There is a movie that I thought was delicious, I don't know if you have seen it. It's called Fiddler on the Roof. It is about a Jewish couple in Tsarist Russia. Almost at the beginning of the question, after many ups and downs, their eldest daughter gets her father's approval to marry the love of her life. The girl is very excited about the fact of contracting the marriage. marriage And this attitude seems to surprise her father, who seems to be a bit nostalgic about such positive feelings. It seems something like: "this girl, who met her future husband a short time ago and is so happy... My wife, will she be too?

He is on his way to check it out and suddenly asked his wife, "Do you love me?"

The answer she gives him is one of the most intelligent and truthful that can be given. She, older and "worked through life" answers him, using the language of her time and the way of saying of her culture: "you will know". And she continues: "I have followed you for twenty-five years wherever we have had to go, I have given you eight children. I have tried to obey you. I have taken care of you when you needed it. I have cared for you when you have been sick. You will know if I love you.

The wonderful thing is that the husband asks her about the sentiment she has for him. If she feels, more or less, what her daughter feels for her boyfriend. She, however, does not answer him with a feeling, but with a behavior. With deeds: "If you want to know if I love you, look what I do for you". This is the famous Spanish saying, which we could change to: Works are love and not intense emotions. Love is demonstrated by deeds.

Who loves grandpa more: the one who goes many times to see him at the nursing home where he lives, even if it costs him, or the one who never goes and says he loves him very much? Well, the same. Affection is shown on a daily basis, and not in special moments in which, due to the emotion of the moment, one feels very much and therefore believes that he/she loves him/her very much.

Nowadays, the confusion between feeling and love, caused by our liquid and superficial culture, has as a consequence that many people do not really know what it is to love; and not knowing this, it is logical that they fail in their affections. They call sweetheart y love to what it is not and lack of affection to what - on many occasions - is good love.

Love is in the will. The will, as we know, is nourished by feelings and intelligence. When feelings do not respond -something that happens quite often in a couple's relationship- we must resort to intelligence to continue loving.

If we do not do it, the will will feed only on the negative feeling that surrounds us and therefore the response, besides being wrong, can break our relationship because we are calling love or, in this case, lack of love to what it is not.

La entrada Si de verdad me quieres se publicó primero en Omnes.

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For some time now, the word ego has taken on a major role in the most common conversations.

It wasn't like that before. I remember the first time I stumbled upon it in a conversation. I must have made a strange face because my interlocutor said: Yes, yes ego, arrogance.

It is now a frequent term and has more "prestige" than the word pride because the latter seems less delicate, less elegant. However, at the end of the day, it is the same thing.

Paradoxically, there are people who are very proud of their ego, in fact, they openly admit it to you, I have a lot of ego, they tell you when asked.

They tend to be inflexible people with very little self-knowledge. It is not uncommon for them to tell you that they do not regret anything they have done in the past. This leads them to be ungrateful. They do everything right. They owe nothing to anyone. As a consequence, they are incapable of asking for forgiveness.

How can a person say that they would not change anything, when human beings make mistakes several times every day? As they feed their ego, the distrust of the people around them increases.

Apologizing for mistakes is one of the characteristics of leadership, but to them it seems a weakness, therefore, as we have said, they never ask for forgiveness. They find it difficult to love and to feel loved. Asking for forgiveness is part of love. In coexistence, it is necessary to do it frequently. It is human to make mistakes.

A "non-human" person produces rejection. He has a certain incapacity to educate. He is likely to be very inflexible in the face of others' mistakes.

These egomaniacs give the feeling that they are doing a favor to others on a regular basis and this incapacitates them in the long run not only to love as we have said, but to keep their loves. People with a lot of ego, disunite a lot.

Because of the lack of knowledge they have about themselves, it is necessary to be careful, in the coexistence, anything can bother them. You are tense around them.

I say that he is what has always been called an arrogant person.

 A person who is difficult to live with and incapable of educating because of his lack of self-awareness.

In spite of everything, having an ego is fashionable and, at times, well regarded. It is true that it is possible to get out of ego: it is enough to acquire some personal training and increase one's self-knowledge.

