Following infatuation comes feelings of romantic love. This is the stage that bridges the gap between infatuation and the deeper committed love between two people who have been together for years and gained true intimacy. However, while the hope and intention is that romantic love will grow into a deeper and committed love, it doesn’t always happen.
Romantic love is often based on the feelings that we will never change the way we feel, but in reality, it isn’t possible for romantic love to continue until the end of life. Feelings change. Dreams change. Life changes. Jobs change. Things happen! And all through these changes, it’s impossible for a love to stay fixed.
Symptoms of romantic love include thoughts or statements which include: “I would do anything for them,” “I treasure everything about them,” “He’ll always be my sweetheart,” “Nothing could make me not love them,” or “I’ll always adore her/him.”
These are feelings that feel good and make us feel good about ourselves. In fact, they make us feel so good that for some people the goal is to find romantic love because we are in love with feeling in love. Then, unless this new connection transforms into a deeper kind of intimacy, the partners become disappointed in each other. This is when people say that they’ve lost the honeymoon phase.
Some people, who marry before romantic love fades, will discover that this honeymoon phase can last anywhere from 2 years to almost 7 years. They continue to experience romantic love and expect that those feelings will remain. Once the honeymoon phase is over they are disappointed and begin to look for love in places outside their marriage or committed relationship.
Romantic love is an important phase of a relationship because it deepens infatuation into something more mature and helps to build a bridge to an even deeper and more committed love which doesn’t depend on hormonally driven ìfeelingsî but rather on decisions made. The reality is that we can love who we choose to love because our feelings follow our thoughts which then generate actions.
In other words, if you think loving and generous thoughts about someone, the high likelihood is that you’ll also experience feelings of love for them. There is a chemical component to infatuation and the early stages of romantic love which cannot be generated through feelings. In some instances this chemical reaction becomes nothing more than physical attraction, while in other circumstances it becomes something deeper and more emotionally satisfying.
Again all this chemistry takes place i your brains and is linked to many factors like evolution, life stage, environment, culture and much more! Time for you to become a Couple Warrior and make sure you don’t belong to the 70% of couple failures!
Be You, Be Two, Be New,
Thomas
