Conversations on Love

‘Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.’

When I asked psychiatrist Dr Megan Poe why people lose their sense of self in relationships, she said it’s sometimes because they’re trying to ‘echo-locate the other and not reveal the self’ and merge with them.

It’s very romantic to me that what you’re signing up for are all of those hard things: the work of long-term love, the inevitable loss, the decision not to leave when things get tough, the beauty of suffering together. The romance is actually in the hard part, not in the kiss.

We might avoid talking about death because we can’t bear to think about losing the people we love, when actually, not talking about it is one of the reasons we can take them for granted every day. Perhaps by facing the truth – that, if we’re lucky, we get to exist alongside them in this world for decades, not centuries – we will remember to look into their faces more than our phone screens.

Some people think that love fixes everything – and it doesn’t. You can use it as a distraction but it’s not going to remove your suffering, ever, about anything, even in little ways. You might think, I’ll be less anxious if I have a partner, but you won’t be, unless you figure out how to do that by yourself. Just as having a partner is not going to solve your problems, it’s not going to make you into someone else.

during a marriage our partners change and we will too; consequently, we have to find ways of renegotiating, creating new marriages. I agree with her. I sometimes say: the best marriages – by which I mean the strongest, most resilient marriages – are remarriages to the same person. Strengthened by working through their difficulties, these couples rediscover or find new aspects to love in their partner, rather than seeking another.

We help children by being with them in their grief; standing with them in their experience of loss.

Life requires of us that we let go of places, things, people that we love, to make room for new life, new love. Development demands loss – it’s unbearable, we resist it, but if we are to grow, we must endure this pain.

You never let go of that little kernel, but you grow to accept that, in the present, things are the way they are, and you better start enjoying living, not destroy yourself by thinking about things that might or might not happen.

It’s so precious when you find love in later life, whether you’re in your forties or fifties or older. I think people have a great capacity to fall in love again, even after immense loss.