Conversations with Robert: A Series
Redefining love through the lens of sacrifice
I’m launching a series—what I hope will evolve into a meaningful collection—titled 'Conversations with Robert.' This idea was inspired during a casual hike in the woods with Robert—my friend, colleague, and mentor—where we had an insightful discussion about love. As I listened to him, I felt an overwhelming urge to pull out my phone and record his words, eager to preserve his thoughts for later reflection. I enthusiastically suggested he write a book on love and, in the same breath, asked if I could use his ideas for a blog post. He jokingly suggested I follow in Plato’s steps, documenting Socrates’ lectures. I thought it was a great idea, so here I am.
What is love?
Robert defines love as "the extent to which you are willing to make sacrifices in service of making someone else’s life easier or better." His definition struck me, evoking a visceral reaction to the word "sacrifice” (which I will get into later on). Intrigued, I continued to explore the concept of love through this lens, contrasting his insights with common perceptions. Many people tend to romanticize love, viewing it primarily through grand gestures, intense emotions, and fairy-tale endings. Superficial understandings often equate love with attraction, infatuation, or material expressions, overlooking the deeper aspects of commitment, sacrifice, and mutual growth. This focus on surface-level qualities can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointments in relationships. In contrast, the love Robert and I discussed is fundamentally rooted in selflessness and sacrifice. This selflessness manifests in myriad ways, from small daily gestures to significant sacrifices made for a loved one’s benefit. It is in these moments of sacrifice that the true depth of love is revealed.
What is cathexis?
Cathexis is a psychological term that refers to the investment of emotional energy or psychic energy in a person, object, or idea. It originates from psychoanalytic theory and is often associated with the work of Sigmund Freud. Cathexis involves attaching significant emotional significance to something, which can influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
For example, a person might cathect their romantic partner, investing mental and emotional resources in the relationship. This investment can also occur with concepts, such as ideologies or personal goals, where a person becomes deeply attached or committed. In contrast, the term "decathexis" refers to the process of withdrawing emotional energy from an object or idea, which can occur during times of loss or emotional change.
I became intrigued by the concept of cathexis after reading “All About Love” by bell hooks. Like Robert, hooks emphasizes that love is fundamentally an action. During a conversation with Robert, I found myself needing to look up the definition of cathexis, as I was confused about its distinction from love. I wondered, “If someone cathects their partner, how is that different from love?” This is a distinction that hooks strongly emphasizes. “When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect them; that is, we invest feelings or emotion in them. That process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us is called 'cathexis,’ which ‘most of us confuse … with loving” (hooks, 2000).
Cathexis can exist independently of love. For example, a nurse may be deeply invested in their job, diligently ensuring that a patient receives the best care possible. When the patient shows progress, the nurse may feel a sense of gratification from their contributions to the recovery process. However, this does not mean the nurse loves the patient. Their feelings are tied to professional responsibilities and the intrinsic rewards of the job, such as recognition or compensation. This illustrates how cathexis can manifest without the sacrificial nature of love.
Cathexis can manifest even within abusive or neglectful relationships. For instance, an individual may feel a profound emotional investment in another person, offering them caring attention one moment, only to inflict physical or emotional harm the next. According to Robert’s definition of love, true love cannot coexist with abuse, as it fails to make the other person’s life easier or better.
Defining Sacrifice
Returning to the ‘visceral reaction’ I mentioned earlier, I felt a strong response when Robert used the word ‘sacrifice.’ I thought, “I don’t want to sacrifice! I’ve been focusing on self-love, being authentic, setting standards, and enforcing boundaries to receive the kind of love I now know I deserve.” Subconsciously, I was grappling with the years of people-pleasing and self-abandonment that marked my past relationships. This struggle manifested in my conversation with Robert as I continuously emphasized the importance of self-love.
Robert and I didn’t dive deep into defining sacrifice, but I am able to define ‘sacrifice’ based on his examples. In this context, sacrifice can be defined as the act of relinquishing something valuable—whether it be time, resources, or personal desires—for the benefit of another person. This selfless act often involves prioritizing someone else's wants or needs. Such sacrifice can take many forms, from small everyday gestures, like making tea for a loved one instead of sleeping in, to significant life changes, such as relocating to another town for your partner’s job. Ultimately, sacrificial acts can reflect the depth of one's love.
