It has been said: ‘If you love it, let it be free’: 

this applies to the expression

of mature love that implies the commitment to love the other person, with

the acknowledgement that that person is a free agent, that nobody can be

forced to love more than is natural, not by coercion, not by raising guilt

feelings. 

Otto Kernberg, M.D., addressing the question of mature love in his article Limitations to the Capacity to Love (2011), states: 

In the reciprocity of a love relation it is reasonable to expect that love and commitment be responded to, and that if the loved person is not able to respond to one’s love, this has to be accepted, and the mourning process over the end of the relationship be tolerated.

It means, in practice, a non-guilt raising exploration of the difficulties in the relationship, of the experience of having been hurt or attacked, neglected or mistreated by the other, and raising it as a question for exploration and resolution, with the expectation that this will be a natural concern of the other person as well.

All this does not imply that, under ordinary conditions, aggression should not be available to defend the boundaries of a love relationship against ‘intruders.’ The capacity for jealousy is a normal protective function, achieved as part of the entry into the dominance of oedipal conflicts. It stands in contrast to its frequent absence in severe narcissistic pathology. 

But lack of normal jealousy also may express the acting out of oedipal guilt over the possibility of a gratifying sexual relationship. 

In a clinical situation, this may look like the following: a partner openly flirts with a third person, yet the patient experiences little jealousy and displays excessive tolerance. In therapy, this apparent “absence of a problem” may reveal a defense against the patient’s own dependency on the partner, dissociated aggression, fear of rivalry, or difficulty asserting the right to protect one’s own love relationship because of a lack of a sense of entitlement to a satisfying and happy sexual relationship. 

The ambivalence of all relationships implies that events of mutual aggression are unavoidable in the course of a life lived together but, by the same token, the possibility of their clarification and resolution carries with it the possibility of further strengthening and deepening the relationship. If, however, to the contrary, in that context, it emerges that one cannot really expect a loving commitment from the other, there exists the need to acknowledge and, at the end, accept that. 

According to Otto Kernberg, to accept the limit or end of a relationship is part of a responsibility to oneself to expect mutuality of commitment in a mature love relation.

If the other cannot love us as we love him or her, this must be accepted and, with it, the end of the relationship. Particularly in cases of triangulations, the invasion of the couple’s relationship by a third party, infidelity in the relationship, such a clarification of where the other really stands, is essential. 

For example, following a partner’s infidelity, a patient may become completely preoccupied with the third person: comparing herself with her, searching for explanations as to what makes her “better,” and trying to win her partner back by changing herself. At the same time, the central question may remain largely unexplored: what is the partner’s own position, and is he willing to preserve the relationship and restore mutual commitment? 

There are many reasons for such a shift in sexual and emotional interest of one or both partners to outsiders, from divergent maturational and developmental processes and changing external circumstances, to severe masochistic, narcissistic or paranoid pathology. 

Whatever the reason, the exploration of how and whether the love relation will survive requires an exploration of what can be expected from the other and from the self, the possibility of resolution and forgiveness and, if not possible, resignation to the termination of the relationship. 

The possibility of life together under conditions of the end of love may be a psychosocially reasonable compromise, but is profoundly destructive to the basic fulfillment of the aspiration of a gratifying love relationship.

In some way, every long-lasting marital relationship is really several marriages.

 The resolution of crises changes the nature of the relationship, for better or for worse. Ideally, the resolution of crises may foster growth in the relationship, as well as in the self-awareness of the partners. 

When the end of a relationship occurs under conditions of a predominance of depressive over paranoid mechanisms of interactions, that is, with a dominance of sadness and mourning over the loss, rather than of hatred, frustration and wishes for revenge, such a mature way of working through the trauma of separation may foster the capacity of a more mature relationship with a new partner.

The capacity to love, experience sexual desire, tolerate dependency on the Other, rivalry, jealousy, and loss is closely related to personality structure. This is why Kernberg’s exploration of love relationships inevitably leads to a broader clinical question: how narcissistic pathology, aggression, and conflicts in object relations may affect sexual functioning.

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(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,

Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy