The Genesis of Desire

Epilogue: Can One Rescue a Relationship?

E P I L O G U E Can One Rescue a Relationship? Love, too, has to be learned. —Nietzsche The first comment I would like to make to conclude all these reflections is that diagnosis must precede treatment. Diagnosis in the kind of cases we have been talking about must first of all include assuring ourselves that the members of the couple are of good will, that is, that they wish to get out of their predicament, that they are willing to consider new ideas, and that they have decided to view the therapist as an ally rather than as an adversary or rival whose worthlessness, at best, or whose toxicity, at worst, has to be demonstrated. At least one of the two partners must meet these criteria if a therapeutic effort is to have any chance of succeeding. We have seen above in numerous examples that in order to overcome jealousy regarding a third party, the rival has to be brought to light and demystified. In other cultures, a husband might guard against any possible rival third party by hiding his wife under veils of varying degrees of thickness, right up to the point of total covering by a burka. As an Egyptian proverb puts it, “If the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t suffer.” In Mediterranean cultures, one is 145 146 Epilogue careful to avoid the evil eye; an eye that looks on what I have is “evil,” because its gaze can result in mimesis of appropriation and consequently rivalry. Therefore one must hide every object whose sight might give rise to another’s desire and arouse rivalry—especially one’s wife (or wives)! Mitigating one partner’s jealousy regarding the other partner’s qualities and accomplishments is much more difficult, as we have seen. Once rivalry has taken root in the relationship of a couple, it is very hard to uproot. I gave several examples above. Here, I believe, preventive measures are much more effective than curative ones. We should teach young people, even before they fall in love and form a couple, about the way mimetic desire works and about the innumerable snares of rivalry and the dangerous reality of universal mimesis. Unfortunately, young couples charge head first into the adventure of love without having patience to prepare themselves for it. Still, some sincere and well-meaning ones do learn, little by little during the course of their life together, to see and understand the reality of desire. To do this is not a purely intellectual procedure; it is a matter of initiation, in the sense that it involves a gradual transformation of the person involved, as he or she advances in it. The ultimate goal of this sort of initiatory development is to liberate desire from the rivalry that is intimately intermixed with it. The result, when it is successful, is a gradual acquisition of wisdom, that is, of the capacity to desire what one has. Generally speaking, how can one protect a relationship from the rivalry that threatens it? As I have said, and as we have seen in the cases described above, love is highly vulnerable. This is true not only because love is in constant need of care and attention in order to grow, but also, and especially, because it must be protected in every moment from the rivalry that can insinuate itself within it and put it in danger of being perverted and even destroyed. The path is arduous, but it is far from impossible. Often just to bring the mimetic mechanisms to light is enough to defuse them. If one member of the couple is sufficiently alert and is warned about the problems of rivalry, he or she can to some degree counteract them, and even protect the other from his or her slips with regard to them. But this watchfulness must be constant and carried out with full consciousness. It is a form of ascesis, and it calls for a real conversion. It is this that is perhaps the greatest difficulty. I often tell my patients, in order to awaken their attention, “When you go home, you will be like a trainer entering the cage of a tiger.” The whip is only useful if it is never used. This image allegorically represents two things that are essential: Can One Rescue a Relationship? 147 constant watchfulness to avoid any movement, any gesture, any word capable of setting rivalry, aggression, or resentment in...