Does the question surprise you? I agree that there are very few times in our lives when our emotions dictate as clearly to us what to do as when we fall in love. Separation from your partner is unbearable, you think about them obsessively, you become madly jealous of anything that interests them other than you, and the icing on the cake: they seem to you to be perfect in every way! Here, finally, is your ideal partner – nothing has ever seemed so obvious, and even if our friends and family try to point out some of the negative aspects they see, our brain dictates the only possible way to go: straight into the arms of our love object.
One of the questions I get asked the most often is about the need for feeling this form of what I call “passionate” love – if someone isn’t experiencing these strong emotions, he or she wonders if what they have with their partner is a “real” love story, or not. But then, on the other hand, those who have been passionately in love find after a few years (sometimes months) that the effects have dissipated and their “ideal” partner has become rather annoying. Each partner feels they’ve been deceived about the other’s qualities and wonders if they are, actually, “the one.”
There is no denying that passionate love really exists – many of us have experienced it, but also the intensity of happiness and despair that it makes us feel has led to our most moving novels, films, songs and poetry. If we haven’t personally fallen in love, we actively seek to do so… But what does this crazy kind of love actually mean and does it predict a happy life together?
Science has a rather negative opinion of the pertinence of passionate love in our modern world. This fusional kind of relationship would have been very useful in a prehistoric, natural world where the survival of a human baby depended on the presence of both parents just after its birth to feed, shelter and protect it. Around the age of 18-24 months, the baby, now a child, has enough personal capabilities that just one parent is enough to ensure the best probability of survival, so the forces of nature have put into place the behavioral mechanisms that force parental fusion for just the first 18 to 36 months… “Love lasts 3 years” as they say.
Far from being a sign of compatibility, passionate love could even be considered to be a masking process, allowing two adults to be very happy together during this crucial period without really knowing each other. If we hope to guarantee a long and happy future as a couple, it is in our best interests to develop our knowledge of each other, rather than being blind to any discordant qualities, to build common life plans that appeal to both, based on each other’s tastes for family, travel, career, education, money, place to live and everything else that contributes to daily happiness.
But don’t feel badly if you do fall in love passionately; it’s very hard not to succumb to the euphoria so we may as well enjoy it! However, as men and women of the 21st century, let’s be clear-sighted about its meaning and take advantage of the time it lasts to build the kind of love that can last a lifetime with our sexual partner.