Should
we tie the knot or shouldn’t we?
With
the institution of marriage constantly scrutinized
and divorce rates getting higher and higher, a top
psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Greece, Matthew
Josafat, tried to shed some light on the eternally
challenging fields of sex, love and marriage during
a lecture at the Athens Concert Hall last week.
In his
speech, titled “To Get Married, or Not to Get
Married,” Josafat talked about the factors that lead
to our choice of partners in a comprehensive way and
with humorous touches, before a packed audience.
Director of the Hellenic Society for Group Analysis
and Family Therapy, Josafat has served as director
of the Finchley Child and Family Psychiatric Center
as well as senior registrar at the Tavistock Center
during his 15-year stay in London. He is also former
director of the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in
Attica and is currently working on a book about
marriage.
“The
divorce rate is approximately 50 percent in many
developed countries, with another 30 percent being
unhappy in their marriages,” said Josafat. That only
leaves a small percentage – 20 percent – of happily
married couples (or relatively happily), yet 70
percent of the divorcees opt to give marriage
another shot. Divorce rates in Greece may not quite
reach those levels, but they are certainly rising
fast. If marriage seems as problematic as that, why
do people insist on getting married, determined to
make it work even if it is the second time round?
As
Josafat explained, people have a natural tendency to
“attach” themselves to somebody else in order to
survive, the way that babies are attached to their
mother in their first year, a bond which in
psychiatric terms is called “attachment.” If a child
has enjoyed a mature and fulfilling relationship
with his or her mother, especially during the first
year, the youngster is more likely to develop mature
relationships later on in life and enjoy a good
marriage, after choosing an equally mature partner.
If, on the other hand, that initial relationship has
been tainted by problems, which unfortunately seems
to be the norm, children may later face difficulties
in loving other people.
So, are
mothers to blame for everything? Josafat was quick
to point out that most mistakes do not happen
consciously, but it is fundamental to go back to
somebody’s early relationship with their mother in
order to evaluate their choice of partners.
Contrary to popular belief as well as Greek law,
which sees the first six months in a baby’s life as
the most important ones, he insisted that it is
between the sixth and the 10th month that babies
learn to attach themselves to their mothers
properly. That’s a time when the maternity leave of
most working mothers has ended and the child is
usually left to the care of others, leading to
confusion. “The stress of separation can lead to
psychosomatic illnesses and create a difficulty to
love and be able to give later on,” he said.
How
does all of this actually affect our marriage?
Josafat explained that, without realizing it, when
we get married we seek to re-create the relationship
we had with our mother at first and then with our
father. We try to either experience once more the
satisfaction we got out of that relationship, or
relive the problems we had, hoping that we may be
able to solve them this time. Hence, our choice of
partner is not only influenced by the factors we all
more or less know – physical attraction,
socioeconomic reasons and personality – but also by
our need to re-create the atmosphere of that initial
relationship, something which we do not do
consciously.
Most
people tend to go for partners who are similar to
them. When they are both immature though, they each
have expectations of the other but are unable to
give – a bad recipe that does not produce a happy
marriage. Others tend to be attracted to opposites,
which often leads to issues of power and control as
well as so-called “triangles” (usually in the form
of an extramarital affair) as a “third person” may
be necessary just to keep the marriage going. The
“third leg” is not necessarily always a lover.
“Women often turn to their children, especially
their sons, to counterbalance their husbands,” said
the psychiatrist. Then again, people find themselves
attracted to others for purely sexual reasons,
something which is usually short-lived as the
relationship mostly consists of using one’s partner
for pleasure.
The
best, but also the rarest, choice is made when we
are emotionally mature, meaning that we have either
enjoyed an emotionally successful early childhood
with our parents or we have managed to work out our
issues with therapy later on. “That is the normal
form of love, but it is very rare because few people
are so mature. Mature people don’t fall passionately
in love,” he pointedly said, causing an uproar of
laughter in the audience.
Despite
appearances, statistics indicate that men find it
harder to be alone, they are more vulnerable and
women are more independent (it is mostly women who
ask for a divorce). “But today, marriage is better
than it used to be, even the divorces are an
indication of our determination to make it better
and not to repeat our mistakes,” said Josafat at the
end of his lecture. “For years I have been
suggesting that schools hold classes of ‘life
lessons,’ in the form of therapy groups, which are
more useful than other things.”
After
all, as he added, there are lots of ways a couple
can get help nowadays and marriage, with the right
partner, can be a unique experience with the feeling
of love growing stronger instead of weaker.
