“I love you, but, because inexplicably I love in you something more than you - the object petit a - I mutilate you.”
Jacques Lacan, Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
Let’s simplify this by replacing the term “object petit a” with a set of desirable characteristics fantasised by the lover on the beloved person. The beloved one is here reduced into the specific part of themselves described by these idealised attributes, which for the moment we will call “good”, a part that is consequently mutilated from the whole of that person. The lover falls in love with the “good” in the beloved one and as such, “good” is what defines “love”, the “good love” [I use quotation marks to signify the idealised definitions the words receive]. In short, the fantasy of the lover chops some part of the other person, and with that part they form the whole image of the beloved.
But what happens to the part that remains outside the mutilated one? It obviously cannot be really separated; it can only be aborted in the ideal scenario where the prementioned mutilation takes place, the scenario that is called fantasy. The other part, therefore, accompanies the idealised “good” part as a shadow that every now and then makes its presence as a surprise, quite often being in the form of “bad” that brings problems within the relationship. But since the “good” had already formed some person, our beloved person, then the “bad” is perceived as another personage that the lover is unable to recognise in the beloved one and thus can only make sense as something off-character.
Hence, the beloved person is split into a double personality whereby the personality of the “good” and loveable traits is separated from the personality of the “bad” and unwanted traits. In other words, the “bad” traits are encountered as a distinct person that the lover believes they can get rid of, as if they are dealing with two persons and all they have to do is expel the one they don’t like. Even further, the lover cannot accept that the other person carries both “good” and “bad”, that is to say they are mistaken about their choice of the beloved one, because admitting the “bad” in the other means that they are at the same time admitting the “bad” or “fault” within themselves, i.e. that they picked the wrong person to love. Or, by extension, that this bad choice of them is made by a bad self whom they cannot identify with, which is the encounter with their own double personality or split-character: the good one as I would like to be seen and the bad one that must remain hidden from sight. The other person, thus, functions as a mirror in which the subject attempts to see themselves the way they want to be seen, which means that the idealisation and the ideal version of themselves is formed according to someone else’s gaze (a wish to be seen by whom?): the gaze of the Other. The ideal has never been their own and the resulted split is another name for the division of the subject.
But in the final analysis, the failure happens not because the hidden or repressed part makes its presence, i.e. the return of the repressed, but precisely because of the very idealisation of the attributes that causes the production of the repressed part: The “good” of the ideal attributes has been forcefully projected from the lover to the beloved right from the beginning by naming them as such and such, so the problem is not the “bad”, but the definition of “good” which consequently leaves a hidden part outside the visual field, the part that is then nominated as “bad”. The idealisation in the gaze of the Other makes the experience of one’s true desire, i.e. what doesn't fall into that gaze, as an encounter with something bad. After all, it is in the “bad” of the other that usually appears the realisation that this person is not for me, and perhaps that the relationship is built on idealised standards, or even further with analysis that this person does not support my desire. And if I only see “bad” in the unveiled side of the beloved, then it means that I cannot support their desire either, i.e. the part which is beyond my fantasy. At that point, a choice has to be made whether one opts for the “good” as defined by the ideal / Other with all its consequences, over being guided by their desire. Not an easy choice, because their desire only exists in what was previously characterized as aborted or unwanted part of the loveable in the ideal.
It is thus very common that people choose to turn away from their desire, preserving it in the field of the “bad”, and instead, continue staring deeper into the “good” of their beloved one which holds the ideal image of themselves. Let’s repeat that in these terms, a false definition of “love” is given, becoming synonymous to the idealised “good”. Thus, in the function of the other person as one’s mirror, 'I love the good in the other because I want to see myself / to be seen as good', which is equal to 'I love in the way I assume myself seen as loveable'. Needless to say, the “good” speaks only of a good defined by the ideal, the good of the Other and not any good for the subject. “Love” too!... within the definition is receives. The ideal binds and blinds the subject into the idealised false love in the service of the Other’s gaze (the demand to be seen in a certain way) and allows no space of desire and creation away from that. In fact, the terms “good” and “bad” here appear inverted as far as how they support the desire of the subject. The subject receives their own message back from the Other in an inverted form, Lacan says.
An analysand the other day was describing the major problems of his relationship, but then saying that he doesn’t want to break up because in his relationship there is much love. One obviously wonders how there can exist so serious problems in a relationship if the two persons love each other so much. Responding to the question about what he means when he says “love”, he states: “Love is to support each other; it is to feel each other’s pain”. This person’s true relationship was not with the other person as such, but with pain, becoming an irreducible condition for him to love the other and for himself to be loved, in such a way that in order to support this kind of love they had to inflict pain to each another so that they love each other by feeling each other’s pain. Pain thus here appears in the place of “good”, the idealised love, whereby “I love in you something more than you”. This analysand wasn’t led into analysis because of any sort of suffering brought by this fantasy, but because his partner started denying her place of pain, which for the analysand was the encounter with the part where his fantasy fails.
Would all the above mean that there should be no disagreements in a relationship? This is not true, unless one concludes into another sort of idealisation, that of the ideal relationship. On the contrary, what is highlighted is that disagreements unveil something of the way each partner’s fantasy functions. One can learn so many things about themselves through their own reflection encountered in the beloved one. So, the true question here is: does this relationship only support each other’s ideal image or is there a space of true desire, which means true love beyond the idealised one, i.e. the ideal that forces one to be seen in a certain way in order to be loved? And once you find out, what do you do about it?
[More about the function of the mirror in my upcoming publication on Lacan's concept of the Mirror Stage]
