Power of Love/and sex/ and the role of heart Part 4/5

by Stefka Atanasova

We may be fascinated when people make truly surprising or weird love matches like the upper-class Englishwoman who marries a traditional Inuit and lives happily ever after. But mostly we are fairly disapproving when people break the unwritten rules of the mating game and use the advantage of their sexual attractiveness, or their money and power, to pull someone who is, in that telling phrase, "out of their league".
So, can the ghastly truth be that those treasured coups de foudre - those towering edifices built on the magnetic rock of primal, perfect love, occur when a person instantly identifies, or thinks they identify, nothing more or less than a suitably flattering reflection of themselves? Can overwhelming attraction, whether or not it develops into anything that endures, actually be at root narcissistic?
Anecdotal reference to that heady feeling of novel attraction, enthusiastically returned, will confirm that along with the weak knees, fluttery tummies and bonkers attachment to the essential truth of the silliest song lyrics, a keenly enjoyable aspect of the matter is the bolstering of one's own ego. Part of the joy of having that other person so intimately present in one's life is firmly connected to the undeniable fact that they also make you feel just great about yourself.
The ruminations on attraction that have been offered since Wagner's day by psychoanalysts and psychiatrists are often little more welcome than those of the scientists who say that your partner is not perfect for you because you mutually deserve such a marvellous mate, but because you just have smells that trigger each other's hormones.
Freud placed the ability to form meaningful relationships with the opposite sex as the result of good parenting, and the inability to do so as a consequence of dysfunctional relationships between girls and their fathers or boys and their mothers. He also suggested that while a degree of narcissism was present in all humans, it was important to release self-love by giving love to another person, or else narcissism would grow unchecked and become destructive.
Jung went further, and suggested that what seemed like "love at first sight" was merely projection. People see their masculine animus or their feminine anima in a member of the opposite sex, and are attracted by what they recognise as the unconscious and hidden part of themselves. For Jung, it was important to understand that aspect of one's psyche, so that one could stop projecting, grow up (or as he called it, individuate) and learn to engage with one's anima or animus so that one could choose wisely and start forming adult relationships.
The inability to "individuate" was for Jung the reason why people sometimes found themselves trapped in a romantic groundhog day, choosing again and again similarly unsuitable or abusive partners, and falling into unreasoning obsessions ending in hurt and tears. Again, such an analysis is not always entirely welcome, and it does indeed seem like rather a con the idea that the "unlucky in love" ought to sign up with a Jungian analyst and work on getting to know and understand their hidden sexual archetype. Yet like many of Jung's ideas and many of Freud's it is hard to dismiss completely.
Anthony Storr, a renowned psychiatrist of a more practical bent, once remarked that if people could get a grip on their tendency to form neurotic attachments to those who displayed the most destructive traits of a parent, then his consulting rooms would be empty. Which, in the end, is another way of saying that whatever we might tell ourselves about coups de foudres and love at first sight and irresistible passion we fancy the people that our genes and our upbringing tell us to.
What does the Story of Adam and Eve Mean in Our Times?
Our ego is the snake that prevents us from being able to love someone else. The meaning behind the story of Adam, Eve and the snake is actually very simple. The snake represents the ego that became revealed between Adam and Eve, the man and the woman. And that's really all there is to the story.
For example, suppose that a happy, young couple falls in love.They hug, kiss and laugh together, go to the movies and the beach. Then they get married and begin living together, and everything is wonderful. They're in the Garden of Eden. And suddenly - the snake (the ego) arrives. They suddenly begin arguing. Then they begin taking advantage of each other and making private calculations, such as "How can I get him/her tobe the way I want them to be?" This happens to us because the snake (the ego that's inside us) prevents us from being able to love someone else, and makes sure that our love is egoistic from the start. Under these circumstances, the closest we can come to love is to surrender our egos in day to day life as much as we can.

How Do We Get Rid Of The Ego?

However, this still doesn't solve the problem at the root,and does not enable us to experience real, unconditional love. As we continue advancing toward correction and spirituality, we will understand this more and build a good future filled with trust and loyalty. Now this sounds outright naive and utopian. In our current reality it is difficult to see and understand how it can really happen.