Are Modern Relationships Too Clingy? Simone de Beauvoir on Love as an Act of Freedom

Authentic love is “founded on mutual recognition of two liberties,” says Simone de Beauvoir, who, in my opinion, cringes at almost all modern relationships today, from the other side of the clouds. What goes on in your head when your girlfriend sends you the millionth picture of her day, documenting her utterly exhausting, wildly significant dilemma of choosing just the right shade of lipstick for brunch? How do you respond to her exasperated texts, calling out your failure to provide the nanosecond-by-nanosecond updates she swears are crucial for her continued happiness?

And what would Beauvoir think of the boyfriend who gets a panic attack every time he doesn’t receive an instantaneous reply, crafting narratives of betrayal in the silence between texts? Or the partner who expects their every compliment to be reciprocated immediately, as though love is a tit-for-tat transaction of praise and validation?

She’d definitely raise an eyebrow at the girlfriend who insists her boyfriend signs on the virtual record every time he gets home, like a parole officer monitoring a release. Or the partner who monitors every tagged photo, every “like” from a stranger, as if love comes with a surveillance clause.

We all have that one friend who’d grind Miss Beauvoir’s gears tremendously, and some of us might lack that self-awareness to know that friend is none other than us ourselves.

So, now as you silently gulp down that urge to send an “Are you mad at me?” text third time in a row to your partner, as you go through this blog, let me set up a virtual counseling session for you, already! 

Love, Liberation and Breathing Space In Modern Age Relationships

I have often come across desolate lamentations of my committed friends wishing to re-live their single lives without holding any bitterness towards the “Love of Their Lives”. This would have no impact on me except for being pushed into a deep and fathomless pit of thought, with no branches to hold on to. I am, however, as much human as them and freedom, as a notion still tastes sweet to my tongue too. But the thought of a stifling relationship in the name of love would scare me to death, as if it had not choked me with its ostensible T&Cs already!

I often think about the “breathing space” in every relationship my father talks about like a mandate. Every time this space is invaded with entities like doubt, insecurity, over-expectations and their variants, the relationship’s fate would soon be like that of a flower just about to be wilted; nothing more, nothing less. Many of us are even unaware, or consciously shrug this concept off. Not our fault that society has made it seem to us that whatever lies independent is untamed, waiting to be fastened, as it must.

On love, there can be as many POV(s) as hearts exist and beat across the globe. Simone de Beauvoir, one of the greatest 20th century philosopher (though she denied being one) saw love as a universal part of being a human. Everyone holds this earnest wish to love and to be loved. She views love as the most empowering of all, as well as that one mighty wave, holding immense power to wash off our innocent castles at once.

In her groundbreaking work The Second Sex, often referred to as, or I would say revered to be the Bible of feminism, Beauvoir argued that society casts men and women into two very different roles when it comes to love, almost like actors in a play who’ve never read each other’s lines. To put it in a single line, society has made men see love as just another room under the roof, that they often visit but do not depend on for the entire refuge while women see love as their home altogether. 

With such a stark imbalance, love can easily turn into a battlefield, littered with mismatched desires and stale disappointments. One partner may treat love as a quiet garden to tend from time to time, while the other is asked to build their entire life around it, watering it like a lifeline. Beauvoir saw this as a recipe for heartache and frustration, where love’s potential to uplift is often buried beneath the weight of these ill-assorted dreams.

Are All Modern Relationships A Product of Inauthentic Love As Per Beauvoir?

“The word ‘love’ has not at all the same meaning for both sexes,” Beauvoir puts forth in The Second Sex, “and this is a source of the grave misunderstandings that separate them”. In Simone’s view, society has woven a complex web around love, one that ensnares both men and women, leading them into patterns of inauthentic love. In The Second Sex, Beauvoir writes that men, even when deeply in love, are taught to love while remaining “sovereign subjects.” 

They are like captains steering their own ships, with love as one of the precious cargo, but not the entire voyage. Women, on the other hand, are expected to become passengers, giving up their course and merging entirely with the man’s world. They’re annexed to his universe, expected to take his name, beliefs, and values as their own. In a patriarchal set up, I need not move forward to show instances of subordination on the part of the women in a relationship and the contrary for the men. 

In modern age relationships, where women are found to be growing less subservient in comparison to their mothers or grandmothers, this way of loving still stays indelible but unfolds differently. One might no longer bow down before the patriarchal norms of the land but might still hold the lamp of “self-sacrifice and devotion” as the only guiding element to a successful relationship.

Beauvoir compares this sacrificial love to the loyalty of a “praying mantis,” who offers herself entirely, almost to the point of erasure, feeding on her own desires until she has nothing left. This expectation goes beyond romance; as mothers, daughters, and caretakers, women are encouraged to lose themselves in the needs of others, praised for their “sacred devotion.” Even motherhood, heralded as a woman’s ultimate fulfillment, often leads to what Beauvoir called “masochistic devotion.” Mothers become slaves to their children, sacrificing pleasure, independence, and personal ambitions, believing that these sacrifices justify the right to dictate their child’s life.

How to Make Independence and Togetherness Walk Hand In Hand In Modern Relationships: Tips For Keeping Love Liberated

Unlike Sartre, Beauvoir believed in the possibility of authentic love and how it was not just a cliche romance novels’ usual course of plot. True love isn’t a barter system. It isn't a negotiation of dreams, nor a contract where one person's freedom becomes the currency of commitment. It stands as a pact made between two equals who do not fear tripping over each other if they walk at the exact same pace. Only then can a relationship not tether you down or strip you off your individuality, instead become “the source of life and not a mortal danger”.

 Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms; each lover would then experience himself as himself and as the other; neither would abdicate transcendence, they would not mutilate themselves; together they would reveal values and ends in the world. TSS

Here are some Beauvoir-inspired tips to help you and your partner walk on the journey of love without fighting for the nth time for a broken Snapchat streak. 

1. Nurture Your Own Garden

In practice, this means maintaining your own passions, interests, and friendships. Don’t let love be a reason to abandon the things that make you who you are.

2. Celebrate, Don’t Control

Celebrate each other’s quirks and flaws like different notes to the tune of your shared life. The monotonous melody can definitely take away the charm out of the show. So respect your own individuality like the texture on a cherished sculpture along with that of your partner’s, adding impeccable richness to the entire art. 

3. Reject the Habitual “We”

I do write this pointer with a heavy heart and hold no offense for the great poets, writers and lovers across the world. Sorry Kafka especially because I do not disagree with you for what you wrote.

For sanity’s sake I am quoting Simone below: 

One must hold onto their steady roots of individuality even as their branches intertwine with their partner to make up the most beautiful canopy.

That’s what we yearn for- a grow together typa love!