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Love/Chemicals and falling in and out of love (LONG)


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After reading post after post about love and people suffering pain from loss of love I asked myself. "What is love really?" How is love defined by the way society uses it and how can love be destructive or misguided.

 

I always used to believe love was just that feeling you had in your stomach those physical feelings and that elated sense of happiness when you were with your partner. If you are in the car alone, you are happy but if your SO is there then you feel inside your body HAPPIER as most would describe it.

 

But love as society defines it is just a rush of chemicals, a high that the body enjoys that comes from the presence of another human being.

 

When we lose our SO because of break-ups, divorce, we lose those chemical feelings our supplier is gone and so is our high.

 

Thats where the idea of I love you but Im not in love with you. To love a person is to admire a persons traits objectively and view them as admirable but to be IN love is to have those chemicals running through your body at some subtle level when you feel those feelings of joy and elation.

 

When you first start dating thats when things are the best, thats when your body is getting the biggest dose of chemicals. Both of you are attentive, both of you are pouring affection on each other and being careful about everything you do.

 

Slowly things however start coming back down, when one of the partners in a relationship starts slowing down and starts paying more attention to other things or starts making or displaying mistakes and his or her true internal self that was not present at the beginning of the relationship.

 

Eventually the "high" that the person feels from the other person starts to fade and eventually enough things happen when one person no longer feels those feelings and leaves.

 

In every relationship there seems to be this pattern of falling IN love and OUT of love. As if LOVE was a state of transformation and change and not just a state of being.

 

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After my own break-up which I am recovering from I realized that there comes a point where your partner no longer feels those chemicals to a strong enough point to stay by your side and change.

 

When the chemicals fall to a certain level you no longer care if the person changes or not for the better. That high is gone.

 

Logically people make decisions all the time, but thats why its so hard for women to leave abusive husbands because they still feel that HIGH of love.

 

Logically my ex could have decided that I was not right for her and I ADMIT openly to her and myself that there were problems that led to our downfall.

 

However it was the "falling OUT of love" that gave her the power to not give you or anyone a second chance.

 

When a person is IN love they will over look your mistakes and will let you mend them because they want to keep that HIGH around, maybe they dont even believe in you that you will change.

 

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I really think that alot of people dont understand that the reason people do alot of things in the name of love are just emotions which are chemicals that rise and fall.

 

What must go up must come down.

 

Which leads us to the next question "How can you have a marriage when you define its existence on temporary chemicals of IN LOVE"

 

Doing so only assures marriage will be temporary to, either a divorce or an affair.

 

I bet that the mistakes that you made near the end of your relationship were not that big of a deal to her or him in the beginning of the relationship.

 

I also know the Chemicals WILL fade eventually in a relationship. So how can you have a LONG lasting relationship when you know that the CHEMICAL high is not going to last forever.

 

My mother once said to me "I love your dad, but you know you fall out of love and then fall back into love and then fall back out and there is no end to it or any sense to be made from it"

 

At first I was shocked to here that love isnt ever lasting and then as I read all the heartbroken stories online I realize that chemical love is NOT everlasting.

 

You will always fall out of love or if not completely, fall SOMEWHAT out of love and then FALL back INTO love again.

 

But usually that means that who we are with also changes. Thats why marriages and all breakups fail.

 

We look for a new SOURCE of that high when we feel the last source has been depleted.

 

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I feel like the perfect relationship is where two responsible adults mutually respect each other and the traits and qualities they posses (ie. kind generous loving etc).

 

They then FALL IN love when they first date. Then that love wanes a bit as it always does, and instead of letting it reach a LOW...LOW...LOW point, the man or the woman out of nowhere wears a sexy dress or plans a romantic dinner and puts energy and puts effort into the relationship and focus on each other. That brings back those feelings of CHEMICAL love to a nice medium.

 

A long lasting relationship is like a slow simmering fire that burns slowly, where you are not pouring your attention and care on each other at levels that are not sustainable but you also dont reach levels of neglect and disregard that the disappear totally.

 

No highs or low.

 

Thats my theory.

 

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I wish that people who used to love us would see "Okay I can see I used to feel love for him, I know these are just chemicals that can come back with time" Let me try and see if he changes and those feelings can come back.

 

Thats how a relationship lasts. Based on LOGIC not love. Love is emotion which is temporary.

 

I expected my ex to see that "Okay I loved this guy a lot at one point, but right now I dont" but I am not going to leave him because I want him to change and once that happens he can try to help us fall back into love again.

 

But since people are guided by their emotions all the time all they can see is "I dont love you anymore" translation "You dont give me a chemical high and I want to get that else where now"

 

What ends up happening is that the emotional bonds and trust and care you had developed between you too the intimacy and connection all gets WASTED because one person wanted that Chemical high.

 

If they were still getting that high from YOU, they'd still be right there trying to make you change for the to keep feeling that feeling of love.

 

I really believe love is a DRUG for those who dont like needles and joints. Which is why the breakup process is almost like a withdrawl period from drugs like coke and heroin.

Edited by harkkam
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No offense to anyone on here who does this... :)

 

But this reminds me of adrenaline junkies. If you jump out of an airplane and go skydiving once, it's a NEW FUN experience. Even the next dozen or so times it's EXCITING. Eventually that adrenaline rush fades. It doesn't go away, but it wanes to the point of being "normal". The same reason drug addicts need "more and more" to feel good. The only alternative is to "try something new".

 

To me, the people who can go back and do something that was done before are the ones who are most successful in relationships. It's really occurred to me that people with large social circles, are actually the worst at relationships, those who constantly travel and meet new people exemplify this by absorbing the emotions/behaviors from new people they meet, new places they go.

 

In the end they aren't ever satisfied with one place, one person. They have to constantly "do something new".

 

The easiest test of this is this: Most people don't like watching movies over and over again. Most people don't read the same book multiple times throughout life unless it is something they REALLY enjoy.

 

I've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy 3 times in life. I come back to it every now and then to re-read it because it's such a great story. Sure, I already KNOW the story, but it's fun to re-read it again after awhile. I wouldn't read it every day mind you, but a the same time I'm not just saying "Oh well, I've read it once, that's enough for me."

 

It's not the best analogy, but I hope it gets the point across.

 

I believe it's not even about "highs" or "lows". It's about those who realize that while change is good occasionally, being comfortable and happy with what you have is the true gem of a relationship.

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