GAY PROJECT FORUM
GAYS BETWEEN COUPLE CONFLICTS AND UTILITY RELATIONSHIPS - Printable Version

+- GAY PROJECT FORUM (http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org)
+-- Forum: GAY REALITY (http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/F-gay-reality)
+--- Forum: Gay orientation (http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/F-gay-orientation)
+--- Thread: GAYS BETWEEN COUPLE CONFLICTS AND UTILITY RELATIONSHIPS (/T-gays-between-couple-conflicts-and-utility-relationships)



GAYS BETWEEN COUPLE CONFLICTS AND UTILITY RELATIONSHIPS - gayprojectforum - 12-06-2020

There is a question about gay couple relationships whose answer is usually taken for granted but, nevertheless, has nothing obvious or trivial: "What does it mean to say that a gay relationship ends?" If it is obvious to think that a story can be considered finished when both partners consider it a fact of the past, which cannot resume living in the present, it is not at all obvious that a story is over, that is, it no longer produces effects, when only one of the two partners thinks that that story belongs definitively to the past, while the other partner still considers it alive and engaging, and even less one should think that a story is over when, despite reaching the decision to separate, both partners continue to feel somehow involved, because this also happens and not so rarely.
 
The emotional relationships between two people are lived on two distinct levels, the first is that of words and "declared" feelings, the second is that of the unspoken, in which the dimension of communication is expressed through much more subtle means than words such as the tone of the voice, the attitudes of the face, the physical contact, the attitudes of the body, not quickly closing a phone call, trying, at least in some moments, not to reach a definitive break despite having the opportunity, etc.. In fact it is very rare that the declared feelings and those actually experienced coincide. The explicit expression of feelings through words is necessarily linked to the categories of logic, that is, it must have its own coherence and must proceed through structured rational arguments that have at least the appearance of a logical discourse. Often, when one of the partners of the couple says to the other: "We must talk", with these words heralds a clarification considered indispensable, a kind of reckoning, which could define the conclusion of the couple relationship. Unfortunately, very often words not only serve to acknowledge a crisis situation already present, even if not declared, but they are themselves the cause or catalyst of the crisis, because words sound like judgments, like foreclosures, like preconceptions, like exclusions and therefore they can hurt. Affective communication without the use of words is much more direct and effective precisely because it avoids linguistic mediations and never sounds like a judgment, a refusal or a foreclosure.
 
Explicit speeches about feelings should be a clear representation of those feelings that makes them visible without deforming them, but often speeches about feelings have a strong autonomy with respect to the feelings they should represent and this way provide a very schematic, and not rarely strongly deformed image of those feelings, and so they often induce the counterpart to respond with specular tones or with silences that sound like forms of perplexity, disinterest or detachment. In this way the purely verbal and formally logical dialectic ends up replacing the feelings and being predominant and unstoppable. Unfortunately, deep feelings almost never come to manifest themselves in words, also because they would often appear uncertain and oscillating between the enthusiastic tone and the disenchanted one and therefore we prefer to omit them in order to rely on a much more tested communicative scheme.
 
In purely verbal communication a role is inevitably assumed. It must be clearly stated that in a dimension limited to social communication, in which in practice there are no deep affective involvements, the assumption of a role, with greater or lesser openings to a more personal dimension, can work well. In these relationships the problem of breaking a strong emotional bond doesn’t even exist, but in the context of the couple's life, however relaxed it is, that is, in the context of a relationship that has a strong emotional component, the problem of explicit communication it is fundamental, because through an explicit communication the relationship is defined and placed in this or that category and one's level of involvement is declared. Typical is the case of wanting to define whether the relationship is a couple relationship or a simple friendship, and if you agree on the fact that it is a couple relationship, then you can go on to define whether it is a closed or open couple. The reduction of the relationship within abstract schemes is in itself forced and dangerous. Obviously, if the communication took place through non-verbal channels, the abstract classification logic would be completely absent and the risks connected to it would be automatically avoided.
 
