attachments

from friendships to the fantasy of partnership

Bruce Nauman, Human/Need/Desire, 1983

There was a time I wanted a stable, dependable relationship that led to marriage, a house in the suburbs, a dog, a cat, a kid. I look around and see so many of my friends already far along on this journey. But the events of the last two years, both global and personal, have led me to question whether this dream of domestic bliss would truly make me happier.

A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing. It might involve food, or a kind of love; it might be a fantasy of the good life, or a political project. 

Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism

When I was a kid, a lot of my attachments revolved around friendships and wanting other girls to like me. I was really taken with the idea of having a best friend. It was something I had to have, and once I found my best friend, we swore to remain best friends forever, even after I moved to a new city. We eventually lost touch, and I found a new best friend. I looked to my bff for fun, excitement, comfort, and validation. Once I developed feelings for boys and started dating, the onus of making me feel loved shifted from the best friend to the boyfriend. The sad part about growing up is that it’s really hard to go back to the best friend because the boyfriend offers everything that the best friend offered plus some. For many people, their romantic partner is their best friend.

I’m very mindful of the fact that I need strong friendships outside of a romantic relationship. This has become increasingly clear to me the older I get. It’s so easy to invest all your time and energy in your partner, and since your time and energy are finite, the opportunity cost is cultivating stronger friendships. We’ve all experienced this: friends disappearing from our lives after moving in with their partners or getting married. I find it really sad when this happens. 

I like the idea behind “emotionships,” which I heard about on The Atlantic’s podcast “How to Start Over.” The idea is that instead of having one person you go to for everything (i.e. your romantic partner), you have different people that you go to for different emotional needs. 

Here’s how Dr. Bella DePaulo explains it on the podcast: 

A lot of single people have different people who fill different slots in our social convoys, in our social circles. There is research on this; it’s called having emotionships rather than relationships. So you have different people who are good at dealing with different emotions. And what this program of research shows is that people who have emotionships—they go to different people for different things—they are actually more satisfied with their lives than people who do the “you are my everything” thing.

We have a strong compulsion to want our partners to do everything with us and fulfill every emotional need. It seems unrealistic and suboptimal to expect a single person to do so much. On the show Couples Therapy, Dr. Orna Guralnik observes:

I was thinking how much is put on the notion of couple. You know, as a couples therapist, I believe in it, I believe that ultimately it’s a good thing for most people (not for everyone), but I’m also kind of aware of the limit of how much it can deliver. Another person will never be what you’re fantasizing them to be. A fantasy is always going to, at some point, exceed what’s there.

Esther Perel makes a similar observation in Mating in Captivity:

Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?

When we expect our partner to fulfill every emotional need, the things we want from them become somewhat contradictory: a sense of grounding and romance, stability and passion. It’s helpful to break down our desires into their components to figure out what’s truly essential from a partner. Why do I want my boyfriend to come to this wedding with me when he hates going to weddings? If it’s because I want to experience a fun event with someone I care about, I could easily fulfill this need by inviting a friend instead, and I’d probably have a better time not worrying if my boyfriend’s enjoying himself.

By taking an analytical approach to understanding our desires, we can begin to shift the emotional burden from a single person to a network of people and relationships. This allows us to accept people for who they are, appreciating what they can offer instead of demanding more from them and feeling disappointed.

I’ve gotten better at recognizing what’s truly important in a partner. And I’m realizing that the only things that truly matter are fundamental character traits such as kindness, honesty, curiosity, resilience, etc. Ideally, we share a few common interests, but I don’t need my partner to check the boxes on all or even most of my interests. I don’t even need someone who can challenge me intellectually because I have friends who can do that. People talk about having a relationship of “deep connection” but deep connection doesn’t mean your partner fulfills you in every way. Depth is not the same as breadth. You can have a deep connection with someone because you share the same taste in music, and it’s a big part of your lives. You can have a deep connection with someone who has vastly different tastes in everything except music.

All this to say, I think attachments become cruel when we put all our hopes and dreams in one basket, whether that be a person, relationship or material good. That house in the suburbs isn’t going to bring me happiness. Happiness is such a Big Thing. In order not to be cruelly attached, I need to think more precisely about what exactly it’s going to give me, and that thing is most assuredly not happiness. What it can give me is more space to spread out, a place to host friends and family, warmth in the winter, etc. You get the idea. It’s also important to recalibrate the emotional value I place on the desired thing by considering not only the gains but potential losses from attaining it e.g. I’m going to have to spend more time and money on upkeep. 

(By the way, I don’t want a house in the suburbs, at least not at this point in my life.)