Few things in life can be as confusing as romance. Its rise and decline and its fulfillment or failure can confound minds, upset bodies and disorder normal daily existence.
Usually when we soar into romance we’re flying blind. Aside from high hopes, we have little clear idea of where we’re going and what we’re likely to encounter along the way.
Yet the course of true romance is fairly well known from literature and psychological studies. Its basic features are consistent and often predictable. They also suggests some cautions that can give our relationship a better-than-usual chance of success.
Romancers are ready for love before it happens. Readiness rises from loneliness, boredom, desire for change or escape, craving for excitement, longing to love and be loved or hoping to settle down and live a stable life.
- CAUTION! Some motives are more promising than others.
Romance strikes like a sudden invader. People fall in love not by deliberate choice but as an involuntary reflex. Studies show that men often fall faster. Women tend to be more cautious.
Falling is not always a reliable way to choose a partner. Romantic love, with its irrational power, can bring together the most inappropriate people. Many predictably unhappy marriages begin with this kind of love. “And therefore,” wrote Shakespeare, “is wing’d Cupid painted blind.”
- CAUTION! Introduce your new love-interest to family and friends. Consider their opinions.
Romancers are optimistic. We all know that romance can be extravagantly costly in time, energy and funds. We also realize that it’s booby trapped with illusions, often causes pain and can damage and even wreck lives. Yet we waltz into it eagerly without regard for costs and dangers.
- CAUTION! Keep your wits.Remember that castles in the air cost a great deal to keep up.
Early in romance, lovers feel excited, confused, awkward. They can experience flushed face, rapid breathing, trembling hands, heart palpitations. A shot of adrenaline causes similar reactions. Romance also arouses the same stress as fear, with dilation of pupils, sweaty palms, increased heart rate.
- CAUTION! Take a few deep breaths. Then concentrate less on yourself and your desires and more on the other person.
Romancers idealize their beloved, exaggerating virtues and minimizing flaws. Some psychologists call this the “halo effect.” The lover takes a perfectly ordinary girl or boy and images her or him with crystal-bright qualities: exquisite attractiveness, fascinating personality, pleasing tastes, striking accomplishments. The French author Stendhal, an expert on romantic love, explained, “…from the moment he loves, even the wisest man no longer sees anything as it is.”
Some psychologists believe that lovers project qualities on their beloved that they themselves would like to possess. They hallucinate what they want to have and hold.
- CAUTION! In the early nineteenth century, when people were wary of romance as a basis for marriage, they practiced a policy of “candor”—plain-spokenness, straight talk, openness, deliberate honesty. This deflated some of the illusions of early love and prevented later disillusion. Some Russian lovers exchanged personal diaries.
Romance can take over everything in life. It often interferes with work, studies, family, friendships and other vital matters, which suddenly seem less important.
- CAUTION! As the British say, “Steady-on!” Other things are still important.
Romancers are preoccupied with each other. The 12th-century French churchman Andreas Capellanus observed: “A true lover is continually and without interruption obsessed by the image of his beloved.” Modern psychologists call this condition “intrusive thinking.” A clinical study of romancers found a brain-chemical imbalance similar to that of untreated obsessive-compulsive disorder. This can bring on mania, a racing mind and depression.
- CAUTION! Some psychologists recommend “here-and-now” awareness exercises to help us get out of our heads and be present with whatever we are doing in the moment. “There she/he is again! But really, I am here and doing this important thing now…”
Romancers long to possess each other in an exclusive relationship of attention, care, fidelity and affection. We can share a friend without harming the friendship, but we can’t share a lover.
- CAUTION! Behave strictly as a friend until the other person is known well. Feel free to have other opposite-sex friends until ready to form a commitment.
Romance can forge symbiotic dependence, with lovers like two halves of a popsicle or Siamese twins joined at the heart: “Neither I without you, nor you without me.”
- CAUTION! Symbiotic relationships are based on mutual dependence rather than mutual assistance. This can bring on habits of selfish taking rather than generous giving and will emotionally deplete one or both partners. The solution: Seek less a feeling of oneness and more active kindness and generosity.
The desires of romance can swell to impetuous intensity. Yet romancers are not racked with longing for sex, as the mass media would have us believe. Anthropologist Helen Fisher observes, “…romantic love is considerably stronger than the sex drive.” True romance never focuses mainly on the body, and sex alone can’t satisfy its desires. The romancer dotes on the total person of the beloved—at least as she or he is imagined to be.
- CAUTION! Recognize that the strongest yearning of romance is to be loved in return. Mark Twain defined it as an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. And sex? Smooching or further forms of sexual excitation beginning too soon shift the attention away from the other person to the lover’s own nerve endings. Then getting to know each other as real, whole people slows or stops.
Romantic love thrives on two main emotions: hope and uncertainty. One plays off the other: first hope then uncertainty, then assurance undermined by doubt, then more seeking after hope followed again by insecurity. If hope dies utterly, so does romance. When uncertainty is removed by a pledge or commitment, the excitements of romance begins to relax.
- CAUTION! This suggests that the kindest end to a love relationship is a clean, clear, absolute, unquestionable break that removes hope. Likewise, when reciprocation finally eases feelings of uncertainty, partners should expect the excitements of early romance to fade and be replaced by calm companionship.
Romance running smoothly leaves lovers feeling buoyant, as if they were walking on air. They also might sense tingling in the region of the heart. When their relationship is rocky, they suffer aching in the chest or a hollowness in the abdominal region.
The physiology of romance also goes to the head. Brain researchers link the euphoria of infatuation to chemicals called monoamines. When romancers pledge their troth and settle down, morphine-like substances called endorphins take over and create a happy serenity.
- CAUTION! When thrilling feelings fade, some people decide they’ve fallen out of love and it’s time to move on. Couples less in love with a romantic buzz stay together and rise to the next stage of love. This is a relaxed and stable companionate bonding that replaces impassioned desire with mutual concern and active care for one another’s welfare.
How long is forever? Romancers typically pledge eternal love. Even with a history of failed relationships, a typical romancer insists that “this time it’s the real thing” and makes vows all over again.
- CAUTION! The forever of romance is only for a while. To think of love mainly as high-voltage feelings and then expect it will last is a contradiction of feelings themselves. Emotion tells us only of the moment. That’s what emotion is for. It’s our here-and-now detector, our inner sensor of immediate well-being or distress. But it can’t remember very well, and it can’t predict at all. One study of brain chemistry suggests that intense romantic love lasts between twelve and eighteen months.
Maturing love dwells beyond frantic sentiment and mooning, above churning emotion, with no surging jealousy, bitter breakups or blissful reunions.
Infatuation turns to knowing the other person. Judging is replaced by acceptance. Ardent wanting becomes tender attachment, rational, peaceful and stable. Desire for the other person becomes concern for the other person’s well-being.
Maturing love, at its best, can be intensely spiritual, with the sublime sentiments and actions that we might imagine heaven to offer those who dwell there.
FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR:
Bruce Brander is an award-winning journalist and author specializing in sociological subjects. He worked on the staffs of newspapers in New Zealand and the United States and was a writer and editor for National Geographic. For many years he served as traveling journalist and editor for World Vision Christian relief and development agency. He is author of six books on travel and social issues, including Love That Works: The Art and Science of Giving. He lives in Colorado Springs with his wife Mary, an artist. They have four children.
