Why Relationships Matter

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We create drama because it makes us feel alive.

The genius of “Obsession” is that it explores not love ungained, but the horror of love overgained.

Women have learned that being objectified and losing agency isn’t worth all the gold in the world.

There are “systems of thought” upon which our civilization is based, and one of them is the myth of romantic love. Star-crossed lovers who commit suicide together to burnish that love forever are its epitome; overcoming obstacles — she’s already betrothed, they come from different social classes (“Titanic”) — and then one of them dies helps solidify in our minds this conception of “true love.” As I say in my workshops, “There is no ‘Pretty Woman II.’”

Romantic Love: A Western Invention

In Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont argued that romantic love as we know it is a peculiarly Western invention, traceable to 13th-century courtly culture, and that it is structurally dependent on lovers overcoming obstacles. Passion requires illicitness and overcoming. Forbidden love, prohibited love, love across impossible distances… these are the subconscious engines of romance. Extrapolating from de Rougemont, in We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, Robert Johnson observed that when a man’s projections on a woman evaporate, he announces he is “disenchanted” — disappointed not by her, but by the fact that she turned out to be a subjective........

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