Love Is Giving What You Do Not Have – Lacan

Love is giving what you do not have. It means seeing your new partner as someone who is new, unique and unique. Someone who deserves the best from you. Certainly someone who does not deserve to project your old mistakes from the past on them. It means making love in a free, genuine and mature way. Furthermore, it means that you certainly do not expect that your new love will lead you back to the old ways of loving that you have experienced before. The ones who made you suffer. Giving what you do not have actually means embracing the here and now and truly appreciating each other.

Jacques Lacan

Few people were able to convey their theories, statements and knowledge in the same way as Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalyst. He was actually known for his use of dialectical juggling. Despite this fact, his transcendence and expertise still allow us to both recognize and reflect on the most basic topics, such as love.

When Lacan said ” Love is to what you do not have “, he played again with psychoanalytic jargon. For how can you give something you do not have? However, that was what he wanted to make you think. To make you realize that relationships are often constructed by a lack of something. In fact, to make you realize that what you are actually looking for, as an adult, is the love you did not have in childhood.

Furthermore, the love you did not have in your last romantic relationship, you are now looking for in the next. In fact, you find that you are always trying to embrace love by being overly idealistic in your idea of ​​what love actually is. But if you give up these idealistic views, you will be able to free yourself from the past and give your partner what you have never had before. True devotion.

Why love is giving what you do not have

Lacan’s quote ” Love is giving what you do not have ” is based on the complexity of the bonds you form with others. Lacan talked about this in his book Transference: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII with his reference to Plato’s Symposium . One thing he pointed out is that love often tends to be in line with the figure of a lover who has been hurt by a loss or lack of something. This tends to make you think that what you are missing is actually hidden in the other person, and that they are then obligated to give it to you.

Sigmund Freud also addressed this. In his clinical practice, he noticed how patients, while undergoing psychoanalytic therapy, tended to transfer such losses and voids that love had left in their lives, especially in childhood. Thus, this transference, the feeling that “you are missing something”, can make you project it on almost any relationship you have in your life.

When you connect with others, you repeat past relationships without realizing it

Both Jacques Lacan and Freud believed that the unconscious affects your life more than you think. In fact, it can affect you to the point where you boycott the way you interact with the world and establish friendships, as well as your romantic relationships. It is true that if there is one thing you need and are searching for more than anything else, it is love and recognition.

Thus , according to Lacan, “Love is giving what you do not have,” refers to a concrete fact that is embedded in the unconscious, the lost paradise of childhood. In fact, some of you are still dragging on the unfortunate shadow of your childhood. The one where your parents may not have nurtured you, or addressed your fears, or offered you a safe and enriching environment.

According to Lacan, you long to heal the lost paradise of your childhood when you grow up. Furthermore, it is this need in you that causes many of your affective relationships to fail. In fact, every time you fall in love, you create more emptiness, longing and anxiety. You then repeat the same pattern over and over with each relationship, so that love only becomes a frustrating repetition of misfortune and misunderstanding.

Love is giving what you do not have

According to psychoanalysis, there is an undeniable way to achieve satisfaction and maturity in your relationship. It is through resignation and acceptance. You have to give up the idea of ​​getting the love you did not receive in childhood, because it is in the past. Furthermore, the parents’ love for you has nothing to do with love in your romantic relationship.

You must stop your obsession by waiting for a new love to emerge and give you the love that others did not know how to give you before. They are other people who no longer matter. The person you now love is completely different. Furthermore, it is simply not logical, mature or advisable to demand that your new partner fix the damage that others caused you.

What you need to do is start from scratch and accept that what you had before was not love. When you accept this, you will feel freer to both give and receive. Furthermore, you will be able to accept your partner without making demands on them. In fact, you will be able to put the past aside and embrace the present. Remember that your new partner is a different person and completely different from those who hurt you in the past.

Love here and now and leave the rest behind you

It is true that childhood ailments can persist for decades. You may suffer for a long time over a love that you felt betrayed by or that broke your own principles of respect and commitment. However, there is nothing more important than opening up to new relationships. Thus, continue, open yourself to the new conditions here and now. Put behind you everything that is wrong and everything that no longer exists. All this takes time. To cross this threshold and allow yourself to build happier relationships, you must actually repair your self-esteem, accept and heal the past, and strengthen your self-love. Only in this way can you build a more enriching future for yourself.