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There are couples incapable of living in peace, still less capable of living a separation. Testimonials and decryption of this love not easy to manage.

Of course, there are the "terrible lovers", those who fuel the conflict, get excited to risk losing themselves and fill in reconciliation. The enthusiasts of passion who juggle love and hate, freedom and dependence. And for whom conjugal peace is suspect. The perpetual questioning of the couple is then a motor, leaving each other, a little daily death that is inflicted in ritual. Sometimes even hatred prevails, becomes the ultimate bond, and the couple only retain each other through reciprocal destruction, and self-destruction, Gabin-Signoret atmosphere in "The Cat" ... But the scenario is not always as "jouissif", nor romantic.

Some couples, less passionate, bear a daily violence or an excess of lukewarmness while it hates them. Their couple is no more than a grimacing reflection of what they have been. But this situation is still preferable for them to the terrifying image of separation.

Of course, there is the fear of abandonment . A strong anxiety like a vice that takes some by the throat, just the idea of ​​being separated, torn off. As if to be "cut off" from the other was to be mutilated, deprived of a part of oneself. The vertigo of separation is then stronger than ill-being together. Childhood resurgences, old wounds still open ... "I know that I cling to Bernard when we can not stand, because, for me, being alone is being abandoned, explains Sophie. Like a little girl who is let loose too soon, and I recognize the child of "too much" that I was, the baby that my mother did not want ... But I love Knowledge, I remain, incapable of leaving. "

Nothing of the sort, moreover, to make a couple "indécrochable", that two anxieties of separation that meet. "One feels," Sophie laughs. It's an animal thing. One recognizes oneself, one loves oneself. And then we play scary. At each crisis, one approaches the emptiness, one walks on the edge of the precipice ... "But it is not only the evil of mother. All kinds of ghosts can stick couples and force them to hold as they do. Sometimes it's just the couple that was formed, or the other - idealized - of the beginnings, a radiant memory, totally "has been", but so fulfilling that it can mask the distressing reality. And there, superimposed, every time we find ourselves on the doorstep, with the suitcase in our hands, and turn one last time before the big jump.

If we separate, I have no family

There is also the family, that which was formed and often defended not only on behalf of our children but also on behalf of those who sleep in us. "If one separates, I no longer have a family," remarked a man who left, who feels "orphaned" and can not bear to see the cocoon that he built built up, while that of his parents is no more than an old memory. Maybe just a lure ...
A simple fantasy, moreover, can suffice to bind two beings forever. A picture of a couple, a family dream, a model that we share unconsciously and that welds the bond, without our knowledge. We tell each other a story with two voices, and if nothing goes, we continue to lie together to avoid separation.
"With Jacques, we have repaired for years," says Ariane, who has been married for eighteen years. Unique children both, we built a large family that seemed to us to be more successful than those of our parents. And today, when everything is cracking, I wonder if this purring tribe ever existed ... "

Do we ever know on what common folly a couple rests? By which, by which, in the end, one is attached to the other ... So, as long as one has not located the knot, it is impossible to undo it. And one tries in vain to leave, without actually fighting the problem at heart. "I love you, me neither," sang Gainsbourg. There is not only love in love. Not that "yes", far from it. It is also a tissue of oppositions, of refusal, of difficulties in taking the other as it is. And if one can not part, sometimes despite the obvious urgency, it is because, under the apparent degeneration of feeling, under the emergence of hatred and reproaches ... it remains perhaps of love. And this is often what one tries instinctively to save. In trying to redistribute the cards, to invent another couple ... But when the knell has sounded, if love really is dead and for nothing in the world can not be accepted, the only possible salvation is still l another encounter ... A new love sufficiently evident that one can finally succeed in burying the first. One is always, in short, saved by love.

"We do not agree on anything anymore"

The testimony of Delphine 39 years, couple for twenty-two years, a girl of 12 years. She wonders for 8 years if she has to leave her companion

It's been eight years that I ask myself every day: I go away? I'm staying? Is love dead? But what is love? And what does it look like after twenty-two years?

On a daily basis, Vincent and I can not stand it any longer. Whether to choose the color of the carpet or to organize a weekend, we do not agree on anything. He has become a rascal, I am more and more hard, susceptible, shameless ... But as soon as I consider the separation, it is as if I was going to disintegrate on the spot. Immediately, another part of me nailed my beak and nailed me to the ground. Either it's depression for three days, or I find a thousand good reasons to stay: our daughter, to whom I feel incapable of imposing that pain, which I know for having suffered ... (Smile .) Then, money: I have the impression that if I leave the house, I will become homeless - whereas, for months, it is I who make the small family live ... And then, essential argument:

Everything goes back, in fact, to a big blow of heart that embarked me eight years ago, to disembark a few months later, skinned alive. Facing Vincent. The problem between us was probably earlier, but that's when it all exploded. And I did not succeed in recollecting the pieces. I no longer know what I expect from love. All that I reproach Vincent - to be too stable, too plane-plan, maniac ... -, this is also what reassures me. The fact of knowing it by heart, of foreseeing it, our little habits, our rituals ... It is all that stifles me, and these are my references . I'm not sure I want to be unknown, discovery ... I do not think I'm ready for that.

Sometimes I think that our connection is very strong, that it is just the moment of history where we rechise the other, between adults. At other times, I find that one is in full compromise, that one does not want to see that it is finished, and that I remain just because I have the scare, to have gone mourning history to leave. Perhaps also that the one I can not leave no longer exists, maybe even that it never existed ... I'm tired of all these questions that break the spontaneity of things . For more than ten years, everything was so simple ... I constantly feel guilty about "cutting my hair in four", I feel like spoiling the life of everyone. And as soon as I feel Vincent weakened, I crack. I can not help it. It's sort of a reflex ... It's crazy,
"I started a psychoanalysis (smile), waiting for a little helping hand of life. I want another child, maybe the rebirth will come from there. Why not with Vincent ... "