A real couple in love: signs of sincere love

For centuries, people have been trying to understand what love is, because every person at least once encountered this inexplicable feeling that radically changed his life. But even today, despite centuries of searching, there is no unambiguous and generally accepted interpretation of this concept. However, we will try to give the most accurate definition, consider the 10 main signs of love, and therefore get as close as possible to the true understanding of what love is. Let's begin.

What is love?

Love is a long-lasting and strong feeling of affection, implying sympathy for a person, the desire to be close and experience joint emotions, and also to make him happy.

Anyone who has encountered this feeling knows that love implies the strongest affection. A person in love simply cannot imagine life without someone for whom he has romantic feelings. It is interesting that even today psychologists and other scientists cannot unambiguously explain the nature of love and the mechanisms of its occurrence.

Analyzing the nature of love, psychology considers three key manifestations of this feeling:

1. Internal drug
   . Our well-being and mood are determined by a complex set of chemicals that can influence nerve cells. States of love and falling in love cause powerful releases of substances that make a person happy. The nervous system seems to give us a hint: “Here it is!” You feel good when he's around. Remember this!
2. Nervous disease
   . Despite the surge of energy, it is difficult for a person in love to concentrate, his memory deteriorates, and his actions often become illogical. The brain functions in an unnatural way, preventing a person from fully controlling his own actions.
3. Habit
   . The riot of hormones and neurotransmitters subsides over time. But by this moment people remember with whom they feel good, so they continue to love each other, but with a calmer and more balanced love. At the same time, they begin to act rationally again, and mutual feelings no longer prevent them from working and doing other important things.

Signs of sympathy

A person can feel sympathy for several people at the same time. It occurs immediately after meeting. This is a feeling of affection for a person, which is characterized by the following signs:

• emotional attraction to a person;
• common values, beliefs, interests;
• a positive reaction to the appearance, character traits, behavior of another person;
• goodwill and increased interest;
• feeling of similarity.

Sympathy often arises in friendship, where there is affection between people and pleasure in communicating with each other, but sometimes develops into falling in love.

How is love different from falling in love?

There are thousands of works in world literature that describe the one and only love of a lifetime. In reality, everything is somewhat more complicated. Almost each of us first experienced romantic feelings back in school, but then connected our lives with a completely different person. This is explained by the fact that in their youth people are inexperienced and often perceive their first crush as love.

What is falling in love, and how does it differ from true love? This is a strong sympathy that arises, as a rule, among teenagers and young people who do not yet have experience in personal relationships. Looking at the guy or girl they like from the outside, they create in their own imagination an idealized image that does not correspond to reality. When the relationship develops, the perfect image collapses and feelings disappear.

An important distinguishing feature of love is the desire to take care of a person, give him all kinds of benefits and provide emotional comfort. And although falling in love is not a selfish feeling, it mainly implies the desire to spend time with a person, and not live for him.

The difference between love and falling in love is best described by a Chinese proverb: “Being in love is when you pick the flower you like and take it away. Love is when you bring water to water it every day.”

Love differs from falling in love by awareness. A person in love does not need an ideal; he is ready to put up with shortcomings. True love “ripes” much longer than falling in love, but it is almost impossible to destroy it with petty misunderstandings. We are ready to forgive a loved one more than ourselves.

Falling in love makes a person idealize the object of his affection, and therefore often becomes the cause of unhappy marriages. Young boys and girls, having fallen in love, do not see any flaws in their chosen ones. They quickly start families, believing that they have already met the love of their lives. But living together very quickly sobers them up, and they realize that they are strangers to each other.

True love changes too. Passion and romance pass, but the couple still maintains affection, respect and other important feelings. The so-called “maturation of relationships” occurs. At the same time, the desire to be together is preserved, friendship and mutual affection are strengthened, and the spouses have no doubt that they have chosen correctly with whom to start a family.

