Have you always dreamed of living a passionate and passionate love story? Caution. These relationships, far from being beneficial, are also synonymous with exhaustion, jealousy and punitive silences. On the occasion of the release of the film Hurlevent on February 11 – which romanticizes these stormy bonds – Christian Richomme, psychoanalyst, columnist and author, deciphers the limits of this toxic love.
When passion becomes a prison
In cinema as in everyday life, toxic love never begins with pain. It begins with an incredible intensity: a feeling of obviousness, the impression of finally being “seen”.
“This phase acts like an emotional drug. Then oscillations appear: euphoric connections, violent arguments, promises, betrayals, silences. The brain then confuses excitement and love“, warns the practitioner.
However, when the relationship goes straight and unfolds without hitches or clouds, it remains magical. But when the headaches and screams accumulate, this alternation of happy/horrible moments leads to this “control”. The nervous system then becomes dependent on this emotional roller coaster. “Like Catherine in the film Hurlewind, we prefer to suffer with others than to live without them“, specifies the psychoanalyst.
An observation validated by our expert psychologist, Amélie Boukhobza: “Passionate love can quickly turn into an obsession, a dangerous game where you gradually lose your sense of limits and yourself. This feeling of being “possessed” by the other and dispossessed of oneself can become a trap: by ignoring one’s personal needs, one risks getting lost in them.” she warns.
The weight of the past… and childhood trauma
To better understand this destructive love, Christian Richomme invites us to get closer to the two key characters of the feature film.
“Heathcliff here embodies the abandoned child who seeks a certain form of “repair” in the romantic relationship. This pattern is frequently found: the one who lacked security transforms love into a battlefield. The other becomes both refuge and threat”, he emphasizes.
Psychoanalysis even speaks here of “repetition of trauma“: we try to heal childhood through the couple. However, love does not heal what is an old wound. It can even reactivate it. “Hence these couples who love each other sincerely… and destroy each other with the same sincerity.”
In this context, several warning signs can be confused with proofs of love… and should alert you:
- Jealousy presented as a passion;
- A need for control disguised as protection;
- Punitive silences;
- Sexual reconciliations that erase everything;
- A feeling of existing only in the eyes of others.
None of these signs are romantic, however. “These are markers of emotional insecurity,” insists Christian Richomme.
Can we finally love without losing ourselves?
Yes, believes the psychoanalyst, provided we renounce the myth according to which love must hurt to be true.
“The lasting couples I meet do not live in fusion, but in circulation: each keeps a space, a word, an identity. The film offers us a precious opportunity: to distinguish the beauty of a work from the health of a real bond. Admiring Catherine and Heathcliff does not require us to be like them”, he recalls.
Thus, love, even if marked by passion, is based on a “autonomy respected“, and on a balance “between fusion-dependence and respect for individuality”, indicates Amélie Boukhobza.
To know if your relationship is healthy, you need to know how to step back and ask yourself the right questions about the nature of the emotions you feel.