Is love the answer to all questions? Not quite. It also provides quite a few. Psychologist and couples therapist Oskar Holzberg answers them all. Today's question: Do we adjust when we dance together?
Often a question reveals a lot more than an answer can ever answer. And when we ask ourselves in a partnership how much we have to adapt, then one thing is clear: that the flow of the relationship is disturbed.
Does adapting mean giving up what is one's own?
A love relationship as we live it today, in which it is no longer clearly defined who sets the tone and who adapts, is always paradoxical in a certain way. Because we try to realize ourselves at the side of our partner and want to have our needs and wishes fulfilled. But of course our partner is also looking for his own personal fulfillment and the fulfillment of his wishes and needs. And as if that weren't enough, we want our partner's longings to come true too, after all, we love this person. Oh yes, and at the same time and harmoniously it should also work. How is it all supposed to work? If we followed our minds, it would be best to stay away from love relationships altogether.
Fortunately, when it comes to love, we don't follow our brains, but our hearts, our feelings. And there is a different logic here that we experience every time we dance together, when we have loving sex or even just go on a trip together. Then the relationship is a togetherness, a rapid alternation of leading and following, of being active and being passive, of action and reaction. We live impulses that trigger impulses, that trigger impulses … The question of how much we should adapt only arises when the togetherness is dominated on one side. Or, that is also possible when we feel dominated. Adapting then suddenly means giving up what is one's own. When the partner only wants to go to the live concerts of his favorite bands but never to the cinema with us, when the sausage is no longer allowed in the vegan fridge, when someone insists on his sexual script, when contact with the ex is forbidden.
The pressure and demand can increase to such an extent that the relationship is called into question. As soon as one does not want to move into the inherited house of the other or can only imagine a relationship without children. Clarification is then necessary. Confrontation.
Respond to each other
This then determines the relationship. And that does not mean the result of the clarification, but the HOW of the dispute. Are both moving? Will my wishes and feelings be taken into account? Do I feel heard and understood? Or is blackmail being blackmailed and a discussion cut off? Or even demanded love in the form that it is not love if we do not get involved with the ideas and wishes of the other? So: When, in a figurative sense, a partner stands up and declares that he either doesn't want to dance at all – and if he does, the other person should please follow his steps?
We certainly have to respond to one another, look for common steps on our journey through life together. We cannot always stick to our ideas. But we should only adjust if it feels like we've found a way together. And not like we're giving up.
"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.
Listen now: "Paaradox" – the relationship podcast
In the podcast "Paaradox", BRIGITTE editor Nikola Haaks talks to the couple therapists Claudia Clasen-Holzberg and Oskar Holzberg about love, relationship problems and sex. Be sure to check it out!
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