Relationship & Dating Blog
Exclusive relationship and dating tips, secrets & advice from our team of psychologists.
Professional Introduction Agency
One of the most beloved figures in literature is Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet, an intelligent and determined woman of 20 years. Elizabeth is self-educated, witty and quite determined to marry a man of her choosing, if she marries at all. “I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
First-date nerves are par for the course and Jake was no exception. As he made his way to the Mayfair private members’ club, Marks, often frequented by the likes of David Cameron and Boris Johnson, the 47-year-old venture capitalist struggled to contain a “rush of anxious energy”.
He needn’t have worried. Utterly charmed by Anna, a glamorous 38 year-old PR executive (“She was so stunning, I almost knocked over my glass of water”) Jake married her seven months later.
But this was no ordinary whirlwind romance. Jake had travelled over 3,000 miles from New York to meet London-based Anna, whom he was introduced to by Seventy-Thirty, a matchmaking service that helps high net-worth individuals find love, wherever in the world they are based.
The new jet-set dating elite don't let oceans get in the way of finding true love.
The couple are very much typical of this new jet-set dating elite – the super-rich whose lives are so international they don’t see a few oceans as a barrier to true love.
Seventy-Thirty has a global membership of around 2,000, with the majority of their clients aged between 30 and 60. When its Managing Director, Lemarc Thomas told Jake he had found the perfect match for him in London, Jake saw it as opportunity not a problem.
“The dating scene in New York is too aggressive for me,” he explains. “I travel a lot and I’m more drawn to the effortless sophistication of European women. Anna sounded intriguing so I flew out to meet her the following weekend.”
Continue reading in Telegraph
Dr Georgina Barnett has a doctorate in Counselling Psychology and has worked for fifteen years in the fields of therapy, coaching and group facilitation. She is passionate about helping people fulfil their potential and achieve their goals. Over the past five years she has dedicated herself to the area of relationships and matchmaking at Seventy Thirty, and continues to coach and write on these subjects. Her latest book The Mottos, aims to help people build and maintain a wonderful relationship and is packed with advice on how to deal with everyday relationship hurdles.
Read more https://www.soulventure.com/psychologist-georgina-waters/
Understand: Each partner in the relationship should play an equal role. There should be a balance in what the two parties contribute to the relationship in order to create a workable status quo. You do not have to contribute the same things; the key is to show that you are putting in as much as you would like to receive in terms of love, support and communication.
Our favourite books could reveal much about our individual views of romance. As people grow up the stories they treasure shape their expectations and attitudes towards relationships.
When Jane Austen won a spot on a British bank note many fans rejoiced. Critics of romantic fiction were less pleased, however. A criticism of Austen is that her heroines are purely driven by romance but is this true?
One of the most beloved figures in literature is Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet, an intelligent and determined woman of 20 years. Elizabeth is self-educated, witty and quite determined to marry a man of her choosing, if she marries at all.
“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
She rejects proposals from men in the face of family pressure and personal dislike and only agrees to marry Darcy when he proves his devotion to her and learns to be less proud. She is hailed as a proto-feminist and indeed the development of women’s rights can be traced through literature.
Unhealthy relationships can of course be found. Characters can be ‘crazy in love’, what psychologists term limerance (Tennov, 1975). The central relationship in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) falls into this category. From their first meeting Anna is infatuated with Count Vronsky and becomes compelled to leave her husband and child to be with him. He is similarly obsessed but finds this does not lead to contentment.
“Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realisation of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realisation of their desires.” Leopold Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877)
Their love story has a famously tragic end as her jealousy and remorse for losing custody of her son drives her to commit suicide. The parallel relationship of Levin and Kitty survives an early rejection to become far more fulfilling and an example of a healthy, trusting relationship.
A rather extreme case of commitment can be found in classical text The Odyssey by Homer. The hero Odysseus spent ten years fighting with the Greek army at Troy and then took the long way home, journeying for a further ten years. Though assured her husband had died, his wife Penelope remained steadfast in her commitment and refused all 108 suitors.
Not reconciling oneself to past heartbreak or being adequately prepared for marriage is a common source of tragedy. Perhaps the most iconic love story in American literature, Gone With The Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler had a tempestuous relationship over several years, during which Scarlett pined for her first love. Madame Bovary’s dissatisfaction with married life led to affairs. Thérèse Raquin - pushed into an unhappy marriage to her cousin by her aunt – began an affair which led to the poisoning of her husband and a protagonist tormented by guilt. Not a relationship one should copy.
One of the journeys we take towards adulthood is learning from the mistakes and follies of others, be they real or fictional. The next part of this series looks at famous real life romances and what insight can be gained from them.
References:
Jane Austen (1813). Pride and Prejudice
Tennov, Dorothy (1979). Love and limerence: the experience of being in love.
Leo Tolstoy (1877). Anna Karenina.
Homer (date unknown). The Odyssey.
Margaret Mitchell (1936). Gone With The Wind.
Gustave Flaubert (1857). Madame Bovary.
Émile Zola (1867). Terese Raquin.
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