"A healthy, flowing love ,
where no one is more than anyone else and your rights are equivalent to
those of your partner"
.
, I forgot about myself How to know if your partner is the right one
(Planet).
The specialist, author of several best-sellers, highlights the importance of self-esteem, desire and admiration -among other factors- to build and maintain a healthy relationship.
Likewise, in a dialogue with
Clarín,
he explained what affective attachment is about, a type of addiction that he described as "the worst enemy of love."
"Love is not the most important value"
Walter Riso: "We should do a ministry of love".
Photo illustration Shutterstock.
Journalist: What is the importance of self-love when facing a relationship?
Walter Riso
: The most important thing is that you can set red lines, that you can develop your self-respect and not negotiate with your principles, no matter how much you love.
Personal dignity and your rights are beyond -and above- love.
Love, for me, is not the most important value.
Nor is it the only reason for self-actualization.
So, when you have self-love, you don't give yourself blindly.
And this implies that you do not generate emotional dependence, since this is a factor that slows down affective addiction.
Thus, you can maintain your dignity, love in a slightly more rational way and you know how far to negotiate or not.
People who have self-esteem are not afraid of loneliness.
It's not that you can't love if you don't love yourself, but that you can love well, healthy, functionally and adaptively when you have self-esteem.
If you don't have self-esteem, you're even going to doubt the love they give you because you're going to think -consciously or unconsciously- 'what has seen me?', 'I don't deserve the love you're giving me', 'thank you for loving me'.
That is subjugation, submission.
Q.: Is the idea of giving everything without expecting anything in return still a current sequel to romantic love?
WR:
Romantic love has done a lot of damage to relationships.
Love has its own history, each era has its own way of loving.
Love is weaker than we think, you have to bring it to reality.
Each couple builds their relationship.
I always say that instead of 'I love you' one should say 'I'm loving you', because one builds the relationship, inventing and assembling it.
Romantic love began in the Middle Ages, but still carries a number of myths and beliefs that are irrational, such as that love is unconditional, and it is not necessarily so.
Romantic love establishes guidelines, for example, fusion: that the two of us are one, the soul mate (which leads to thinking 'I am nothing without you').
Our culture encourages emotional dependence, which is why I say that love is a public health problem.
Since there are ministries of many things, we should do a ministry of love and teach children the art of loving from a very young age.
If I had to go to the essence of what has lasted throughout history, I would say that love is that the pain of another hurts you, that the pain of the person you love hurts you, that the joy of the person makes you happy That you love.
Walter Riso: "Our culture encourages emotional dependence."
Photo illustration Shutterstock.
Q.: Do you think that if we received emotional education as children it would be easier to establish bonds in adulthood?
WR:
Emotional education would fall within the canon of the art of loving.
But it would also be necessary for children to learn to be assertive, to say no, to develop empathy, to have cooperative games with other people, to start reading the Universal Charter of Human Rights from a young age.
Q.: You refer to 10 factors that enhance a good relationship as a couple: territoriality, reciprocity, desire or attraction, admiration, trust, humor, vision of the world, friendly disagreements, sensitivity, dedication and respect. How can we achieve these aspects and maintain them throughout the relationship?
In whatever you do with your partner, you always have to rationalize, because you have to maintain it and work on it.
Love is learning.
Agreeing on that is easy because it is mutually beneficial.
It is more difficult with admiration, which is one of these ten legs that love has and that you cannot make rational.
When there is a healthy love, admiration arises.
Q.: Is admiration an essential condition to love? Can you love without admiring?
WR:
It is essential.
You cannot love without admiring.
You can admire without loving.
From loving you so much, I forgot about myself.
How to know if your partner is the right one (Planet).
Q.: In the book you state that the best way to keep desire alive is by talking about it. Is it still hard to put this into words?
WR:
Yes, it's hard for us.
But when I say that we have to talk about this, I don't mean to be verbose, but to say 'I like that this happens after coitus';
because what marks love is not coitus but post-coitus, desire must continue after that.
When talking about sex, you have to say what we like and what bothers us.
Talking about sex is playing and having fun.
It is not a taboo or prohibited subject.
Couples who work very well at it have shared fantasies.
Sex should be fun, humor, fantasy.
Q.: Can a couple be healthy where there is a certain imbalance regarding the feelings of one and the other?
WR:
It's very difficult.
There has to be balance.
I'm not saying they have to be exact, but no one here has privileges.
Love is not above the Universal Bill of Human Rights.
If there is an affective, emotional or sentimental imbalance, it must be analyzed.
You don't deserve who hurts you.
If we can't fix it, bye.
There are separations that must be done (and even celebrated).
Q.: What is affective attachment and why do you maintain that it is the worst enemy of love?
Walter Riso: "Love has to make you more of a person, more dignified, it has to exalt your humanity."
Photo illustration Shutterstock.
WR:
Attachment is an emotional addiction.
It is the inability to give up a bond with a person when it should be done.
And it must be done when your rights are affected.
In the case of love, when you are not capable of giving up a relationship, when they do not love you as you would like to be loved, when you cannot fulfill yourself as a person according to your natural talents and when you violate your principles.
Attachment is a disease and must be treated.
The worst enemy of love is addiction, because it clouds you.
Love has to make you more of a person, more dignified, it has to exalt your humanity.
If you negotiate with your principles it is not love, it is subjugation and it is slavery.
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