Simply, to realize that the human being is weak and in many occasions a being in need of others.

In other words, it is enough to be in reality, in what things are.

La entrada Desconocimiento propio y ego se publicó primero en Omnes.

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Temperance, like any virtue, is tremendously positive: It makes the person capable of being master of himself and puts order in sensitivity, affectivity, tastes and desires.

That is why, when a child makes a wish and we parents deny it, it is easy for us to give answers like "we can't afford it" or something like that. That's only part of the truth, and it also tends to make children see sobriety as something negative; they think that when we have more money we will do it. We won't.

Temperance provides us with a balance in the use of material goods that frees us to aspire to higher goods.

To educate in austerity one must have courage: it often requires facing one's children and the current of society. But that is the way. Either you have that courage or you do nothing.

Pleasure is good, we cannot be foolish enough to think that it is something negative for the person. But neither can we fall into the temptation of denying that man is a being who, by nature, has disordered passions. Paul of Tarsus said that "he did the evil that he did not want to do and that he failed to do the good that he wanted to do". It is to be supposed that this was not always the case, but even if it was something punctual, he complained about it.

It is as if evil had inserted itself into the human heart and man had to defend himself against it. When we say yes, everything is easy. Facilities with uneasiness many times, but facilities.

We have to get used to saying no to ourselves and in that inner struggle to do good, sometimes with victories and sometimes with defeats, is when the peace we desire comes. To say no in many occasions is to move away from evil.

How many addictions, which are causing so many people to suffer, could have been avoided if children had been educated to deny themselves that which is harmful to them, that which is objectively bad.

There are people who are unable to say "no" to the impulses of the environment or to the desires of those around them. They are depersonalized people, they are not free because they are driven by the desires of others without being able to renounce them.

To say "no" to some things is, in the end, to commit oneself to others. It is a way of demonstrating to oneself that one has values.

Saying "no" means committing to what we really value and making it known with our life, with what we do.

A person who does not strive to live sobriety, temperance, ends up being unable to say no to the sensations that the environment awakens in him. He ends up seeking happiness in false, fleeting sensations, which, because they are fleeting, never satisfy.

A friend told me that his young son had asked him why, if he had money, he did not take advantage of it and always asked for the best in restaurants. I took the opportunity to explain to him that sobriety, temperance, does not depend on having a lot or little money. They are virtues, values that one has to live independently of the cost or the payer. Thus a person with a lot of money can be sober and temperate and a poor person can be very little temperate.

Temperance is indispensable to bring some order to the chaos that evil imposes on human nature.

La entrada Educar en la templanza se publicó primero en Omnes.

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In this life, there are times when you don't get what you want, but that doesn't mean you stop fighting, fighting for things.

Thus, there are people who set out to have a clean courtship and do not succeed, for whatever reason, although we can always speak, at the very least, of lack of prudence.

If the solution given to this situation is that "since we have not succeeded, since we have had sex, what difference does it make to have sex once, twice, or a hundred times...", this does not fix things. The tension that must exist in a courtship to do things as initially wanted, disappears, and the illusion, with time, too.

What usually happens in these cases is that, many times, the relationship is broken due to lack of illusion and, in the next engagement, it is very possible that the level is lowered: blackmail begins to emerge "If you did it with the other, why not with me, that is a sign that you do not love me...". And others like that.

I believe that it is necessary to try to rebuild the illusion in that courtship that was going so well until the sexual contact arrived. How? By proposing to live the second virginity. Having a thorough talk with the couple, and starting over again, so that the previous experience serves to gain strength, experience, and to be more careful in everything related to sexuality.

The second virginity is a hymn to hope and illusion.

So far it has not been as we wanted, but from now on it will be. I have seen it many times and with great success.

Having said that, we must make every effort to do things right.

There are engaged couples who seem to have unwanted relationships. Why does this happen? Naturally, because deep down they want to. It is, so to speak, an unintentional love.

They do not make the means, they are not prudent, they go to each other's house when no one is there, they take a long time to say goodbye, they walk in poorly lit places, and many other situations that, on the other hand, each couple knows.

