Desire also requires looking at the price

We rarely desire a thing in its entirety.

We desire the house on the evening of a party, when the guests admire the living room. We do not desire with the same intensity the years of saving, the renovations and the choices we will have to give up in order to keep it.

We desire marriage in the beauty of a ceremony. We think less about the difficult conversations, the habits to correct and the ordinary decisions through which two people will live out their promise.

Desire naturally chooses the brightest scene. It shows the promise and leaves the bill out of the picture.

That is not a reason to stop desiring. It is a reason to become responsible for what we invite into our life.

A mature desire does not only ask:

"What will I get?"

It also asks:

"What kind of life will have to be built and what price will have to be paid for this to exist?"

A want does not always deserve to become an expectation

We can find a magnificent outfit, imagine a trip or dream of an evening without immediately entrusting that want to our couple.

An expectation adds an obligation:

"I would like that."

Then: "I need it."

Then: "If you loved me, you would do it."

Finally: "Since you are not doing it, I do not count for you."

The initial object disappears. The couple must now answer to an accusation about love.

Some expectations are legitimate: respect, security, the fidelity provided for by the agreement, listening and accepted responsibilities. But a new preference does not become the other person's duty merely because we feel it strongly.

Before turning a desire into an expectation, let us ask: who committed to what? Who will be affected? Why should the other person now be answerable for that outcome?

Desire opens the door to joy and frustration

Wanting to meet someone makes a happy relationship possible, but also a refusal or an incompatibility. Launching a project makes success possible, but also a delay or a failure.

This double opening does not make desire bad.

It reminds us that we cannot welcome its promise while declaring every different outcome illegitimate.

We sometimes suffer less from the outcome than from the belief that this outcome had no right to disappoint us. We had confused a possibility with a promise.

A person who wants to know only the happy outcome does not yet desire a real experience. They desire a guarantee that the world has not given them.

Where does this desire come from?

Some desires come from an intimate knowledge of ourselves. Even if no one sees them, they continue to matter.

Others appear right after a comparison.

A friend wears a dress that suits her well. The image produces a want, then the want presents itself as a personal need. We can even reproach our partner for not funding quickly enough a desire that did not exist before someone else showed it to us.

The problem is not being inspired.

Inspiration translates. Covetousness copies.

Inspiration asks: "What does this image teach me about myself, and how can I adapt it to my reality?"

Covetousness asks: "Why don't I have exactly the same thing?"

A test can help us: if no one saw what we are about to obtain, would we still desire it?

The desire to be seen is not shameful. But if the object loses almost all its value without an audience, we are perhaps mainly seeking status, admiration or proof of our importance.

Behind the form, look for the emotion

A bag can promise to make us feel elegant. A house can promise security. A marriage can promise to be chosen. A trip can promise freedom and rest.

The visible object carries an invisible emotion.

If we do not name that emotion, the form becomes unique and mandatory. We no longer want to feel close: it has to be this precise restaurant. We no longer want to celebrate: it has to be this venue, this date and this number of guests.

Understanding the emotion does not make all forms identical. A walk is not a trip. But several paths can sometimes nourish a part of what matters.

We then find again the freedom to adapt the means without abandoning the meaning.

The bag with the red bottom

A woman had shown her partner the exact bag she wanted to carry to an outing.

The model was no longer available. With the help of a saleswoman, the man chose an almost identical version. One difference existed: the bottom of the bag was dark red, a detail almost invisible when the bag was set down.

When she received it, she did not first see the search, the trip or the will to respond to her want. She saw the red.

She had the right to prefer the initial model. A tiny difference for one person can have real value for the other. Gratitude does not oblige us to lie about what we like.

But the exact form had absorbed the object, the gesture and the occasion.

An adult response could hold both truths:

"I see everything you did. This difference still matters to me. Let's look for a solution without erasing your gesture."

Gratitude does not require loving every outcome. It prevents one absent value from making all the values that are present disappear.

We sometimes imagine an audience that will not look

We are certain that the guests will see the detail, that the family will judge the venue or that the colleagues will understand the brand.

Then the real audience arrives with its freedom.

Some like it. Some notice nothing. Others are thinking about their own problems and will forget tomorrow what cost us several months of tension.

We can take care of a presentation. We cannot buy unanimity.

When our desire depends on the outside verdict, we sometimes make our partner responsible for the object, for its funding and for the reaction of every witness.