The explicit couple communication can become one of the critical moments of the relationship because, when there is no “affective” and non-verbal communication, which would be fundamental, communication is entirely entrusted to words and inevitably becomes fraught with ambiguity. I try to explain myself with an example. Let's say that two guys who have been in a couple for some time are forced to separate for a long time, non-verbal communication between them (tone of voice, exchanges of glances, physical contact) becomes impossible and everything is entrusted to the words. As long as at least telephone contact is possible and the tone of voice is still a fundamental communicative element, the dictatorship of abstract language is diluted and attention to words and their use is still relative, although still much stronger than it is when non-verbal affective communication is possible. But if the contact were to be limited only to the exchange of letters (or emails), the attention to words and their use would become maniacal, because written words would be the only means of communication and they alone would have the role of being mediators of feelings.
 
In correspondence exchanges and written chats, the request for clarifications, explanations and motivations is very frequent precisely because communication is entrusted only to words and any reassurance can only come from words. Any deviation from the topic of greatest interest to one of the two interlocutors is interpreted as a sign of disinterest.
 
Today, with video calls, even remote communications can maintain a certain amount of non-verbal communication, but the telephone and often also social networks and text messages are almost the only standard means of communication. Using these means it is very difficult to express feelings and the risk of misunderstanding is particularly high.
 
Obviously expressing feelings in words means reducing them to concepts, that is, to abstractions. We must never forget that animals, which don’t use a verbal language, that is, conceptual and abstract, are nevertheless able to express their feelings with the attitudes of the body that they also use as a means of very effective social communication. Communicating by combining verbal language with non-verbal language enriches communication and makes it possible even in very abstract sectors in which it is impossible to use non-verbal language, but communicating by substituting verbal language for non-verbal language means forcing feelings into logical categories and substantially distorting them.
 
There are sectors in which precise and abstract conceptual categories are used, in these sectors the language encodings are standard. The word “circle”, once the definition is given, assumes the same meaning for everyone, precisely because it responds to a precise definition, but the word “love” is indefinable in itself and arouses very varied and divergent content and reactions in those who heard that word, precisely because it cannot be defined and the areas of meaning that each one attributes to it are deeply linked to the personality and to the individual experience. Under these conditions, the possibilities of misunderstanding are enormous.
 
The possibilities of not understanding each other are inherent in every word and in every behavior, to overcome them you should be able to identify with the other person and to make your own the wealth of experiences, frustrations and gratifications that have defined the language of that person. Differences in language can derive from differences in age, social condition, role, but also from a myriad of imponderable but nonetheless determining factors, such as previous affective experiences, readings and cultural and political interests.
 
Unfortunately, dialogue often becomes a confrontation, not intended as a sharing of experiences but as a contrast, that is, it turns into an entrenchment on one's own positions and a strenuous attempt to defend them against those of the other person, with a kind of prejudicial closure that is incompatible with any form of dialogue-sharing. In general, the stiffeners and closures are symmetrical and you end up entrenching yourself in stalemate positions from which it would be possible to exit only by taking a step back that neither of the partners wants to take. The stalemate and the interruption of the dialogue are the premise of the formal rupture, which, however, doesn’t necessarily correspond to a substantial rupture, because the confrontation through words is one thing and feelings are another thing.
 
The verbal dialogue intended as a confrontation-opposition can also end with a truce, that is with the acceptance by both sides of some conditions considered "condicio sine qua non" for the continuation of the relationship. The military jargon used in these situations (confrontation as opposition, truce, truce conditions, entrenchment) is indicative of a climate of unresolved conflict which, at the slightest disregard of the conditions of truce, could again become an open conflict.
 
