3 Reflections On Love, By Erich Fromm

Erich Fromm, through his book “The art of loving” left us a great source of inspiration to reflect on love. This author was able to consider love as an art, as a feeling that we can all have the potential to generate, but that requires care to maintain it.

Erich Fromm’s reflections on love are relatively well known and important questions arise from them, such as: what does it mean to love? How can this feeling be maintained? Is love something fleeting?

The study on love carried out by this humanist psychologist and philosopher stands out for its enormous maturity. Observing love as an art, which is the result of prior learning. Understand that it is necessary to take care of it and cultivate it, so as not to interrupt the learning process in love.

Mature love according to Erich Fromm

In this reflection the author differentiates between mature love and child love. He speaks of love as a need and the need of the other as a consequence of love:

This principle questions how we relate in our society and does not hesitate to affirm that we do it more out of necessity than to share our love with another person. Think that sharing our feelings requires that we be connected with them, understanding and caring for them. In such a way that we do not stay looking abroad for the needs that we do not know how to cover.

Using love to run away from our loneliness

When we use love and use it to escape our discomforts, we are doomed to destroy it. If we use this feeling as a refuge from what we cannot bear in our lives, we will be running away from ourselves.

This way of loving becomes something pathological, since it means not attending to our personal development. It implies not listening to ourselves and expecting others to take responsibility for what we are not capable of and that in reality is in our area of ​​responsibility. If we act like this, we will be leaving happiness in the hands of someone outside and in this way we will become very vulnerable.

This is how projections arise, seeing in others what we cannot bear to see in ourselves. It is a childish way of not wanting to take responsibility for our own existence, with what that implies. When we turn love as a tool, as a way of escape from finding ourselves, we lose our ability to love and our honesty to relate.

Fromm considered loving an art. Art is cultivated, created, pampered; same love. If we think that love is finding that person who “fits” with us, we will only be projecting our shortcomings onto them and hoping that they will make us happy. Love is the opposite. Love is giving and not expecting so much to receive.

The active energy of love

Love is a surplus energy that we have thanks to having our basic needs covered. Erich Fromm understands that this energy has to be mobilized, it is not enough to feel it, but also to live it, and this can only be done by caring for and feeding it.

There are certain difficulties in a relationship that are unavoidable and even necessary, certain obstacles that cause negative emotions that we have to deal with. It is good to accommodate these emotions that we experience and understand that disruptions usually arise from something we do not attend to. Emotions are our most intimate and personal language, also helping us to relate in a more honest way.

Finally, from this reflection, the importance of the fact that two people relate from their own essence is extracted, since only through a deep knowledge between them will the couple be able to build a solid base, on which their own love can evolve. He thinks that it is a mistake to love to run away from oneself, since in this way it is not possible for there to be a healthy and reciprocal encounter.

If we love to run away from ourselves, one day we will realize that nothing authentic sustains our relationship, only to fill a void. That day we will feel unhappy and sad. We will have realized that the relationship has been a kind of farce to entertain us. This is why it is so important to first know how to be with yourself and love yourself in a healthy way.