As a consequence of this, what they theoretically do not want to happen, but in reality they are putting few means in place, is happening.

This lack of strength, of toughness, this lack of willpower, will appear later in the relationship in thousands of situations. Life as a couple is difficult and we must be trained in personal demands. The second virginity is a good training.

Proposing to live like this strengthens the couple a lot and if they take it seriously, it restores the illusion. 

La entrada La segunda virginidad se publicó primero en Omnes.

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One of the advances that have taken place lately in the social field is the consideration of equality between men and women. Something that, on the other hand, is obvious, but often the obvious is the most difficult thing to discover and explain.

We must bear in mind that one thing is that they are equal as persons and as subjects of law and another is that a man is equal to a woman. It is not necessary anything more than having a son and a daughter, to realize the difference that exists.

For a couple to work, the man has to be treated as such and the woman as well.

In this last section we realize that women are bearing the brunt, there is a lot of physical and psychological violence against them. Also against men, but this is more psychological than physical. I am not going to talk here about the causes of violence, because this is not the purpose of this article and, probably, I would not know how to do it in sufficient depth.

What I would like to emphasize is the fact that, in recent years, a large segment of young people have been identifying fun with drugs, alcohol and sex. The latter distorted by pornography, by the addiction to it that is causing so much disorder in people. Young and not so young. No one will deny that these habits are having a great influence on couple relationships and on the aggressiveness that occurs in them.

You can be getting to know a person and perhaps not realize how important these lifestyle habits will be in influencing their future behavior.

How many times, in family counseling, someone comes to you saying that they married a person they didn't know was an alcoholic. Because, in fact, they drank theor that the othersl, he took lor that everyone. Come on, I was doing the norm.

What appears as "a way to have fun" as a couple, once married, these behaviors begin to appear as negative and unbearable in the relationship.

It used to be part of the fun, now it's part of life. No one is usually going to tell you, "Hey, your boyfriend, your girlfriend drinks too much, or drinks too much."

It is not politically correct. Apart from the fact that the scales are dislocated. It can be safely said that most young people who drink do so in an amount that is excessive for their health and negative for the future of a relationship.

With a person who is hooked on drugs, of whatever kind, it is impossible to live together normally.

A person with these characteristics can be said to be, in many cases, incapable of loving; it is very difficult, if not impossible, to love the other person.

Let us keep in mind that one of the components of love is will, together with intelligence and feeling. A person without will is a person who is not free to love. The more addicted he is to substances that change his way of being, thinking, behaving as he is, and the more incapable he is of freeing himself from these substances, the more difficult it will be for him to love, and therefore the more difficult it will be to live together.

Many of the marriage failures of the coming years are being forged in our days. Let there be no doubt that many of the causes are related to what we are talking about.

Let's keep in mind that what is said about men can be said about women.

La entrada Noviazgo y adicciones se publicó primero en Omnes.

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There are people who, despite not having things very clear, go to live with another person, exposing themselves to a great failure and disregarding all advice related to the matter.

Often, human beings have already made up their minds before they start thinking. And this is one of the reasons why the experience of others, in these cases, is worth very little.

Other times it is for not knowing what is really done, the reasons are superficial: "everybody does it", "let's see", "we don't want to fail"....

There is a lack of training and manipulation by the weak culture that surrounds us, misuse of freedom. Underlying all this is the belief that, although others, in general, are doing badly, they will do well... In short, it is all very weak, very superficial, very adolescent.

I would like to dwell on what comes after the "moving in together" because, in most cases, there is a thena "we no longer live together".

Generally the situation is painful. Much worse than if you had left a relationship. Living with a person and then leaving him/her is an experience that marks. It leaves a mark forever, because you have been left forever.

Disillusionment, suffering, the dryness of failure, disenchantment, the feeling of having been rejected as a person. If one has been left, one has the feeling of "not having satisfied" what the other wanted to prove, the feeling of not being worth, of not having been loved, of having played with the deepest feelings, all this together leaves an indelible mark on the human heart.

