Couples therapist reveals
Relationship without love: is that possible?
© fizkes / 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.
Is it enough to be a “good team” as a couple? When we can really appreciate being a good team.
Suppose we had to choose between two options: Do we want to be the great love for each other or do we want to be a good team? We would probably choose great love, great feelings. Being a good team sounds way too objective, sensible, like a workplace. Have we just finished the team building seminar? On the other hand, a relationship becomes hell in the long run when love is great but the couple does not make a good team. A team that can cope not only with its everyday life, but above all with its crises together.
Connection and friendship as the basis of every relationship
Because you can recognize a good team by the fact that it is still a good team when it is actually not a good team. That means: When we can find each other again as partners, even if we did not feel understood and left alone at the moment. When we are offended by flirtations and affairs, when we feel ignored in decisions, when we feel excluded from the inner world of our partner. Having a good team around the house, financially, while traveling or looking after children is not to be underestimated. But just working well and coping with life together will not be enough for a love relationship in the long run. Rather, what matters is whether we are a good team that ensures that we stay that way.
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
And thus for a relationship in which we treat each other with respect, in which there are open discussions, in which bad feelings are cleared up. This creates connection and friendship. And that is the basis of every relationship. It is the soil on which love can flourish and eroticism and sexuality can be maintained. The danger is that we try too hard to primarily be a harmonious team. To avoid conflicts and provocations, not to allow any important connections from outside. Then it gets boring. And the horror of not being more than just the “good team” as a couple becomes understandable. We live in the eternal contradiction of longing for a steady couple relationship, but in no case to allow our claims to happiness, satisfaction and a fulfilled life to be restricted by it. Love promises to resolve this contradiction.
Love appears to us as the magical glue that wonderfully holds us together, whatever may come. A team can be left and even the best team can break up. Only our uncontrollable feelings of love seem to be able to give us protection against the fragility of our relationships. But the separation rate and the insight into the dynamics of couple relationships speak against it. You can’t rely on love. And we cannot actively shape it. On the other hand, being a good team does. Maybe it’s about recognizing more clearly the importance of being a good team. And what’s more: how much we love to live as a team. If we share this love, then we are no longer just a team. We also create a connecting love.
“Couple adox” is the new podcast with Oskar Holzberg and his wife Claudia. You speak openly about topics that keep challenging relationships. Funny, exciting and insightful! I.a. on Audio Now.
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