One of the key desires of love
is the wish to help another person
but an intention doesn't always or automatically translate
into a ready capacity for true assistance
Picture a five-year-old
who's stumbled into his parents bedroom
and surprised his mother crying
She's normally so strong and ready with help for him
Now he longs to do something to staunch the tears but he's at sea
The sobs might be about the mortgage,
a turbulent time at work, or
an argument with her partner
But all these aren't for a child to grasp
He sweetly suggest a glass of water
and pipes up that he might run downstairs to get Knitted Rabbit
The impulse to help floats logically free
of any actual ability to do so
Two people can long to be supportive and generous towards one another
and yet lack all the skills to deliver on their good intentions
and therefore end up feeling isolated, resentful, and unloved
We cause ourselves trouble because we're too slow to recognize an odd, largely unmentioned phenomenon:
how varied and particular our notions of help can be
We take our own preferred style of being soothed as the natural starting point for how to soothe others
but when we're wrong and our partner’s original distress is compounded by their sense of having been ignored or insulted,
we take them to be ungrateful and cruel and vow never to attempt to be kind again
An urgent task is therefore to try to understand the particular way in which we, and our partner, need love to be delivered in order to feel that it is real
We might be types who, when we're sad or in difficulties, need first and foremost to speak
What we say may not be entirely sequential
We might go back over things a few times and omit to cap our stories with neat endings
But that might not matter because what we want above all from a partner when we're suffering
is that they sit with us, at length, and listen
We want them to signal their engagement with their eyes but not with their mouths,
to register our anger, to observe our disappointment,
and at most, at opportune moments to prompt us with a ‘Go on…’ or a small supportive sound
Yet what we absolutely don’t want: answers, solutions or analyses,
for them to open their wallets, to give us a plan, or to rush to fill in our silences
We want them to sit listening because the real problem we need assistance with
isn’t so much the specific issue we are mentioning
(the parking ticket, the in-laws, the delayed delivery)
It’s the overarching sense that most people we encounter
can’t really be bothered to take the time to imagine themselves correctly into our lives
Perhaps there was a history to this:
our parents might have been practically minded, busy and successful
but somehow rather callous and distracted
in the way they sought always and immediately to push our difficulties out of the way with logic
Now we feel how an immediate ‘solution’ can be an excuse for not listening to the problem
That’s why just being heard feels like the quintessence of love
We might almost deliberately take our time,
go back over points our partner [...]
go back over points our partner had thought were finished
and re-explore a jagged bit of our story, not to mislead,
but because such rehearsals create the backdrop
for the only style of help we crave and trust:
receptive, quiet attention
Then again, at another end of the spectrum,
love might not feel real
unless it's accompanied by precise and concrete solutions
Vague sympathy is worthless
We might want to hear a flow of ideas as to what we should do next,
what sort of strategy we should deploy,
whom we might call, and how we can get answers
It’s all very well for someone to say they feel our pain;
we would prefer a plan
Love is a sheet of paper with a list of bullet points in your partner’s handwriting
In addition,
we might not be averse to evidence that our partner has spent some money on our problems,
time isn’t a currency we respect
We might want them to pay for an accountant or a lawyer
or offer an evening in an expensive restaurant
After an economically fragile childhood, to feel really helped, we might long for evidence of financial outlay;
we can’t be reassured just by what someone says
We've built up a residual suspicion and distrust around lone verbal offerings
We remember how nice it was
when an elderly relative unexpectedly gave us
a very well-chosen present when we were nine and in hospital after a bad fall
They never said very much to us
(perhaps they were rather shy)
but this gesture truly touched us
We felt sure of their kindness – as if for the first time
when we learnt just how much the present had cost
Differently again, when we divulge our agonies,
our priority may just be to hear that everything will eventually be okay
We don’t mind a little bit of exaggeration
Despair strikes us as cheap, reasons to give up are always obvious
For us, love is a species of hope
Or, alternatively, it’s hope that may be enraging
What calms us down is a quiet walk around the prospect of catastrophe
We don’t want to be alone in our fears
We long for someone to explore the grimmest possibilities with bleak sangfroid:
to mention prison, insolvency, front page headlines and the grave….
Only when our partner is ready to match our most forbidding analyses
can we be reassured we’re not in the hands of a callous sentimentalist,
rather someone honest enough to see the dangers and to worry about them as much as we do
and perhaps stick with us while we serve out the prison sentence
A cuddle can sound to some like a petty response to bad news,
but for us it can be the most reliable evidence of heartfelt love
To help our minds, we need someone first to reassure our bodies,
to hold us tightly and quietly while we close our eyes in pain and surrender to their firm embrace
Help in adulthood may for others be associated with the gift of insight,
but for us, it is touch that soothes
We're picking up on memories of early childhood
Wise parents know that a distressed child doesn't need a lesson or a lecture;
they should be laid down on the bed, held, and their head stroked by a giant, soft adult hand
The misfortune lies in how easily we can irritate with the wrong offer of love
and in turn, how quickly we can be offended when our efforts at loving go unappreciated
Recognizing that there are different styles of help, at least alerts us to the severe risks of misunderstanding
Instead of getting annoyed at our lover’s inept and sometimes wildly misdirected efforts,
we can grasp – perhaps for the first time
– the basic truth that these blundering companions are in fact attempting to be nice
In turn, the clearest clue of the kind of help our partner wants is the help they offer us
It seems love can’t remain at the level of intentions alone:
it must involve constant strenuous efforts to translate our wishes
into interventions truly aligned with the psychology and history of another human being