There are times when self-esteem ends up on the floor, you think you are not worthy of being loved. The ballast is very strong.

Doing life? With whom? Somehow life has broken down. The illusion of a clean, demanding love is gone.

It is likely that the demand when searching will decline, there are situations in which it is enough that someone pays attention to establish a new relationship.

In reality, what we are looking for is perhaps some illusion, to get out of that hopelessness.

Perhaps it starts with a person who has also been left. The value of commitment has declined and the union of two people without that sense is a weak union, at the first setback everything breaks. On the other hand, the biological clock is ticking. Which leads to act with a certain haste.

It is not a question of despairing anyone. In the field of happiness you can always start by asking for forgiveness, to whom it is due and how it is due.

For believers, going to confession, asking for forgiveness and starting from scratch, with the illusion of knowing that they have been forgiven, is a wonderful remedy, also in the human and psychological sense.

Living in accordance with certain beliefs helps a lot.

If this is not the case, we will probably let ourselves be carried away more than necessary by the mood, and this is a very weak grip that is also not controllable.

Flat lives, without beliefs, are not complete, something is missing.

That is why, before making a decision, you should always look at the state you would be in if you were to fail.

La entrada Irse a vivir juntos. ¿Y después? se publicó primero en Omnes.

Fin da piccoli, nelle storie da bambini ci hanno raccontato di coppie che si amano molto e senza difficoltà, dove tutto è meraviglioso e senza che nella loro vita ci siano problemi di alcun tipo.

Later, the romantic cinema has taught us the same thing.

Even today, it is said that out there, somewhere, there is someone with whom you can live peacefully and happily. Someone with whom love doesn't cost you anything.

This is extremely attractive, but absolutely false. We must be aware that, even if we could meet all the men or all the women in the world, living with any of them would be difficult and would require a certain effort.

A couple is formed by two imperfect people, so the result will be an imperfect relationship. Do not expect it, in all marriages there are some things that go well and others that do not. It is normal.

Knowing how to talk at the right time is not easy.
To dominate arrogance, pride, to avoid always wanting to prevail, this is one of the drugs that makes you suffer the most, to want to dominate others, not to leave them space, to ask them to do things as you do them, to keep what you do, what you say, the cell phone, the post, are frequent attacks that show immaturity in the person and in love.

Because the relationship of partnership is a relationship between equals, if one does not dominate its own ego, it will always try to prevail over the other.
He or she will always want to be right. Command.

Insomma, the person with whom we are married has had the mistakes, and he cannot avoid them because he has the original sin. All of us have the sins.

The success of a relationship is now given by an effort, by that struggle against oneself that man and woman intend to do to improve themselves personally.

This means that we must have a constant predisposition to want to improve as people, to be consistent with our convictions, and not to be afraid if our relationship is not perfect.

A person who really knows how to love is the one who struggles to know herself, who has no fear of personal truth. To fear the truth about oneself is a suicidal attack and makes us lose the capacity to love.

Today there is a great fear to commit oneself, to love, because it is intuited that every love surely involves, in greater or lesser measure, a certain sacrifice.

Chi non voglia avere dei dolori trascorra tutta la sua vita libera da ogni amore, dice la canzone popolare. Ecco come stanno le cose.

This is the reason why many people in our society go through their lives without knowing what love is, with a sadness in the background and an irrequietness that from time to time they compensate with a little bit of wisdom. The one that gives the illusion of being loved. It is not possible to live always in sadness!

Many go with their heart in their hands, offering it to someone who compensates their desire, often caused by the fear that one has or has the desire to love someone else. They are looking for an ideal partner that does not exist, because our ideal spouse is the one we are married to.

To realize this fact we must put our relationship at the first place in our life priorities, and lose the patience of the effort, of the sacrifice that love requires. The rest is not knowing how to love.

La comodità non si si concilia con l'amore.

In the measure in which we do not allow ourselves to be won over, tell the truth and confront ourselves with ourselves, we will realize that this effort costs less than what our imagination suggests.

Ebbene si si, abbiamo trovato il partner ideale perché abbiamo abbiamo iniziato ad amare davvero. Other are only sadness, if it is not supported by a strong and robust love. It is so easy and so difficult.

