A recent Dutch article caught my attention. Its subtitle claims the following: (i) a monogamous relationship hurts having another love, and (ii) the alternatives do, however, not offer the growth that one (1) partner can offer. I was intrigued by the dualism in this article. Nevertheless, I felt something was missing in this article and went looking for it.
Having observed dualism offered an immediate clue: the missing angle might constitute trialism. Nevertheless, it took me a while to find the obvious.
Any viable relationship includes friendship and intimacy between partners. Again, this constitutes dualism. What’s missing?
The ancient Greek words for Love offer some clues: eros (romantic love) and philia (friendship). Which of the remaining four words for Love might bring trialism? Philautia (self-love) looked the most promising. Then, I suddenly noticed the emerging triangle and trialism: You (friendship), Me (self-love), and Us (intimacy).
Apart from trialism or dualism in Love, a focus on its corners brings monism:
- You: idolization or worship rather than a balanced friendship;
- Me: narcissism rather than self-love;
- Us: lust rather than love.
I think, feel and believe that the above is also a dissection of why relationships may fail:
- You: too much/little attention/interest between partners;
- Me: too much/little me-time and/or solitude;
- Us: too much/little (sexual) intimacy.
Each line above represents one of my failures in love. My biggest failure was about ignoring Me. Some failures were a combination of two or even all three. Other failures were about You, either unilateral or bilateral. After each break-up, I focused on repairing what went wrong. Yet, I’ve always known that I failed to see the bigger picture – until now.
I Idolize You (1960) by Ike & Tina Turner
artist-1, artist-2, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2, Wiki-3
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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