Fabien Brugger, philosopher. “Argument, boredom, silence are the most obvious warning signs of disappointment”

Historically, from Plato to modern philosophy, thinkers have spoken of love, of couples that come and go. But they never, or almost never, mention disappointment. However, there is no infinite love for love, as Fabien Brueger, president of Paris Lumiere University and professor of philosophy of contemporary art, points out in his latest book: Unloving – A Return to Life Manual (Ed. Flammarion). After personal experience, the philosopher questions the romantic breakup, this stage (and clause) that we must be able to name, describe, understand and move through.

“Whether it’s chosen or suffered, falling out of love is an extremely difficult ordeal to live through,” confides the author. And because we feel grief or guilt or anger, we don’t want to discuss it at all.” He takes up the subject of finally making hearts speak… and repairing them. After exploring the warning signs of infidelity, its symptoms, betrayals, Fabien Bruger shows how to overcome the tragedy. This painful journey that ultimately allows us to live differently and love differently.

Madame Figaro. – What does it mean to not love?
Fabien Brugger. – It is a sign of something that is ending and from which we must learn to detach. In Dislove we first hear the verb to love. In order to stop loving, you must first be loved… Therefore, “dice” means the end of love, but also the beginning of an existential process that affects our lives and through which we must go. I insist on taking this word seriously. Because it is a moment of disunity, rupture, crisis, life change, in short, everything that was built between two subjects. In this book, the object of disappointment, that is, “you,” “he,” or “she,” does not speak. And the reason is simple: the moment of disappointment is a break in the den of intimacy. It describes a realm of subjective experience where the other side has little say. Because to not love is to be suddenly faced with one’s own existence. This opens up a field for questioning what we want to do with it, what direction and goals we want to give it. We find and reclaim the self, we redefine what we really want in ourselves and in the couple.

Therefore, one must know how not to love…
I like the idea of ​​the path we go through to learn not to love anymore. It seems difficult to get along without it… At first, we perceive it as an insurmountable wall. Then we quickly realize that it is a test of life that we are going through. And for that you need to move, that is, to be absent from the place that was yours, to leave a way of life that was your daily routine, to become something else. In Mourning and melancholySigmund Freud recommends understanding lovelessness as a mourning process. This process is the only way for him to accept the loss of his loved one, his physical disappearance, even though he is still alive, and to continue his existence. The idea is to go through this trial so that we can grow as individuals, live and then love differently with the legacy of our trials. Disappointment transforms us.

So this is a moment of personal transition?
Exactly right. Disappointment is a moment of disunity, and therefore a domain of subjective, individual experience. Regardless of whether you are in a romantic, family, friendship relationship, whether you are the one who leaves or the one who stays… In all cases, there is a need to detach from attachment. This is really what defines this individual transition. But it should be clarified that it is not a choice. The subtitle of my book, The Return to Life Manual, also refers to the manual of Epictetus, according to which we must accept that not everything depends on us, that we do not have control over everything.

Does the experience of disappointment change the way we love?
After making love, we actually talk about love differently. i like Cost of living, the title of an autobiographical novel by British writer Deborah Levy. In disillusionment we find the same idea of ​​”value,” this awareness of the illusion of love, of the risks of its association with passion and suffering. In love, one often forgets oneself, and a crisis is an opportunity to find oneself, to learn to live with life’s difficulties. To change the trajectory of existence and therefore to love differently.

The Latin poet Ovid talks about the art of loving. Can we talk about the art of not loving?
In search of lost time by Marcel Proust, dangerous relationship Pierre Chauderlos de Laclos… In French literature we meet both the art of loving and the art of not loving. But the phrase that I’m interested in is really the phrase of the path, of this process, of crossing with this idea. The difference with art. Mastery. In art, there is always the idea of ​​rules, method. That is why I prefer the concept of a road, with the possibility of making mistakes, of wandering, of stopping. A kind of game between the voluntary and the involuntary, emotions and reason, the conscious and the unconscious.

Disliking is universal.
Yes, we all face this experience of disappointment one day. In this book, I decided to treat it on the basis of three typical, rather specific scenes. First there is this couple who live a true love story. suddenly one decides to break up, and the other is really heartbroken. Then there are all these marriage, family and friendship stories where we are faced with infidelity, lies, betrayal and therefore breakups. Finally, in a more historical way, these Jewish writers who decide to flee Nazi Germany, thus having to learn not to love their country, their culture.

Disappointment transforms us

Fabien Brugger

What are the main reasons?
In our modern societies, it seems to me that infidelity, lies, violence and hatred are the main reasons for not loving. Couple relationships have evolved a lot in recent decades, and what we used to accept is no longer acceptable today. We are modern subjects. The life of a couple is no longer the life of our parents or grandparents, with this unbreakable bond, whatever the cost…

And the warning signs?
Argument, boredom, silence are the most revealing. Even if, of course, they do not always mark the end of the love story.

Can we short circuit them?
No, because these are signs that we only see clearly later. At the moment we are just living them. All these moments are confused, ambiguous, complex emotional knots. How can we separate boredom from something that is normal and part of a couple’s daily life? How can we assess the disturbing, unacceptable nature of the situation? The moment when argument, boredom or silence becomes too invasive in a relationship. Because disappointment always starts in everyday life.

Today, when we refuse to work out of frustration, we will, for example, block another person on social networks

Fabien Brugger

There Is the younger generation used to jumping more ready to fall in love?
I don’t think so, no. It takes different forms depending on the generation. Today, when we refuse to work out of frustration, we will, for example, block another person on social networks. The goal is to disappear from each other’s lives. But this situation is in no way different from a woman of another generation who decides to leave her husband in the morning and move in with her lover the same evening. It’s all very sharp all the same. These are different forms of extinction.

Does the duration of a relationship affect the path to falling in love?
It doesn’t matter how many days, months, years, if the love was very strong. Especially among young people, where heartbreak, often very sudden, should be taken very seriously. Obviously, the shorter the relationship, the less things are given and shared.

Lovelessness is a healing factor.
Once again, disappointment is an experience that will one day always inhabit what happened to me. Strictly speaking, I will never be cured. Treatment involves the establishment of some form of restoration to health. But the moment of love loss is a new journey of life that takes place with the damaged subject, or rather, how he was damaged.