Q: My boyfriend and I are talking about being engaged. He has “the tingles” and I would say I have less “tingles.” I am very attracted to him, but this time I feel like my actions are more guided by rational thinking. We have spoken about many of the concepts in your book and we are more compatible than anyone I have ever met before. I feel loved by him and he makes a lot of effort to speak my love language; he is my best friend. My concern is, is it ok to move forward with him if I have never had the obsessive, euphoric stage of being “in love” and I have made the choice to love my best friend?
A: The in-love experience with all the euphoria is temporary. It has a two-year life span so it’s not the foundation for marriage. However, you need to give a lot of reflection on whether or not this is the man who you want to spend the rest of your life wife. The normal pattern is that we get the tingles, get attracted, start dating, and have euphoric feelings for each other. But there are people who fall into the same category you fall into; they haven’t had those euphoric feelings.
There’s something about that person that did not stimulate those feelings. That’s the thing you need to identify; what is it about him that does not attract, stimulate or draw you to him? It sounds like you have a lot of things in common but you need to identify those things that may be lacking in the relationship, which may be a sign to say, “Maybe we should not get married.”
