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Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? - Romance - Nairaland

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Is Dis Love Or Infatuation....advise Pls / Love Or Infatuation? How Do We Differentiate? / Love, Attraction or Infatuation: Which Comes First? (2) (3) (4)

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Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by tmx21(m): 11:33pm On Nov 19, 2014
If you’ve grown up in Western culture, you’ve been inundated
from the time you were born with images and beliefs about love.
Most, if not all, of these images are predicated on the archaic
paradigm of romantic love. Romantic love is not real love.
Romantic love is, most simply put, infatuation. It’s based on the
model of longing for someone that you can never completely
have, and it’s this longing that then becomes mistaken for real
love. Being in a state of longing is a dramatic and fully alive
experience. It creates butterflies in your belly and light-
headedness in your mind. If not understood properly, the one in
the longing position can easily believe that she or he is “in love.”
If the object of the longing, often called “the beloved”, does
reciprocate, “the lover” often runs the other way. And so begins
an all-too familiar game of chase with each participant alternating
between the pursuer or distancer roles. The game is emotionally
intense but ultimately unsatisfying. The bottom line is that real
intimacy never occurs. It’s dramatic but safe. It’s temporarily
painful but there’s no long-term risk involved. And it certainly
isn’t a healthy model on which to base a marriage!
Real love, on the other hand, requires that both people show up
for each other in the same place at the same time. There is no
game-playing, which creates more consistent stability in terms of
the intensity of emotion; gone are the ecstatic highs and
despairing lows that defined the unhealthy relationships of the
past. As such, real love requires that both people risk their hearts
to form a bond of true intimacy.
One of my clients recently asked me to define real love. So here
is my list of the beliefs, attributes, and precepts that define real
love (with the caveat that I’m not sure that anyone understands
love in its totality!):
1. Real love is a conscious choice that often employs the
rational part of our brains. Some couples have a “free ride” in
the early stages of their relationship where they experience the
intense feelings characterized by romantic love, but not
everyone. And these feelings certainly aren’t necessary for real
love to emerge as the relationship grows, as evidenced by the
success rate of arranged marriages in other parts of the world.
It’s when the infatuation feelings diminish that the couple has to
learn that love is a choice, not a feeling, as M. Scott Peck says in
“The Road Less Traveled.”
2. Real love accepts that your partner is a fallible,
imperfect human, just as you are. Unlike romantic life, which
ascends the object of desire to the realm of a god, part of the jolt
down to earth that many of clients experience during their
engagement is the realization that their partner is not perfect –
that he isn’t as smart or witty or fun or good-looking as she
thought the person she would marry would be. The romantic
bubble of marrying Prince Charming is burst. Most of my clients
focus on one missing area – sometimes to the point of obsession
– and it’s often an attribute that never bothered her before they
were engaged. As time passes, the real fears are addressed, and
love is redefined, the obsession mellows and she learns to accept
and fully love her partner exactly as he is.
3. Real love ebbs and flows in terms of interest, ease,
and feelings. In other words, in any healthy relationship there
will be times when things effortlessly work, where the spark is
alive and the couple is interested in one another and life. And
there will be times of, for lack of a better word, boredom. Part of
accepting real love is understanding that the boredom is normal
and not a symptom that something is wrong with the
relationship or that you don’t love your partner enough.
4. Real love is based on shared values and a solid
friendship. You genuinely like each other (even though you
might not like everything about your partner).
5. Real love is action. Real love asks that you give even when
you don’t feel like giving (in a healthy way, not a codependent
way). Real love is more concerned with how you can give to
your partner than what you can get from him or her.
6. Real love is a spiritual practice in that your focus is not
how you can change your partner to alleviate your anger,
pain, or annoyance but how you can assume full
responsibility for those feelings and find healthy and
constructive ways to attend to them . When you change in
positive ways, the relationship will positively change as well. Real
love is a lifelong practice. You’re not expected to know how to
give and receive real love at the onset of marriage, but are
expected to work at it so that over the course of your life together
your capacity to love grows.
So the next time you watch a romantic comedy and find yourself
doubting if you love your wonderful, supportive, honest, loving
partner enough, read over this list and see if your anxiety finds
containment as you redefine what love really is.
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by Nobody: 11:47pm On Nov 19, 2014
Mine actually started with infatuation before graduating to love
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by AntiWomanWrapin: 11:48pm On Nov 19, 2014
boring write up undecided
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by kennynelcon(m): 5:04am On Nov 20, 2014
long text...We still fall in love.
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by happykidArotiba(m): 5:13am On Nov 20, 2014
Yes, we still do, just that most times it starts up with infatuation, and it ends up in love.
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by major466(m): 8:00am On Nov 20, 2014
Fantastic article. A perfect definition of Eloquence.
Romantic movies and Novels are wrecking more havoc in marriages. Infatuation is the base of most relationship. Romantic relationship is a fiction.

1 Like

Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by Freshtomato(f): 8:04am On Nov 20, 2014
I tried to read it. I really did. But it is just too long cry
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by BreezyRita(f): 8:11am On Nov 20, 2014
I almost finished reading it but I decided to comment......
Crux: People fall in love
Re: Do We Still Fall In Love? Or Infatuation? by tmx21(m): 5:16pm On Nov 20, 2014
Freshtomato:
I tried to read it. I really did. But it is just too long cry
aww sorry, i'll post another article but not the long type. Hop you'll follow it.

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