• Psycho Why do we insist on wanting to please everyone?
  • Interview Walter Riso: "Today we do not live, we see life go by"

After 60,000 hours of consultation, Walter Riso (Naples, Italy, 1951) realized that love is the greatest cause of people's suffering. And although most of the patients of this Dr. in Psychology specialized in Cognitive Therapy with a master's degree in Bioethics are women, he assures that they also hurt despite not telling it. "I don't want to stereotype men, but they tend to think it's not masculine to go to therapy, while women are more responsible with their mental health."

That's how I came up From so much loving you, I forgot about myself. How to know if your partner is the right one (Ed. Zenith), the latest book by the writer and university professor, which totals more than three million in social networks. "60% of my consultations are for love," he explains.

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The first premise he makes clear is that to love in a healthy way you have to love (well) yourself. "In a relationship there must be emotional democracy, there is no one but anyone else and rights are equivalent." But what if there is a lack of self-esteem? That we will not know how to choose well and we will settle. This happens for four reasons, says the psychologist, which lead to not taking care of yourself or fulfilling yourself as a person.

  • "Those who do not love themselves well are mistreated mentally and verbally. And that makes him speak badly and have a very severe self-criticism. He thinks it's not worth it."
  • "He doesn't indulge himself, he thinks he's not worthy of that shirt he likes or the ice cream he wants. That's called self-reinforcement, the rejection of deserving."
  • "He looks in the mirror and doesn't like it, he looks for flaws in his self-image. Beauty is an attitude, and yours is to take out the magnifying glass and see your cellulite, big ears ... All of that exacerbated by social media."
  • "He doesn't trust himself. He doubts his abilities."

    • If you are with a partner that limits you, ignores you or is possessive, in short, that does not make you feel good, but you do not have good self-esteem because you meet some or all of these conditions, you will believe that you deserve that relationship, says Riso. "You'll think, 'How lucky you love me.' And you will give a lot, forgetting to receive. Until you get lost and don't recognize yourself. To love you is to know that you deserve a love that respects you and does not violate your rights."

    LIANA RELATIONS

    Still from the film 'Addicted to love'. Warner Bros

    There is another reason why we are with the wrong partner and we move forward, says Riso, that profile that chains relationships for fear of being alone. "The chosen solitude is good, it allows us to know each other, but forced becomes desolation. The usual response is attachment: addiction to the other. One out of fear does anything and prefers subjugation or annulment in order to be with someone, even if he knows that it does him no good."

    In both cases, the fear of loneliness or lack of self-esteem, advises to go to a professional, unless the person gets tired before even going to therapy. "Some look at each other, don't recognize each other and send the guy to hell. Because a bad relationship sinks you and you're going to get worse and worse." Their proposal is to move from useless suffering to a useful one, without having to spend 20 years enduring. "You will go through an initial duel and break free."

    THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE

    Songs and movies convey an idea of romantic love that leads us to idealize it.'Cinderella', from Disney

    He recognizes that culture induces numerous erroneous beliefs about love. "There are more important values. For example, justice, freedom, generosity or courage. However, a woman is considered virtuous if she achieves a good marriage with children. That is not that you realize yourself, it is that the other is realized. Motherhood is not an obligation to miss rice or marriage for life. They are cultural imaginaries, such as that women are easy to divorce," she explains.

    Those who have made a mistake in love choose better, because they already know what they do not want to repeat, he says. "It's no coincidence that narcissistic profiles are 99% male. There are many toads under those princes, and by this I do not mean that there are no witches behind those princesses of Disney tales. What I express is that the new masculinity has to integrate its inner feminine, implying care for the other. A warrior man and a kangaroo dad, just as the warrior woman does not have to draw the sword and fight, but know what war is hers."

    WHAT IS LOVE?

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    To love, for the author, is to share illusions. "Spinoza defines it in a precious way, as the joy that the other exists. And Unamuno said that your pain hurts me and your joy makes me happy. But not as in ancient times, today it must be a love with autonomy and defense of rights."

    If there is no reciprocity, he argues, there will be no balance in the couple either. "It becomes a slippery slope: all in favor of the other. And it ends up being a vertical relationship of dominance-submission, where there is a king and a person sacrificed in the name of love."

    It was like that for centuries but it doesn't work anymore, he says. "In fact, since the Trojan War, real barbarities have been done in the name of love. Today, half the population is separated and there are more divorces than marriages in the United States. We are doing something wrong. Maybe it's choosing."

    WHO TO LOVE?

    Reason or heart? Before the eternal debate, Riso agrees that feelings usually rule, "but you can decide who to date according to the type of person you are. Beauty attracts but you fall in love with personality, with the virtues you admire."

    What happened in the pandemic? Why were there so many ruptures? "There were couples who were weekend. They saw each other when they were late from work. A hello and goodbye or an afternoon at the in-laws' house. By spending so much time together, they discovered that perhaps they were in love with the person they met and not the current one. If they had known him like that, would they still be with that person?"

    THE TRIALS OF LOVE

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    The psychologist collects in his book a collection of eight questions like this, which are the tests to know if there is real love. Of these, he is clear about the most shocking and revealing. Ask yourself if you would want your life partner for your children. "It stirs up the soul. If the answer is no, what the fuck are you doing there?" he asks. "It's like waiting for pears from the elm, miracles to Lourdes."

    The author, who is blamed for fierce realism, says that "love is a public health problem." We must not resign ourselves. "Love doesn't have to be suffering. Children should be taught from an early age, with a Universal Declaration of Human Rights in hand, what it is to respect, tolerance to frustration, self-knowledge and emotional detachment. The anti-values that make us modern slaves should be eliminated."

    Without you I die of songs and movies must be reversed. "A couple may be the best, but not the only thing. If you think that your partner gives meaning to your life, instead of having your meaning in self-worth, beliefs and spirituality, it will be a veneration." Although in postmodernity the people who make up the couple have more autonomy, relationships fail.

    "Dependence hasn't gone down, it's still higher in women and I got tired of seeing them revolving around each other, especially when there's excessive control through social media. You know where you are, who you're wearing and what you're wearing. They think they take care of them or care about them and it's really jealousy: possession."

    A 10-LEGGED ANIMAL

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    There are a dozen aspects in the couple that make it work, according to empirical evidence and philosophical and psychological currents, says Walter Riso. "They are non-negotiable that, if they fail, they make the relationship limp away." They range from humor to reciprocity, desire or trust.

    The most important for the psychologist is the worldview. "A couple who do not share the same values is doomed to failure. I mean religion, political ideology, sensitivity, values... If you don't share that, if you're a cop and I'm an anarchist, will we hang in together? No! An ultra-rightist with someone from the ultra-left? It will never work! An atheist with a very religious person? And what do they do with the child, where do they baptize him or in which school does he enroll?"

    "Mr. Riso, there are many couples like that.

    -Many. They say, "I love him." Without looking at all this that I say. You look at them and think how they were hooked on someone so different. World War II is armed and they don't even realize it. They are water and oil.

    But let no one refute the psychologist with that opposites attract. "Science says they crash like trains. One has to be similar with their spaces so as not to get bored. Draw friendly disagreements and not lazy agreements so that the other does not get angry. You have to generate amazement and surprise for me so that I admire you for what you are and do. If you subordinated yourself to the other out of love, you lacked respect for yourself."

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    • Couple relationships