La entrada La coppia ideale se publicó primero en Omnes.

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Since we were children, in our childhood stories, we have been told about couples who love each other very much and without effort, where everything is wonderful and there are no problems in their lives.

Later, romantic cinema taught us the same thing.

Nowadays, we are also told that out there, somewhere, there is someone with whom I could live in a happy and placid way. With whom love would be effortless.

That, which is tremendously attractive, is absolutely false. One has to be aware that, even if one knew all the men or women in the world, living together would be difficult, it would require effort.

A couple is formed by two people who are imperfect, therefore, the result will be a relationship with imperfections. There is no need to panic, in all marriages there are things that go well and others not so well. That is normal.

Knowing how to keep quiet and speak at the right time is not easy. Mastering pride, pride, avoiding the continuous desire to be above - this is one of the drugs that causes the most suffering - wanting to dominate the other, not leaving space, asking him to do things as I do, watching what he does, what he says, the cell phone, the mail, are frequent attitudes that show immaturity in the person and in love.

As a couple's relationship is a relationship between equals, if one does not dominate one's pride, one will always be trying to gain ground on the other. Wanting to be right. To command.

Therefore, the person we have married has defects and cannot help but have them because he or she has original sin. We all have defects.

The success of a relationship is given by the effort, struggle against oneself, that the man and the woman want to make to improve personally.

This means that we have to have a constant predisposition to want to improve as people, to be consistent with our beliefs and not be afraid that our relationship is not perfect.

A person who knows how to love truly is a person who struggles to know himself, who is not afraid of personal truth.

Being afraid of personal truth is suicidal and causes the capacity to love to stagnate.

Nowadays we are very afraid to love, to commit ourselves, because we truly sense that all love carries with it, to a greater or lesser extent, a certain sacrifice.

Whoever does not want to be in pain should spend his whole life free of love, says the popular song. So it is.

That is the reason why many people in our society, go through life without knowing what love is, with a sadness in the background and an uneasiness, which they compensate, from time to time, with some sex. That's how you get the illusion that you are loved, you can't always live in sadness!!!!

Many go with their hearts in their hands, offering them to someone to compensate for their emptiness, often produced by the fear that they have or have had of truly loving, looking for an ideal partner that does not exist, because our ideal partner is the one we have married.

To realize this, we must put it in the first place of our vital priorities and lose the fear of the effort, the sacrifice that love demands. The rest is not knowing how to love.

Comfort goes badly with love.

To the extent that one does not deceive oneself, tells oneself the truth, and faces oneself, one will realize that this effort is less costly than what our imagination tells us.

Then, we have found the ideal partner, because we have begun to truly love. Anything else is just a softness, if it is not supported by a strong and strong love.

It's that easy and that hard.

La entrada La pareja ideal se publicó primero en Omnes.

Sometimes we meet a couple, we sense that their relationship is going to collapse, and yet we are unable to say anything to them. Are we afraid of being rejected or misunderstood?

On most occasions it may be due to prudence, but on other occasions it may be due to a lack of clarity or a lack of courage and fortitude.

But what is even more paradoxical is that we are seeing this possible crash in our children, and we feel incapable of telling them. It is necessary to get advice and say it at the right time.

It is also reasonable to have them told by someone who we know will do it properly and who has ascendancy over them.

And the fact is that, quite often, there are relationships that are born flawed or become vitiated over time, the wickerwork from which they are made is so weak that it is clear that it can be dangerous to move forward.

One of the reasons for not getting married would be the thought of making a commitment just out of pity, out of wanting to make the other person happy.

This feeling of compassion towards the other can lead to a disaster and, rather than happiness, can produce a deep unhappiness in the couple.

That is, as a marriage and as an example of solidarity towards each other, it can end in disaster.

A courtship is to prove that I can share my life with the other person. It is not an NGO.

Another reason may be that she has become pregnant.

We may have to wait for things to "cool down" and then make a decision. "If they cool down, they won't get married," we may be told. If that's the case, it's better not to get married, because it's a sign that this marriage was not going to work.

