Rabih is on holiday with his father and step-mother in Spain. He is 14 years old. He becomes friendly with a 15-year-old French girl who is also on holiday. They hold hands and Rabih believes himself to be in love. The next day she goes home and they never see each other again.
This is a typical schoolboy error. This is not Love. It is a passing crush which many people mistake for Love.
In the early days of their marriage, Rabih and Kirsten would often be asked how they met. This is how it started: Rabih was in his early 30s and was a not very successful architect; Kirsten worked for the council. They met in a bar and started talking to each other. He thought she was quite attractive. She also thought he was quite nice. So they had sex.
In our ordinary understanding of Love this is where the story would end. Our modern notions of Love are inextricably linked to a notion of Romanticism. We are addicted to the process of falling in Love and fail to pay attention to the Act of being in Love. Thank God you’ve got me to point it out.
After dating one another for six months, Rabih unexpectedly finds himself proposing to Kirsten. After just a moment’s deliberation, Kirsten accepts and so they get married. Were they to have been gifted with the insight of an emotionally complete colossus they might have realised that we are frequently attracted to each other for complex reasons. Rabih was looking for the mother who died when he was 10; Kirsten was looking for the father who walked out on his family when she was 10. But as they didn’t realise this, they started to quarrel and blame each other for things that weren’t the other’s fault.
Love requires people to be both good listeners and good communicators. While we might hope that Love could be effortlessly explained in the poetry of the Romantics, the reality is that it is more easily expressed through a nice chat and a cup of tea. If that doesn’t work, a night in a Premier Inn, where a ‘Good Night’s Sleep is Guaranteed’ should do the trick. Whatever you do, try not to sulk like Rabih and Kirsten.
As Rabih and Kirsten get closer to each other, they start to share their sexual fantasies. Kirsten tells Rabih she likes to have her hair pulled when they make love and he finds this difficult as he does not want to hurt her. Encouraged by the level of trust developing between them, Rabih says he would quite like them to have a threesome with the waitress from the cafe who has indicated to him she would be well up for it. Rabih cannot understand why this goes down like a cup of cold sick with Kirsten.
Only in Romantic love does the girl automatically agree to a threesome. In True de Bottonian Love, some fantasies are best kept to yourself.
Rabih and Kirsten continue to experience difficulties as they fail to deal with their transference issues. Both blame the other for not nurturing their child within and as a result they act out their insecurities. Some marriages collapse at this point, but Rabih and Kirsten are subconsciously aware that part of being in Real, rather than Romantic Love, is that it is OK to be together because they are frightened of being apart. They decide to have two children, Esther and William. They are both desperate for their children not to suffer the emotional damage that they suffered as children, but as they are not even aware of how much damage there is, some of it gets passed on anyway. They both get tired, believe the other to be doing less to help and start using the children as weapons against the other.
Triangulation is a very dangerous process. It leads people to say indirectly those things that should be directly expressed. In some cases this can lead to one partner having an affair.
Rabih is no longer sure if he is a walking cliche as he has come to believe that Kirsten does not understand him. He has a one night stand with an American woman who appears to understand him extremely well but in the morning he does feel guilty. He can’t believe he has fallen prey to narcissistic Romanticism and wonders if he should tell Kirsten. On balance, he decides against it.
An affair can be an expression of how much one loves one’s partner and not merely a sign that a relationship is on the rocks. What Rabih needs to do is to find a way to reconnect with Kirsten without acting out self-destructively.
Rabih and Kirsten decide they need help and choose Alain de Botton as their therapist. Alain is able to show them how to relate to one another and find the Path of Love. Rabih and Kirsten are both overjoyed that they have learned how to deal with their issues and live happily enough ever after.
Digested read, digested: The Consolations of Therapy
