loved one who is emotionally unavailable. Insecurely attached people are attracted to avoidant people. If they never seem to have been able to please their first caregivers, it feels like unfinished business. They then look for partners who they can't please either, so that this time they can get it right and complete the task.how can you get rid of these unhealthy attachment patterns?one way is to become aware of how you are acting and realize that your partner is not really the partner you should be looking for. You need to override your own instincts. Most of the time, someone like this has had a lot of experiences before, has been heartbroken and is now making a decision: I'll do it differently this time. Perhaps someone like this has always had sex on the first date, for example, to keep the other person close to them. And this time, the person is taking more time. Instead of chasing after the man or woman, they are allowing the relationship to be a give and take. They ask themselves: How would I react if I wasn't neurotic? This is a process that requires a certain maturity.I can hardly imagine that we have our own neuroses on the screen in our early twenties.yes, you have to reflect rather than react. That's the only way we can change our habits. What you can also do if you are a controlling person and have a lot of time to manipulate the other person - write it down instead of acting it out.in your eyes, does writing create a buffer between yourself and the world?it means putting your instinct into words. And when we put feelings into words, we can get hold of them. In therapy, this means processing our feelings. We can then decide whether we want to give in to them or not.what to do with the longing that remains?it belongs in the diary.before we love, we first fall in love. And part of falling in love is longing, otherwise we wouldn't be interested in the other person.Yes, it's very difficult to distinguish between: "Oh, wow, I really have to see this guy again" and "I'm nothing until I've seen him again." Someone who hasn't longed much in their life and suddenly starts doing so is probably just in love. But if you have already experienced longing, then you should examine your feelings carefully and ask yourself: "Do I really want this person?" But isn't longing part of every great love story? Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet yearn for each other, they even perish because of their longing.Romeo and Juliet didn't even know each other! They were in love with love. People confuse being in love with love and mistake obsession for love. Picasso always said: Oh, love has caught me! No, it didn't, he was overcome by obsession. I don't think he ever loved at all. He fed on his obsessions. It was a selfish, controlling love. He locked one of his girlfriends in the house so she couldn't meet other men. And then the building complex caught fire. She was only saved because someone kicked in the door. That's not love!Nevertheless, we hold on to the idea of passionate and therefore great love.Think of love as something you do rather than something that happens to you. Obsession is something that happens to us, but not love. When we are in a loving long-term relationship, we naturally feel affection for our partners. But a lot of the love is shown in what we do for each other: We listen to each other. We mirror each other. We buy each other socks. We empty the trash. We load the dishwasher. Fill the fridge with food.Assuming we succeed in recognizing and overwriting toxic attachment patterns, doesn't that mean we also have to correct our self-image?yes, and that takes a while. I myself was insecurely attached and had a toxic first marriage in which I longed all the time. And then I met a kind person, my husband Grayson Perry, that was 40 years ago. I thought I was cured. But then I got this hangover about eight years ago. He did his own thing. He disappeared for several days, once for a week. My heart was racing. I went to the neighbors, knocked on every door. I cried. This cat reactivated my old love pattern of the insecurely attached woman. I thought I was over it, but it was under the surface the whole time! I decided: I don't want to be like that. I'm not playing this game anymore. And strangely enough, the hangover has never stayed out for more than one night since. Maybe he feels I'm more relaxed to hang out with now. You're an agony aunt at the Observer, a British Sunday newspaper. Your column there is called "Ask Philippa", in which you respond to readers' questions every week. What do people write to you about, what concerns them?They confide in me with specific problems that seem unique to them. Basically, it's always about the following questions: Why aren't other people like me? Along the lines of: I get on well with my family, why doesn't my wife get on with her family? The second big question that many people ask is: Something is wrong with me, why can't I find a partner? And the third topic is depression, which comes in many guises. It's not just advice columns like yours that are popular, your books are also very successful. Why do you think that is?My best book is "The book you wish your parents had read: (and your children will be glad you read it)". In it I have formulated something new, namely that the most important thing in your life as a parent is the relationship with your child. This relationship is home. It gives children a sense of security. And I think that touched people. I asked them to remember their childhood as if they were in therapy. They were asked to remember how they were brought up and what they wanted to take from it and what not - without blaming their parents, because I'm sure they all did their best. I have translated the language of psychoanalysis into plain English,so your recipe for success is that you write about psychological problems like other authors write about balcony plants...I wanted everyone to be able to access psychological issues, even people who are not in therapy or not yet. When readers read sentences that they have thought before but never articulated, they think: Ah, now I get it! And that creates a connection.