The Ownership Of Love

As you may have noticed, I have no children and never will be.
So we chose (my wife and me) we are "free" from children - Childfree.

I believe that the only people who should be parents are those who really want it and are willing to pay the personal price involved. Therefore, I think that trying to convince someone who does want children, to avoid it, is a pointless and morally flawed act. Just as the attempt to convince someone who does not want children to bring them against their will.

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I've Heard It All

One of the things that amazes me in the charged discussion between parents and Childfree is the judicial treatment. Parents who judge Childfree for their choice and Childfree judges and parents for their choice.

This is why most people who ask why we do not have children are not really interested in the answer. They ask mainly to give them the opportunity to persuade me and my wife to have children anyway. You can spare me the threadbare arguments, I am well aware them.
I have answers sharp and dripping with venom each of these arguments - I will spare you the pleasure at this moment.

I do not hate children, I can deal with them in small doses only. I have no problem playing with children as long as they can be returned to their parents after a certain period of time.
If it were possible to receive them after the age of 21 - I would take willingly (One or two).

I do not want children just because that's what everyone does and that's the normative and expected behavior.
I believe that I was born to be free, autonomous and independent - not to serve, feed, wash and transport others.
Do not rank me at the bottom of the list of priorities and elevate others.
That is why I feel so much pain for all those "liberated women" who try to juggle between motherhood and career and on the way wear to the ground (Feminist irony at its best).

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True, the father figure is less dominant at home, Most of the child's needs, the mother provides. Most men provide everything else (not much).

My wife and I have been living together for almost 20 years, Very loving, respectful of everyone's desires, Everyone has the privacy which he needs. We decided that we have so much together, we are not willing and do not want to lose everything. Raising children completely breaks the relationship. We want to continue living as a couple and constantly improving our lives. Try every day to become a more loving and better person to each other.

I read a lot of material, how to be a better person, How to be more supportive and helpful partner, as you know, love by itself is never enough to have a relationship work.

Those of you who want to continue to read about our intense need a romantic relation, and the price we pay to achieve it, are welcome. Those of you who choose to retire, thank you very much for visiting.

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You Are Mine

Many spouses say to each other, "You are mine," even though we are autonomous people, not property. Of course, no one is the property of another person and therefore does not really belong to another person.
But can we talk about belonging in a psychological sense that still preserves our autonomy?
I think so if we make sure to distinguish it from the sense of ownership.

At the base of romantic jealousy is the concept of entitlement: we are afraid to lose something or someone whose feelings should belong to us, and to us alone. Jealousy reflects the fear that someone will take away, unjustly, something that belongs to us. Hence romantic envy contains the feeling that we are in a certain sense entitled to some ownership of the partner and some control over it. The demand for sexual monogamy, for example, is actually taking ownership of the sex life of a spouse. Indeed, the perception of belonging itself, as expressed in popular culture ("she is my woman") often slides into the sphere of ownership. Although such a sense of belonging refers to property, in jealousy it is often seen as part of the sense of commitment and intimacy. The role of belonging to jealousy is clear: when the partners belong to each other, the loss of the partner, or the relationship with him, to another person, painful and unjustified.

The negative connotation of belonging as the owner does not exist only in a person who feels property, but also in a person who feels the owner of the property. Such a feeling may awaken some of the anxieties that characterize property ownership and lead to the destruction of the relationship. Responsibility is responsible, and when responsibility is devoid of authority, it causes great distress. The constant effort and tension we need to control someone who is inherently uncontrollable can hurt us. Often, those who see themselves as possessing human property are characterized by low self-confidence, and are therefore constantly seeking signs that will confirm their authority; When they do not recognize such signs, the despair and feeling of inadequacy can cause them to react in a disturbing way. Moreover, those who believe that they can have human property in the form of a spouse cheat themselves because the partner is not an inanimate object but a free person (at least in terms of emotional attitudes). The partner does not behave and does not feel like an object, and here the so-called owner may create cognitive dissonance that leads to distress, hostility, and despair.

The gap between the psychological sense of belonging to the physical meaning of ownership is also expressed in the issue of romantic jealousy: Romantic jealousy expresses the possibility of the partner to favor another person. This possibility of preference indicates that zealots do not see their spouses as objects, but rather as individuals who are able to prefer and choose independently.

