[Guest Article written by Dave Carder]
Infatuation is a drug and like most drugs it can create intoxication and addiction. It can leave you disappointed, disillusioned, and angry. Yet, the search for its thrill is everywhere evident. Just look at the percentages on adultery. Read the the research on workplace affairs. Look at surveys where 68% of women say they would have an affair if they knew they would not get caught.
Infatuation, though dangerous, is a very necessary part of the bonding process in couple attachment. Following are some guidelines to help manage it, some cautions about how infatuation distorts sexual activity, how infatuation appeals to your emotional deficits, and finally, some warnings about resurrecting old infatuations in this new relationship.
Guidelines
Infatuation causes one to distort, to deny, or discount differences between the two of you. Rather than fight infatuation, use it to your advantage by:
- Focusing on your differences and the unknowns that exist within each of you, you will never be more accepting of each other than when you are infatuated with each other.
- Limiting your time together. Research is clear that the more time you spend together while infatuated, the more likely you are to become sexual with each other. Sex can be dangerous to the longevity of the relationship during the infatuation period.
- Satisfying your need for touch by using Sensate Focus exercises. Google “sensate focus exercises” for a series of non-sexual, but very healing touching experiences. These exercises also encourage respect and trust between the couple.
- Taking the Couple Checkup in order to highlight the topics the two of you need to talk about. See www.Prepare/Enrich.com
Infatuation and Sex
When you hop in bed on your wedding night, you will find six of you in there; his mom and dad, your mom and dad, and the two of you! Disgusting, isn’t it? Even if you are a virgin on your wedding night, you have put together a well developed sexual history that you need to be thoroughly cognizant of before you marry. Infatuation makes you think the two of you can create your own sexual experience apart from this history, but you have been collecting sexual attitudes, experiences, perceptions, etc… since the day you were born.
Sexual activity while infatuated, creates an artificial sense of closeness. Infatuation, combined with great sex (and it is almost always “great” during this period of time), sets a couple up for disillusionment after marriage when real life and real schedules set in. Genuine closeness comes from using this sexual energy, this time of infatuation, to explore all of your differences, your values, your history, your goals, etc… It is always more fun to make love when you are together, but even that will end when you begin to think, after marriage, that due to your differences, you married the wrong person.
Your relationship is only as “old” as it is non-sexual.
Sexual activity while infatuated, keeps the relationship from developing. If your relationship is a year old, but you have been sexual with each other shortly after the first three months of dating, you have a three month old relationship. Why? Because, though it is always more fun to make love, it is the resolution of differences that will provide long term potential for genuine intimacy. This is especially true of relationships that only see each other on weekends, during college breaks, trips between deployments, etc. The thinking often goes like this, “Why rock the boat by discussing what I know could create a disagreement. We have so little time together anyway.”
Sexual trauma that occurred prior to this relationship can not be healed by a spouse should you decide to marry this person. Infatuation and premature sex will make you think otherwise. You think you have found the healer of your soul. Not true. Infatuation will make your think that childhood wounds and neglect can be taken care of by your spouse. It will not happen. Self disclosure, when embraced by an infatuated lover helps, but you need to bring to the marriage as clean a slate as you can create.
Infatuation and Emotional Deficits
We all leave home about “half baked”. It is this “unfinished business”, these ” issues”, this “baggage”, that often enhances the infatuation. You have found a “soul mate”. Someone who understands your deepest needs. A woman who appears to provide you the nurturing and mothering that you missed when living with your step mom. A male mentor, the father figure, that you lost forever, when your dad left the family. Someone that accepts you just the way you are, not like the “black sheep” you have been in your family. A woman who loves your music and doesn’t view you as a “dreamer”, but believes in your vision. Someone who is fun, impulsive, and spontaneous, when everyone in your family was rigid, organized, and disciplined. It is this opposite, this exhilarating breath of fresh air, what you have always been looking for, that fuels the attraction, the intrigue, and the infatuation. But beware, these differences hold great potential for future conflict if you don’t use the energy from the feelings of infatuation to explore solutions.
Infatuation and “First Loves”
The feelings of infatuation are stored in the brain. This is especially true of the infatuations of adolescence. One never forgets adolescent music, sporting events, movies, cars, dating experiences, and certainly “first loves”. Just look at the “retro” designs, reunions, popular music, and the interest in the lives of the actors and actresses of your teenage years.
Engagement is a period where you must learn to leave behind forever, the boyfriends and girlfriends of adolescence. The internet has changed how quickly one can find “first loves” (or they can find you!) when feelings of infatuation have faded in a marriage. Persons with whom you share an “infatuation history” are now off limits. Why? Because you don’t need time to develop infatuation with these folks, you already have a full dose of it stored in your brain just waiting to be rekindled! It will shock you how quickly it can sweep you off your feet, confuse you, and make you question the relationship you are now in. This is especially true if you had a sexual relationship with and thought of marrying this “first love”. Internet contact with old “first loves” are developing into one of the biggest threats ever to marital stability.
Conclusion
Infatuation is a great source of energy that can be very reassuring to both partners as they continue to forge this relationship. Use it for the purpose it serves best; keeping you connected when discussions of differences could drive you apart. This successful use of infatuation will only draw you closer and confirm that just maybe, the two of you really are meant for each other!
*Originally published in All-in-One Marriage Prep, www.allinonemarriageprep.com.
Used with permission. _________________________________________________________________________________________
DAVE CARDER currently serves as Pastor responsible for Counseling Ministries at the First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. He holds graduate degrees in Biblical Literature and in Counseling Psychology as well as the Michigan Limited License in Psychology and the Marriage and Family Therapy license in California. Dave has published five books, one of which won The Gold Medallion Award in Personal Evangelism in 1993. Dave and his wife, Ronnie, have four adult children and five grandchildren. In their spare time they enjoy jogging.