I was reminded of my ex-boyfriend’s acts of sacrifice during and after our relationship. I always trusted that he would drop everything to be by my side—drunk at the club at 2am and wanted to go home? He was there. Feeling sick in the middle of the night on a Sunday? He’d stay up with me until I felt better. More recently, after our breakup, he not only paid for my plane ticket to attend my father’s funeral but also missed work to accompany me. By Robert’s definition of love, my ex-boyfriend loves me deeply. You might be asking yourself, why aren’t we together then? And the answer isn’t because I was unwilling to sacrifice for him, but rather it comes down to the fact that having deep love for someone does not mean you should be together.
Why loving someone is not reason enough to be in a relationship.
It’s truly sad to me that my ex-boyfriend and I can share so much love yet still not make our relationship work. Although we’re no longer romantically involved, we maintain a loving friendship. Robert pointed out that while someone can be willing to sacrifice for another—essentially, loving them—that willingness doesn’t necessarily make a relationship viable. For example, someone might be deeply in love with their best friend, who is in a monogamous relationship, and say, “I’d do anything for her. I’d make her laugh, take on her debt, or even follow her to the moon.” However, according to Robert’s definition, if this person truly loved their best friend, they would recognize that the real sacrifice would be to respect her current relationship, allowing her to remain in a situation that she believes enhances her life, rather than trying to persuade her to be with them.
Loving someone, by definition, does not require reciprocation; it is not transactional or conditional. However, relationships do have conditions. For instance, if my standards include wanting to marry, have children, practice a specific religion, and live in a particular place, and my partner fundamentally disagrees with those values, it’s best not to pursue a relationship with them, even if I love them and am willing to make sacrifices. Recognizing your deal breakers and red flags is crucial; we’re not practicing masochism here. If your partner cheats, you can still love them while also acknowledging that they have violated the agreed-upon boundaries of your relationship, which may lead you to end it.
How do you distinguish between love and people-pleasing?
Once again, I reflected on my past relationships and how my fear of abandonment drove me to engage in people-pleasing behaviors. To an outsider, it might have appeared as love, but the motivation behind my actions was rooted in insecurity. So I brought it up to Robert, and he provided a clinical definition of people-pleasing, “excessively prioritizing someone else’s wants and needs in order to obtain permission to satisfy one's own wants and needs.” People-pleasing is a transactional process. Robert suggested you can distinguish between love and people-pleasing by noticing whether you grow resentful in relationships.
Robert continues to explain, “If one is able to find ways to sacrifice for another and continually do this without awaiting a reward, without asking for reciprocity, and more or less consistently, then the actions are likely love. Think of a person who owns a non-verbal pet. This person may care for, spend time on, or buy things for, a turtle, for example. The turtle, itself, does nothing in return for the pet owner, per se. Where there are many different levels of positive results from an action, such as intrinsic internal reward, the ratio of sacrifice to gain is relevant. The degree to which the turtle provides ‘company’ for example, is not something the pet owner is bestowed from the turtle itself. The turtle, in contrast, is never expected to do anything other than exist. The turtle can live, die, run away, or sleep all day every day, and the pet owner will be just as happy to clean the tank, buy food, and heat the turtle as long as it lives. This is love, with a positive relationship.
On the other hand, a people pleasing narrative may be more akin to a pet owner that demands that their pet spend time with them. Think of a person who, despite some signs of discomfort from the pet, forces the pet to be with them and around them at all times. The original urge may be to take care of the pet and thus have a friend/companion. This intrinsically means that “if I take care of your needs, you will always be by my side”. How to be able to tell the difference lies in when the secret invisible contract between the person and animal is betrayed. The cat, dog, turtle, or bird runs away, disappears, or prefers the company of others. The feeling of betrayal or resentment may appear, and therein lies the difference.
Using people, on the other hand, tends to be more complicated. If you find yourself withholding your own needs for the other person and feeling disappointed or slighted when it is finally time for you to take your turn, this is most likely people-pleasing. If you do not even consider what you do as a sacrifice, but just a helpful gesture to another person, then it’s likely a loving act, or an expression of your love.”
In conclusion, humans are messy and love is complicated. Neither myself nor Robert claim to be experts in love. This is just one way to look at love based on observations Robert has made. It’s important to critically analyze anything you read and apply this information based on your individual experiences and beliefs. Of course there must be a balance between self-sacrifice and self-care. Love does not require you to lose your identity and forgo your values, but maybe it does ask of you, “what did you do that was loving?”
Find Robert here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertlhawkins3/