Manipulation of love
Sometimes we find ourselves living relationships that we drag over time even if we know that there has never been love, there will never be or that it no longer exists. We cannot close them because a moral obligation has been created or we are disillusioned with being able to truly fall in love with them. In some cases because we are flattered by the great love that the other feels for us. We think his love is enough for both of us. But, at other times, we cannot get rid of them because we become collusive and accept the blackmail of those who, through their excessive love, do not give us a way to get out of it: every time we fear the end of the relationship the other cries, despairs, threatens to get to fatal gestures. He cannot live without us, he would die, he begs us. It's love manipulation. And, little by little, we let ourselves be drawn into the spiral and we come to convince ourselves that perhaps, after all, that is true love ...
Fosca - Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 1869. Already the title indicates the intention of the young author "scapigliato" to deepen the Shadow, the dark side of feelings and of human nature, of relational dependence that turns into obsession. The story, narrated in first person by the protagonist, Giorgio, focuses on the tormented, perverse, ambiguous figure of Fosca, a woman who has suffered much, suffering from nerves, who despite her ugliness, her innocuous and weak appearance, soon became will transform into a morbid torture.
Fosca is the young cousin of the Colonel of Giorgio, who, taken by pity, listens to her confidences during a walk and promises her friendship. But in a short time the woman declares his love to him. Giorgio gently refuses his loving advances and Fosca's health suddenly deteriorates. The doctor advised Giorgio to pretend love for the woman, to go and see her only one night, because it is certain that he now lacked little to live and invited him to indulge his requests so that he could die peacefully. The plan is actually devised by Fosca to wrest Giorgio from a woman, Clara, whom he is in love with. Giorgio finds himself trapped in a paradoxical situation: after their meeting, Fosca's health suddenly improves against all expectations, flourishes again and Giorgio finds himself having to carry out a farce out of pity. In fact, trust:
"If I could have loved her, really felt for her what only pity induced me to pretend to hear, no woman could have been happier. Because no one else could have loved more intensely ”.
Fosca becomes morbid, obliges him to repeat phrases of love that Giorgio does not try, kisses him, embraces him, and oppresses him with his excessive love. Slowly he begins to creep more and more into the thoughts of Giorgio, who after a few months begins to waste away, becomes thinner, feels trapped in a net from which he cannot extricate himself. Every attempt of his to get away from Fosca, to tell her the truth, produces atrocious crises and suicide attempts in the woman. The doctor, with fine psychology, suggests to him:
"I can't tell you" Do this, do that, "I can warn you of a danger. (...) Think about it, you need to choose between your life and yours; or you or her, this is the dilemma, I will limit myself to formulating it ".
But when Clara leaves him he clings to Fosca to fill the void. It is convinced that Fosca is the only woman truly worthy of love:
"Only Fosca had deserved my love, she alone had loved me, she who had challenged the ridiculous, the contempt, the anger, she who had renounced her pride as a woman, asking for pity what the others give for weakness, for vanity or vice ”.
And Giorgio, at that point, joins her and spends an intense night of love with her, declaring her his love, now succubus and plagiarized. So Fosca, an ugly woman with no charm, morbid and possessive, takes a man who would never fall in love with her.
This form of pathological love is found in both women and men. They are people who claim, by virtue of their immense love, to be able to keep their partner tied to themselves. And to do so they rely on guilt, on obligations, lies or fears behind which they hide their immense power.
Why can't you get out of these relationships? What prevents us from breaking? The misunderstanding produced by a manipulation. Because it is exchanged for love what is staging, theater, blackmail. Because we take all that the other does, a continuous succession of manipulative acts, as proof of love. Then, in front of those who become weak, sick, problematic, depressed, and tells you that he gave you everything himself and you owe him love, believe him and choose him.