Physical beauty, if it is the only thing that brings us closer to the other person, becomes another reason not to marry.

Marrying solely and exclusively for physical beauty is like marrying solely for sexuality.      

All specialists in this field agree that sexuality alone cannot make a relationship last. A relationship consists of a personal commitment. The person is committed.

Where there is only sex, the commitment is not between people but between bodies.

It will eventually decline.

Nor can the desire to leave home, the desire for independence, be a reason. Some people get married because they want to be free from their parents. Or even because they want to appear normal to themselves.   

They are certainly calling for failure.

It is convenient to think that most probably you have more "independence" when you live with your parents than after getting married. If the reason for getting married is to seek independence, or to prove that you are normal, you are choosing the wrong path.

Marriage will not get rid of the parents or avoid the problems I have with myself. Perhaps the most dangerous thing is to realize that this is not going to work in the future and not be able to break off the engagement.

Sometimes, it is easier to break up a marriage than a courtship. Let's not forget that just as there can be reasons to get married, there can also be reasons for the opposite.

What we said about parents who do not dare to say anything to their children knowing that they are renouncing to a possible help to their children. Many times this inability comes from not having previously earned their children's trust.

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La entrada Situaciones en las que es mejor no casarse se publicó primero en Omnes.

This, which seems so obvious, is not lived in other more personal facets such as, for example, in courtship, which is, or should be, the preparation for marriage.

Marriage failures, which we often see in our society, are in many cases a consequence of not living the courtship. Something else is being lived, but courtship, which should be a time in which we get to know the other person, to know if I can share my life with him/her, courtship, as I said, is not lived as such.

Therefore, many marriages pass their courtship once married, and others fail because they did not have a courtship.

From an affective point of view, it could be said that a courtship has four parts: desire, attraction, falling in love and love; at the beginning, there is a desire to be with the other, it is a good time, time goes very fast, their presence is exciting.

Then, or together with the desire to be together, there is a phase of physical attraction, which makes everything very beautiful and attractive. There is an emotional overflow.

These two phases that have no solution of continuity conclude in a habitual way, in an infatuation, where everything of the other seems well. What he does and what he says. One is like in a cloud. The continuous presence that one has of the other person, even if one is not with him/her, is tremendously attractive. It is confused with love.

We think we are loving with intensity. It seems impossible that this is not love.

It has to be. The emotional attachment is very great, it seems unbelievable that I could have lived until now without this person. Life appears meaningless if she is not with me in the future. A attention deficitJulián Marías called falling in love.

We think we love each other very much, but the reality is that love has not yet appeared. It is a good start to begin to love, but loving - besides affections, emotions - implies wanting the good of the other, quoting Aristotle's definition of friendship. What is best for the other as a person.

Love implies that I will often have to make an effort to love, it no longer comes only in the form of a feeling, as it did before. When you become aware of it, you start to love. You begin to see that the other person has defects, does things that bother me. It is coming down from the cloud, to be with her, sometimes, I may not feel like it. She demands things from me that I don't want to give, she doesn't want to give me things that I would like her to give me.

One is beginning to realize that love is demanding. It goes to the movies when I don't feel like it and doesn't go to soccer when I would like to. The struggle to love begins. Feelings have descended to a state of normalcy. Desire, attraction and infatuation become more mature.

It is time to realize if this is the person you were looking for to share your life with.

If it is not, it will be necessary to leave it, even if the attachment has not disappeared and leaving it is costly.

If, in the midst of desire, attraction and falling in love, sexual intercourse has taken place, then it is much more difficult, especially for the woman. In a sexual relationship, the woman gives her heart before her body. Hence the difficulty. Nevertheless, if it is not what you were looking for, you have to leave that person.

That's what dating is for, to find the right person to share your life with.

The awareness that one should not have had sex appears on many occasions.

Also the impotence to stop. If the desire to not have sex is manifested, it is possible to break the relationship. This is a manifestation of being together only for sex. Since, if it disappears, it is possible that the relationship is over. It is a symptom that this relationship was united only by sex, if that were to happen. In other words, it is not a relationship of courtship, but of lovers who are united by sex. 