No partner can guarantee that power.

Distinguishing the value of the gesture and the approval we imagine we are buying

We can want an object for the pleasure it will give us. We can also hope that it will make others look at us differently. These two benefits are not identical: we can choose a thing, but we do not possess the reaction of the witnesses.

Before committing shared resources, it is useful to ask what would still matter if no one congratulated the choice. The question does not forbid public pride or beauty. It helps to see which part of the project depends on an expectation that neither we nor our partner can guarantee.

Another form can sometimes preserve the experience we are seeking at a lower cost. Sometimes, the precise object remains a preference we hold dear. We must then own it as such and look honestly at what it displaces. Dialogue becomes fairer when the partner is no longer burdened at the same time with funding a desire and producing the admiration we expect from others. A disappointment at receiving does not automatically prove that he loved badly.

Desire can give power to the one who seems to hold the key

If we absolutely need funding, a validation or a proof of love, the one who seems able to give it to us gains power.

We may accept a humiliation to obtain the money or close our eyes to an inconsistency to keep access.

This observation never makes the victim responsible for manipulation or abuse. The perpetrator remains responsible for his acts.

But regaining our freedom also requires identifying the places where a desire has placed too much of our power in someone else's hands.

Can we postpone? Reduce the project? Look for another resource? Accept losing the opportunity rather than paying with our dignity or our safety?

A desire that tolerates no refusal becomes a door through which many pressures can enter.

The full price goes beyond the checkout

The price contains money, but also time, maintenance, risks, dependencies, renunciations and what we will not be able to fund at the same time.

It also contains what others will have to pay.

A trip can be financially affordable and fall at a time when our partner is already carrying an immense burden. A project can seem free because we are using our own money while taking the evenings and the attention that the household was counting on.

In a couple, the one who desires is not always the one who pays.

So it is not enough to say: "It's my dream." The dream may belong to us. Its consequences may already have entered two lives.

A partner can freely choose to contribute more to a desire that was not his own. That generosity disappears when his contribution becomes a mandatory proof of love.

"If you loved me, you would find the money" does not create any resource. That sentence turns a financial limit into an emotional accusation.

To want a relationship is to want the human package

We can desire closeness, presence and intimacy.

A real relationship also contains another will, another story, needs we would not have chosen, moments of fatigue and disagreements.

Accepting this package never means accepting violence, control or humiliation. These behaviors do not become the normal price of love.

The normal package contains difference, negotiation, imperfection and a reasonable frustration. The inherent cost accompanies the project. The avoidable problem calls for a correction. The transgression may require a boundary or an exit.

This distinction prevents using the philosophy of the price to make someone pay for what they never accepted.

Adapt, postpone or abandon

Many desires contain a core and a wrapping.

The core can be celebrating, resting, feeling chosen or protecting a stability. The wrapping sometimes concerns the place, the date, the price or the exact manner.

Adapting does not always mean resigning ourselves. It sometimes allows us to preserve the meaning without destroying what the desire was meant to serve.

Postponing can also respect the desire. An expense that comes too early turns joy into fear of the bills. A relationship begun to escape loneliness receives a mission that no partner will be able to fulfill.

A serious postponement has a reason, a stage and a moment of review. Without that, it becomes a promise that never begins.

Finally, some desires must be abandoned. They were borrowed, belonged to an old version of us or would today demand a price contrary to our values.

Renouncing can cause a grief. But it can also mean:

"I might perhaps be able to obtain that. I simply no longer want to offer this part of my peace, of my couple or of my dignity to obtain it."

Mature desire answers for its bill

We cannot fulfill all our desires at the same time. Saying yes to one often means saying not now to another.

A responsible life does not fulfill everything it wants. It knows which desires deserve to become commitments.

A mature desire can say where it comes from, what emotion it is seeking, what it will bring, but also its price, its risks and the people it concerns.

It withstands a discussion, an adaptation, a delay and sometimes a refusal.

Responsibility does not kill desire.

It only takes away its right to hide its bill in someone else's life.

The bill for my desire

Does this desire belong to me or does it come from a recent comparison?

What emotion am I expecting from its exact form?

Who will pay the full price of it, today and tomorrow?

What core can I preserve by adapting the project?

Does my way of pursuing this desire respect my values and the other person's freedom?