The Romantic Hoax

As a therapist, I often hear couples complain that since they are no longer "in love" it is eminently reasonable to get a divorce. Sometimes, there is sincere befuddlement and confusion when facing the experience of intensely loving someone and then awaking up one morning to realize that it is not the person of your dreams. Many disillusioned partners become very disappointed and angry about being "fooled" and then, from a victim position, attack the "liar" and proceed to enrich attorneys with angry divorce proceedings. One might say that the "disappointed" partner(s) were victims of a hoax... but I respectfully suggest that the ideas of romance that we have absorbed since earliest childhood are the hoax. What the "disappointed" couples wind up with is simply reality, which they have not been appropriately prepared for!

Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, a premier self-help book that was on the Times best sellers list for over 20 years, has a wonderful chapter on love where Peck describes it as a "cosmic joke". Peck eloquently differentiates between the intense chemically-driven feeling of love that compels humans to procreate, and that on a chemical basis, is not very different from what drives dogs, cats and other species and the activity of loving. When lovers begin to discover their partner is not simply an embodiment of their fantasy, but is actually a separate person, that is when the process of negotiating and celebrating differences and learning to love begins. It seems incredibly important to help young people and all of us to understand that it is only when we go beyond the powerful romantic/sexual feelings that the work of love begins. A more realistic set of expectations can still value the early romantic phase, but needs to provide guidance to the richer and deeper experience of love as it grows and changes.

What about the over 60 crowd that has most likely been through one or more serious relationships and is still looking for the "one"? The romantic ideal is deeply embedded and, sorry to say, quite resistant to change. Recommended medicine for the problem are large dosages of respect and support for differences. An interesting question is what do you prefer or which would you choose if you could only have one... respect or love? Of course both are highly desirable, but the key, in my thinking, is that respect needs to be the higher priority, since feelings of love are relatively mercurial and hard to maintain when struggling with major differences. Respect, on the other hand, sets up the conditions to listen to other perspectives that you may not like or agree with, but that you need to make room for in your heart as part of the learning-to-love process. Although the desire for the "one" is part of the romantic ideal that we are arguing needs to be updated, the acceptance of differences through enhanced respect and support may offer the surer road to discovering a more enduring relationship with a real soul mate.