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The Need To Belong

The connection between belonging to feelings is expressed in another way: feelings are attitudes that express a partial and personal perspective, yet they are usually directed at another person. When we are emotionally close to another person, we perceive it as an extension of ourselves. The self is not just a physical being wrapped in skin, but a psychological structure in which the ideas "I" and "mine" are mixed. The perception of the extended self is complex because there are different types of relationships within it. One of the most prominent relationships within the self is the psychological distance from the center, from the subject that constitutes the nucleus of the self.
Children and spouses are very close to the center of self because they are very close to us psychologically. In a sense, celebrities may also be considered part of the extended self, because we feel a certain closeness to them; However, since we do not really interact with them, it is superficial closeness.

When we perceive another person as an extension of our self, then there is some logic in saying that it belongs to us psychologically.
Yes, when we lose this person or some exclusive relationship with this person, we may feel pain even if this "belonging" does not refer to possessive physical ownership. The need to belong is the basic human need to create and maintain a minimum of positive, lasting, and essential interpersonal relationships. To satisfy this need we need two things:

Frequent positive interactions with the same people.
A stable and long-term framework within which we will conduct these interactions.

Despite the temptation and excitement of exchanging partners, the need for loving and stable relationships with a limited number of people is deeper. Baumeister and Liri argue that humans have "a natural urge to create and maintain belonging." Thus, in general, "people hesitate to severe social ties no less than they are eager to create them in the first place." They continue to argue that in many cases, people hesitate to sever even destructive relationships. The need to belong is stronger than the need for superficial social relationships or sexual relations; This is the need to create deep and meaningful relationships. A sense of belonging is essential to our welfare. Lack of belonging brings with its negative side effects, including harm to health, happiness and the ability to adapt. In addition, people without a sense of belonging are also more likely to suffer from mental and physical illnesses and are prone to a wide variety of behavioral problems, from road accidents to crime to suicide.

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Belonging To A Model Of Love

The sense of belonging to romantic love influences the degree to which we adapt to different models of love. Of course, the feeling of the healthy belonging that develops among lovers does not in any way indicate an unhealthy confluence of identities; vice versa. The concept of fusion, on which a model of Siamese twins is based, implies not only the loss of liberty but the loss of each partner's self-identity. These two types of loss do not stem from the sense of belonging that lies in deep love because it prepares the ground for the personal blossoming of two independent individuals with different and independent identities.

One can see that the importance of belonging to romantic love is compatible with models that focus on the relationship between the two lovers, not on the characteristics of each individual. When a person loves another person, he empowers himself through deep interaction with him. These frequent interactions reinforce the sense of belonging. A deep romantic connection, expressed in emotional experiences and joint activities, is essential for deep, long-term love. The romantic connection contributes to the growth of each partner and to the growth of the relationship itself. And this growth increases the sense of belonging and reduces the likelihood of jealousy.

The sense of belonging between spouses is not bad, as long as the feeling is mutual and limited to the psychological aspect. Social life and romantic love are based, among other things, on the need for a sense of belonging, and this need sometimes leads to jealousy. We may have doubts - not about the importance of mutual belonging, but about its nature and depth. A sense of mutual belonging is essential to romantic life, but it has a price: it limits our romantic space quantitatively, that is, the number of our romantic partners because it requires commitment and resources that can not be allocated to a wide range of people. Happily, a couple who have a deep love does not perceive this limitation as something that breaks their happiness.

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Romantic Relevance

If the need for belonging is so strong, it is impossible to dismiss the statement "You are mine" as some kind of romantic nonsense. Creating a sense of belonging requires significant romantic activities of the two lovers; It cannot be based on the feelings of only one side. And belonging is not only expressed in positive joint activities, but also in a negative attitude to the violation of belonging, which is often expressed as romantic envy. The fear of losing something that belongs to you, in a way, is no less intense than the hope of achieving some kind of "meaningful" feeling.

Romantic love can not create a deep relationship in which the couple blossoms. People prefer relationships in which both sides give and receive warm treatment; Reciprocity reinforces the romantic relationship. An imbalance in the couple's involvement in the romantic connection predicts separation. When both partners are equally involved, the likelihood of a future "together" feeling increases. Studies comparing people who received love without giving it to people who gave love without accepting found that both groups described the experience as negative.
Apparently, love is satisfying and desirable only if it is mutual. Hence, when love develops without a sense of belonging, the result is usually distress and disappointment. Belonging to the relationship, and to life itself, weighs my values and my hearing.