They Fearful, They Idealists

Love hasn’t always been that hard. Before the idea of ​​romantic love took hold in Western culture, they had more stable relationships. Today, human beings struggle within two paradoxical realities: on the one hand, most want to find that wonderful person who marks a before and after in love life; on the other hand, the majority also dissociate “great love” from frustration or suffering.

In other words, many seek the benefits of love but don’t want to pay the price. These ideas settle in the bodies of men or women. But men translate it or experience it one way, while women do it differently.

Most men are unaware of their fear of loving. Almost all of them choose to lose interest in the subject, to move from one relationship to another without giving themselves time to say “what beautiful eyes you have” or becoming cynical in the face of affection. Women, on the other hand, are generally adept at first idealizing and then devaluing men with whom they have built a love affair.

Men and their fears

The big fear of most men is commitment. Even though the word seems clear, it actually has multiple meanings. And we each understand it in different ways.

Some people think that getting involved is awakening too many expectations in a woman. That’s why they take so many precautions and measure every step they take in the relationship. Others believe commitment comes when they open their hearts and show what’s inside. Still others think they are engaged when the relationship goes beyond a definite period of time. Finally each gives the form he wants to the fear he feels.

From the point of view of Doctor Juan David Nasio, a famous Argentinian psychoanalyst living in Paris, all these fears arise from a single source: the fear of disappointing or “betraying” their mother. Basically, on the unconscious level, they are chained for life to the idea that only their mother deserves this total love and they are incapable of feeling this feeling with other women.

This is the root of this feeling, which so many men express by saying that “something is missing” in these women they know. These men go from one failed relationship to another. If they are honest with themselves and become aware of how they work, they will find that they are taking it upon themselves to sabotage this opportunity to build a true love story. With their carelessness, their lack of sensitivity or their need for control. Then they complain that no woman is what they are looking for.

Women and their idealizations 

Many women build their own fantasy castle, where they play to be the princesses. From there, they organize incredible love stories, in which the man who takes charge of their neuroses and their insecurities can only be called “prince”. A sort of “courteous father”, capable of giving them a feeling of security that they do not have and of protecting them in the face of the vicissitudes of life.

Most of them will say no. They see themselves as modern, empowered and independent women. But, they still spend their lives making and breaking relationships.

Each time they finish one, they tell themselves that “men are not worth it”, or feel disappointed in this man because he is not what he seemed to be. Deep down, they would like men who behave like women. They do not understand that social construction shapes them differently.

As we dig deeper, we discover that the disappointment and worthlessness towards men comes precisely from the fact that they feel “betrayed” in their fantasies. They don’t treat them like the princesses or queens they used to be.

In the end, he too – once again – could not bear all of her whims. Maybe he didn’t propose to her, or he didn’t protect her like a spoiled little girl. Or that he didn’t act like a knight errant, that he should have been. There were mistakes on the merchandise: he was a man in the flesh, not a prince.

Fantasy and reality

To love is not easy. Let yourself be loved either. But that becomes impossible when the members of the couple are attached to their childish fantasies and do not want to give them up. They make love an impossible feat.

They prove incapable of appreciating and giving value to all these contradictions which make us human and which are precisely those that the other must accept, without trying to remedy them. When there is real love.