Couples therapist reveals
Is he serious? That's how you know it
© Jacob Lund / Shutterstock
Is love the answer to all questions? Not quite. It also provides quite a few. Psychologist and couples therapist Oskar Holzberg answers them all.
How do I know if someone is serious about love?
If at all: because the person is asking this question about me too.
Nowhere else are we so easily mistaken as in love. Because there is nothing we want to believe more than that we have found someone we love and who loves us. And as soon as we fall in love and our organism pours out its hormone cocktail, we idealize the person we have fallen in love with. Which also means: our ability to criticize decreases. Test subjects who sprayed the binding hormone oxytocin into their noses, for example, could be persuaded into risky investments that they would have kept their hands off of under normal conditions.
We are addicts
As love-hungry people, we easily pass over our feelings. Paradoxically, if we ourselves are unsure of our own attachment fears, this can tempt us to interpret our irritation about the hesitation and avoidance of the new love as our own fear – and to ignore it. Love scammers use our insecurity to conquer longing hearts via social media and then have large sums of money transferred for suddenly sick mothers. Or so-called loverboys who bring young women who are in love with them to prostitution. If money is to flow or guarantees are to be taken over, it is clear that someone is serious about it, but not about love. It helps to have a friend to share our infatuation with and all that she makes us do. Someone with a clear head who will protect us when our feelings run away.
A new partner who has just recently separated himself makes us rightly cautious. Because he is probably not at all open to a new love, to the risk of a relationship. Instead, he is urgently looking for consolation, closeness and distraction in order not to be at the mercy of his grief. Even those who promise too much too quickly and already share an apartment after we have just been in bed a few times are risk candidates. We are a character in their game, but who else we are is not seen. We shouldn't take anyone seriously who has already made a decision in favor of us before they know us. And don't even check how seriously we mean it ourselves.
We unconsciously secure ourselves by telling each other our lives and speaking carefully about the future. If our new love twitches with fear at everything that smells of a firm bond – commitment, plans, living together – then it can still mean business with us. But may not be able to keep what it promises to itself. In fear of attachment, relationships are sought and at the same time feared. That is why some people always get cold feet when the commitment grows. A look at his or her story helps. Has he or she never had a long relationship or did they all fail in the same way?
But in the end we have to live with it: we can be deceived. Especially in love. Because in it certainty is not a beginning, but a process.
Oskar Holzberg, 67, has been advising couples in his Hamburg practice for over 20 years and has been married for over 30 years. His current book is called "Neue Schlüsselsätze der Liebe" (240 pages, 11 euros, DuMont).
© Ilona Habben
"Couple adox" is the new podcast with Oskar Holzberg and his wife Claudia. You speak openly about the issues that keep challenging relationships. Funny, exciting and insightful! I.a. on AudioNow.
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