It is one of the great difficulties of confusing feelings, only feelings, with love.

The consequence of all this is to see a series of people with affective and sexual problems that, if they had known what each thing meant at each moment, would not have appeared.

Logically, the courtship would have been freer. And if in the end there is marriage, less dangerous.

We have to take into account that the attachment will disappear and freedom will appear, and with it you can rewind all the previous and think that one has married because there have been relationships in the courtship. Or because he was not able to break the relationship.

It is a dangerous time. You have to ask for help.

On the other hand, seen from a more rational point of view, which logically will be intermingled with the emotional, the phases of courtship could be said to be: consistency, trust and commitment.

The first indicates that we must get to know the other person, see what he says he believes and how he lives it. That is to say, if he is a coherent person, if the values he defends, he lives them. A person can say many things, but the important thing is what he does. We are what we do.

We must not confuse opinions and beliefs. An opinion is something I hold; I believe that this actor is better than that actor. Beliefs are what I hold. This is what we have to check.

If the values that you see the other person living, are those that you are looking for in the person with whom you would like to share your life, a trust is generated that grows with time and, sooner or later, generates commitment.

These phases of courtship, in many cases, are not being lived. At the moment you think you are loving each other because there is a certain attraction and a desire to be with each other, you have sexual relations and the rhythm of time is not the one that would be convenient.

Before the coherence of the other has been checked, by having sex, a commitment is generated that makes it impossible for the relationship to develop with the required rhythm and freedom. There is a lack of freedom. There is commitment when there should not be.

I have seen broken couples, due to the mess that sex puts into a dating relationship that probably would have ended in a good marriage.

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La entrada Explicando el noviazgo a los jóvenes se publicó primero en Omnes.

With the passage of time has come super-specialization, which basically consists of knowing a great deal about almost nothing.

We are finding ourselves in a society in which some people have a very high level of knowledge in small areas of knowledge, but in the long run they do not know, and it seems that they are not interested in seeing, the reality as a whole.

Thus, as is logical, we follow in society, in matters vital to our lives, the opinions of people who are famous for other subjects.

Their opinions are often taken by the rest of us as unquestionable. We trust those who say them because of their prestige, because of their popularity, as if they were wise in the matter, but the reality is that they know no more than the average citizen.

To this is added the classical view that "the intelligent person is the one who goes further with reason than others"; a definition that, however classical it may be, is still a reductionism since, in addition to a rational one, there are other types of intelligence.

One of these types of intelligence is emotional intelligence, but there is also social intelligence, numerical intelligence, spatial intelligence...

Let us ask ourselves: who is smarter, the person who knows how to do complicated mathematical and financial calculations, or the one who manages to have a united and happy family where the wife, husband and children are at ease at home?

To grant the criterion of intelligence only to what we take for intellectual is, in my opinion, a mistake.

The person must have a vision of his life as a whole; he cannot be divided into work, family, friendships, hobbies... He must know how to intelligently unite all these facets that make up a person's life; if he does not, he will never achieve a full life.

"It's just that to become a top scientist you have to be very smart," one might reply.

And to harmonize a happy family, don't you also have to be very intelligent?

Let's look at society and draw conclusions.

The most intelligent always has a moderately complete view of reality.

No one will be able to achieve a harmonious family if he or she does not have this vision in his or her life.

In order to achieve a satisfying life, emotional intelligence must be trained.

Don't you think we spend too much time training rational intelligence and little or none on emotional intelligence?  

The closer we are to what human beings are really looking for, even if they don't know it, the easier it will be for us to lead a reasonably happy life.  

For that you have to learn, be trained, acquire solid knowledge, not the stereotypes that often model a society and that do not make people happier, but more manipulable.

Let us not forget that the training of the other intelligences, without neglecting the rational one, will give us more happiness as people, which, after all, is what we are.

Listen to the podcast "Love and intelligence".

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La entrada Inteligencia y relación de pareja se publicó primero en Omnes.

Maybe it has some truth, I don't know if it has a lot or a little.