Even the most important emotional relationships can have conflicting aspects and the tendency to prevail over the other guy is never completely dormant, but the prevalence of one guy over the other, which appears to one of the two as a victory, appears to the other as an unavoidable renouncing, or better like a giving in without the pleasure of giving in that is the fundamental characteristic of love relationships, but anyhow is felt as an ending up accepting a forcing and this undermines the equilibrium of the gay couple which is based on equality.
 
Why is it so easy to end up in conflict situations? And what can be done to reduce the risk of an emotional relationship becoming conflictual?
 
I'll try to answer the first of the two questions right away. Conflict arises when the collaboration relationship ceases. The couple partners collaborate to achieve a truly shared common goal. When a common project is missing within a couple, each of the two partners tends to pursue its goals, even if they are not shared by the other partner, i.e. behaves as an individual and no longer as part of a couple. We must not believe that going from having a common goal to pursuing our own personal goals can be so easy, very often the common goal was missing from the beginning and we were simply deluding ourselves into having a common goal with another person and we were led to create a couple relationship or rather a pseudo-couple relationship  based on what was believed to be shared but wasn't really so. Then, over time, one realizes that sharing was purely illusory and that, even if formally in couple, the two partners continued to be emotionally and mentally single, that is, they continued to pursue their own life project, trying to involve the other, but avoiding give up their own personal project to build a new one as a couple.
 
A characteristic element of conflictual relationships is the search for the "other's faults" to which to attribute the failure of the relationship. Here too the use of war terminology recurs, the search for the "other's faults" is equivalent to the search for real or presumed violations of the conditions of truce that could justify a large-scale attack. Nobody wants for themselves the not very noble role of the aggressor and everyone wants to appear as the victim of an aggression who is forced to react to restore order and justice violated by the counterpart.
 
There are the recent faults, which constitute the real "casus belli" and there are the historical faults that had been kept in silence for a long time and that are recalled to the memory to corroborate one's condition of victim forced by the aggressor to put in practice a defensive strategy.
 
In true couple relationships, when there are conflicts that are then overcome, it’s usual to proceed to a true general and mutual amnesty, that is, partners mutually forgive each other the past and decide to put a stone on it and to start over. All this is made in order to avoid that old misunderstandings, now overcome, can condition the future of a relationship that is to be rebuilt on a different and stronger basis. Relationships become chronically conflictual when there has never been or ceases to exist a strong emotional relationship. In any other case, the relationship can be rebuilt, but if a strong emotional relationship is lacking, irrevocable conflict is the rule.
 
I now come to the second question: "What can be done to reduce the risk of an emotional relationship becoming conflictual?" The answer is connected to the answer given to the first question: to reduce the risk of a relationship becoming conflictual, one can only try to strengthen its affective, cooperative dimension of collaboration on truly shared projects. An affective relationship is in itself a relationship that involves some form of common life, even partial, even limited, even symbolic but affectively shared by both, and here the discussion must be extended to another concept, that of “reciprocal utility relationship”, which is not a couple relationship even if it can take on the appearance of it.
 
In social life it often happens that interaction relationships are created aimed at an exchange of favors, the rule of these relationships is that of the commercial relationship: performance versus performance, or "do ut des". Many times such relationships are created aimed at find a sexual partner. Let me be clear, when the thing is explicit and declared, it constitutes a kind of contract between consenting adults on which there is very little to object, but it is not a matter of couple relationships, because there is no real sharing of life, there are no common goals and each of the two partners pursues his own profit.
 
It is very difficult to distinguish reciprocal utility relationship from true couple relationships, because both can last indefinite and because both can become conflicting. The difference lies in the affective dimension. However, it would be an undue simplification to say that while couple relationships are built on a strong affective dimension, utility relationships lack it, in fact between the two categories there is an infinite variety of intermediate gradations in which the two aspects, the affective one and that of utility, mix in various ways and degrees. If, however, when the possibility of obtaining a profit fails, the relationship itself fails, certainly it can be said that utility was the real motivation of the relationship. In other words, the utility relationship is instrumental and selfish, while the emotional relationship is unconditional and substantially altruistic.