Modern love letters?

© Corinne Marianne Pontoir

Psychoanalyst Sophie Cadalen gives us her advice on love and text messages! 

How have text messages changed relationships?
Text messages have become a way of telling someone you love them for almost everyone. Each generation likes to reinvent or invent new ways of expressing love. We might not write flowery love letters any more, but we send texts instead, and texts are just like letters on paper in that you either keep them or throw them away. 

What do we seek to express through texts?
We try and retain a link between ourselves and the ones we love by texting throughout the day, creating intimacy by making up codes, using nicknames etc. But it goes no further than that: you can never say everything you want to, especially in a text message. It shouldn't be your main method of communication: it's just a little extra. There's nothing stronger than words. When you speak to someone, you can tell from their tone and voice how they're feeling, but you can't tell that from a text message.