Human beings have two kinds of love: those that can be lost and those that cannot be lost. Among the latter are, for example, affection for the city where one was born and love for one's children. These are loves that, without doing anything, are maintained.

Among those that can be lost, we find, among others, love for one's spouse and love for work or love for God. They do not stand alone. They must be cared for.

At first they dazzle and the feelings are very strong, -when falling in love or finding a good job, or a conversion, for example- but, as time goes by, the enthusiasm fades and one can be more focused on the negative than on the positive. If one does not fight to maintain these loves, to love them, to want them, to put the will to love them, in short, if one does not fight to be free in love - for which one will have to use, in addition to feelings, intelligence and will - it is probable that negative feelings will appear that can prevent one from continuing to love. (see previous collaboration).

Even if the feeling is lost, love is not lost. If that were so, the human being would not be free because he would not be able to choose his loves since they depend on something that I do not control: feeling.

If we lose the feeling of seeing only the negative, life will become hard. It happens in the professional sphere (we focus more on what does not work) and in the personal sphere, we are more aware of the defects of others than their virtues, in our relationship with God, we can be more aware of the costly than to love Him.

These are signs of being focused on the negative, warning signs that habituation is damaging this specific love.

Freedom has a lot to do with living a little outside of feelings.

The question arises fearfully, what to do so that this does not happen?

From my point of view I only find one solution, I sincerely believe that there is no other, and that is to get trained.

Learning. What training does is that when you fall, you get up when you fall. If you stop training, you will stay on the ground. The routine will begin its work of corrosion.

When we live in this way, a little above our feelings, we realize all the positive things in our professional and personal life and in our relationship with God. Our vision will be more balanced.

We cannot forget that in all loves there will be times when we will have to go against the current. Life is like that.

Life is worth living as it is. What does not generate any self-motivation is living as a slave to feelings.

Listen to the podcast "Classes of loves and feelings".

La entrada Clases de amores y sentimientos se publicó primero en Omnes.

Human happiness depends, to a large extent, on the choice of the person with whom we are going to share life. From which we can deduce the importance of getting to know that person. Much of it has to be done in courtship.

Every decision is related to two parameters: information and risk. The greater the information, the lower the risk. In the case of courtship, the information is the knowledge of the other.

Nowadays, the word love is a wrong word or, if you will, analogous, which is a great danger in a relationship where love is fundamental.

It is very important that both people have the same concept of what love is and that this concept is in line with reality, that is, what love really is.

Nowadays many couples base their courtship, and many times their next marriage, on something that has nothing to do with love, for example, on sentiment. In sentimentality I mean. And so when they are excited they believe they can do anything and when that feeling fades or disappears they believe that love has disappeared. This is very frequent and is the cause of many marital breakups.

In the media, love is rarely related to intelligence or will. Sometimes not even with feeling. Much of what appears in the relationships shown to us by the media is outdated and soft sentimentality.

Love is a tripod formed by intelligence, feeling and will. When the feeling works everything is easier, when it disappears you have to use intelligence and will, the first to know what to do to continue loving and the will to do it, if you do not do this is that you do not know how to love.

This is frequent and extremely dangerous, because when one establishes a relationship based on love, such as a courtship, let alone a marriage, with someone who does not know what it is, one is exposed to a quick failure.

To sum up what I want to say is that the couple should be very clear about what the other thinks about what love is. Of the role that feelings have in love, of how negative sentimentality is for a love relationship and of the role that intelligence and will have in love.

When I say what the other thinks, I don't mean what he thinks about what love is. I mean what he thinks love is. We already know that an opinion is what I hold, a belief is what I hold. The difference is abysmal. Opinion changes depending on mood or circumstance. A belief, if nurtured, is stable.

Therefore, having a solid and true vision of what love is is fundamental for a courtship to go further and end in a secure marriage.

No one would start a business with someone who did not know what money is. All the more reason not to go into marriage with someone who does not know what love is.

Want to hear more about this topic?

Listen to José María Contreras' podcast "The importance of knowing how to love".

La entrada La importancia de saber querer se publicó primero en Omnes.