Marta Legasa 04/17/2024 4:10 p.m.
Richard Gere and Alejandra Silva posing together at the Starlite festival.Getty.
The delicate mechanism of a clock is very similar to a Relationship. For a clock to tell the time, a network of springs, weights and counterweights move to capture the moment. For one couple be prosperous and lasting, another network of assignments and compensatory mechanisms They lay the foundations for a happy life.
Richard Gere: “It’s only fair that I live in his world”
After living in Connecticut, near New York, Richard Gere has announced in Vanity Fair that he is going to move to Madrid with his wife, Alejandra Silva, and his two children. The protagonist of ‘Pretty Woman’who has been away from Hollywood for 25 years and dedicated to social causes, explained his decision like this: “Alejandra has lived six years in my worldand I think it is fair that I live at least six more in yours.
For the actor, in the design of his new life, the balance of time and what he considers to be justice for both, a concept very present in their marriage that, however, is not always taken for granted in the Couple relationships.
Structural crises
“He balance In a relationship it is essential. In fact, you have to feel that there is a part of justice, that both partners contribute 50-50 or 60-40 to the relationship. Because? Because if not, they will suffer. structural crises. You are going to feel that your situation is unfair and you are going to fight or to try to negotiate with your partner in a way very aggressive“says the psychologist and couples therapist Lara Ferreiro.
Structural crises are as varied as relations: “The classics are, for example, She wants to be a mother and he doesn’t want to have children.. Or, where each person wants to live,” says the expert, who warns that it is necessary to reach that balance also in the homework distributions (domestic and parenting, above all) because if not, there will be undesirable consequences: “A lot of rancor and resentment. The feeling of injustice will take you to the wrath and the anger you are going to channel into fights and conflicts. Therefore, we must know how to negotiate and have a good communication“explains the expert.
Justice and romantic love
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Paradoxically, justice enters fully into the professional and social environment (no one imagines a world without laws or lawyers). However, within the couple, having a fair relationship does not usually enter into the wish list.
Ferreiro, author of the bestseller ‘Addicted to an Asshole’, an exhaustive toxic relationships manual, do you know why. “The myth of romantic love He says that everything has to work and that love, by itself, can do everything. If we feel a lot of love and are very in love, we will be fair. But not. We are in a society also ‘egoistic’ and narcissistic, It is easy for us to feel that we are being treated unfairly, and it is also a very subjective feelingrelated to the beliefs. To some women, 50/50 economic management may seem fair and to others it may not. He economic issuehow much we contribute and how we distribute it, and the home care and of the children they are the most complex“.
Do years matter?
Time alters everything. With the years, relationships change and what was passion can become a serene love. If equity and search for balance have not been the couple’s strong points, what happens over time? For Lara Ferreiro, the years in this case are not decisive: “This It depends on each person’s profile.either. There are people internalizingwho value their home and their family, and people outsourcing who value their friends more, although over the years they take less care of their partner because they have more confidence and the effervescence of falling in love dies down, when the love begins to matter more. child care“.
As in almost all areas, the optimal thing is to have a balance between social and personal lifebetween caring for the couple and caring for the environment and, particularly, for close friends, something in which yes there is a gender difference. “Normally, the women take care of their partner, while men take more care of friends. In fact, when women have a new partner, they take time away from their friends. The men, on the other hand, “they continue to see their own”assures the expert.
The importance of compensating
Finding balance as a couple involves detecting what unfair situations are occurring and how to repair them. “Compensation is key. So that there is no anger, resentment and trauma there has to be compensation. If one member does something they really like with their friends, the other party must do something similar another day. If there is no prior negotiation and communication, there will be consequences in the form of a crisis. Normally, there is none of that. People go individually, they do not work as a team, but the ideal is to do so. Couples who know how to negotiate end up having a rvery healthy relationshipthere is less arguments and they do not accumulate resentment towards their partner,” says Ferreiro.
The expert goes further: “The compensation is fundamental into a happy couple.”
Apparent imbalance
As Ferreiro explains, the feeling of injustice or imbalance is subjective and it depends on people’s belief system. “I have female patients who have internalized micromachismos and they consider that the housework and children have to be done by the woman. They even think that they prefer to do it themselves because their partners make them worse. They like to keep the house in order. Although it may seem like an imbalance, it is not. in your case. Or people who prefer to get away from their families, live far from them because they get along badly. What is or is not imbalance will be decided by the couple themselves.. Some couples could not survive in a sexist model, without equal distribution, but for others it is possible,” confirms the psychologist.
In one case or another, the fundamental thing for That relationship prospers. over the years it is the I respect. Without it there can be no sense of justice nor can there be room for no compensation. “The emotional responsibility It’s very important. You have to respect what the couple thinks and learn not to invalidate it. If our partner says they want to live somewhere else, it’s not nonsense for them. The key is to sit down and negotiate“concludes Ferreiro.
