Strength in Intimate Relationships

In intimate relationships, strength manifests in seeking connections where it transcends the need for tenderness and affection. This involves demonstrating an absence of reliance on feeling strong or displaying a toughness of character, and it depends on vulnerability to surrender, as this reveals one's weakness, making the individual emotionally susceptible. Additionally, falling in love implies losing control over one's life. Above all, one cannot make their desire for the other explicit, as it would be too dangerous.

In fact, when falling in love, cynicism prevails, leading to disbelief in the authenticity of the other's loving feelings, viewing them instead as manipulative maneuvers with hidden intentions, making surrender very costly, if not impossible. There is also doubt about one's own feelings of love, which are difficult to bring to consciousness.

When experiencing love, once the guard is down, an internal struggle begins to avoid staying in the relationship. Prepared for the anticipated abandonment, one often withdraws before enduring the pain of being left. Although physically present in the relationship, one may have emotionally abandoned it much earlier, anticipating abandonment.

As a sexual subtype, there is an impulse toward sexual union and seeking the other, but it remains hidden, lived in thoughts. Paradoxically, one falls in love easily but internally, within one's own world. One can fantasize romantically, but it remains a dream that is not realized, an invention never made explicit. Romanticism would be a fragility, the risk of being seen as ridiculous. All the need for love is masked by cynicism and pragmatism.