Celibacy: “Others project their own anxieties”

In the collective imagination, celibacy is a choice, but still causes suffering. The psychoanalyst Pascal Couderc gives us his take.

How is it that people are so generous in giving advice to single women?

Pascal Couderc says: Few would imagine that celibacy is chosen, which is often the case. Divorce, for example, is mostly initiated by the women. The most generous advice may project their own abandonment anxiety, and thereby suggest that they are in a relationship by fear of loneliness. There is a certain sadism to impose their point of view, to assert that being single is “too demanding”. This is, basically, a way to reassure oneself, the underlying message being, “I have found a man and I know how to keep him.”

How do you explain the willing celibacy to some men?

Women are seen as prey, as in the collective unconscious, that the man is a hunter. Men willingly believe that celibacy equals sadness, and that only women are victims. They assume that they are easy and undemanding, desperate to end their celibacy.

Why are some women in relationships extra-wary of singles?

It’s mostly their partners that they are suspicious about! Their ability to be sensitive to the charm of another. The single wake up, in what they think is the anguish of abandonment, but also the temptation, fear of what some call “the condition of the injured third party”.

It is also assumed that the single is necessarily available or exploitable. Is this true?

According to the pattern of couples, only one has nothing to do, since they have no family obligations. If that partner doesn’t have a life of their own and exists outside the family, they cannot imagine that a single associate can commit, to sports or intense privacy.

It is projected on desires and frustrations, right?

This refers to the concept of freedom within a relationship; that the partner accepts it or not, we will throw it on the single. If your partner does not accept that one spends time for themselves, that you have your own friends, they might project these frustrations on the single person. It’s the frustration, desire or jealousy that dictates our thoughts. Always ask “Who’s speaking?” when the individual supports the single person. Was she helpless, disappointed by her partner?

Valérie Rodrigue and Nur Syazana H.