Signs of falling in love

Falling in love is a very vivid feeling that has the following signs:

1. Falling in love is a feeling that is often called “love at first sight.” This type of romantic emotion is characterized by a strong emotional and physical attraction between one person and another.
2. Falling in love is born when you see another person and begin to admire his appearance, behavior, speech, and so on. Falling in love consists mainly of emotions; with its onset usually comes a feeling of euphoria, a rush of adrenaline. This strong emotional outburst is compared to the feeling of “butterflies in the stomach” and is not controlled by the person.
3. A person in love extols the object of his passion, ignoring his shortcomings and exaggerating his strengths. He is overcome by passion, he is fascinated by another person and considers him the limit of his dreams. There is also a desire to like, to become better and to do pleasant things. Falling in love does not necessarily imply the existence of a relationship: you can be unrequitedly in love.
4. Falling in love is based on passion and infatuation, so it often does not last long. Falling in love appears instantly and can just as quickly disappear if interest in a person disappears, or turn into true love. It takes effort from both partners to maintain the spark. People who move from one relationship to another, seeking to constantly feel in love, may lose sight of true love because it takes time to develop.
5. Falling in love is short-lived. There is a saying that love lasts 3 years. In fact, it is not love that lasts this long, but infatuation.
6. Falling in love often manifests itself depending on the partner. You constantly think about your lover, want to be with him as often as possible, abandon other things for his sake, and so on.

Famous psychologists about love

Many psychologists have studied and described this feeling in detail in their works. To better understand what love is, it is worth familiarizing yourself with some interesting thoughts of outstanding authors.

Robert Sternberg (American professor of psychology) identified three main components without which love cannot exist: passion, attraction and responsibility.

Arthur Petrovsky (Soviet and Russian psychologist) said that people in love should be passionate about each other, and sincere feelings are always clearly visible from the outside. He argued that love cannot exist in the presence of even the slightest mistrust. He also believed that for love to exist, actions are required, and feelings alone are not enough.

Erich Fromm (German sociologist and psychoanalyst of the mid-20th century) called love a mutually beneficial commercial alliance. He believed that lovers should give themselves completely to love, giving the maximum to their partner and receiving the maximum in return. And if such an approach to relationships is mutual, then the marriage will be successful, even when the initial passion evaporates. Otherwise, love can immediately be considered failed.

Harry Sullivan (an American psychologist of the early 20th century) believed that true love can only be spoken of when a lover exalts the interests of his loved one over his own.

John Gottman (American psychologist) suggested that one of the worst manifestations of love is the idealization of a partner. True love never clouds your eyes and does not prevent you from seeing the shortcomings of your loved one.

Henry Dix (British psychologist of the mid-20th century and founder of psychoanalytic marital therapy) argued that only indifference can completely and irrevocably kill love.

Esther Perel (a psychotherapist from Belgium and a regular participant in TED conferences) says that to maintain love, it is important to always maintain a sense of self-worth.

Please note that in the above examples, psychologists talk about love as an experience, but do not mention the physiological aspects of this feeling. Moreover, from a scientific point of view, love is a purely physiological process. Attachment to a person is formed and strengthened by the release of special chemicals in the brain that provide pleasure and other sensations.

Attachment

Attachment is an established habit of always being there, seeing someone you like, and having the opportunity for long-term communication. Many truly happy marriages have been built on the basis of this feeling, because nothing can unite two different people like a common interest and a common cause. First there is a passion for solving these common work or scientific problems, and then signs of love begin to appear. But here it is worth keeping in mind that joint work may end and along with it the factors uniting the spouses will disappear. So if, apart from the work of the two, nothing else connects, the marriage may lose its relevance. Therefore, in marriages based on affection, you need to find other, no less important points of contact, and then your union will be successful.

Differences

Unlike true love, other feelings are tied to profit, noble intentions and other irrational concepts. When a person sincerely fell in love, public opinion and the material component became unimportant for him.

Is it possible to make someone fall in love with you?

You can make someone fall in love with you, but will the effect last? To seduce, young people use expensive gifts, shower them with compliments, and show excessive care. Girls try to look perfect, cook delicious food and always be in a good mood. In the first stages, you can make you fall in love with the “picture,” but sooner or later your true character and lifestyle will begin to appear. If love is real, any changes will go unnoticed. One of the ancient ways to test the sincerity of feelings is to do a common task, for example, hanging wallpaper. In the process of selection and repair, true character traits sometimes emerge.

You are not shy about looking ridiculous in front of each other.

With your hair tousled after sleep, bags under your eyes and a pillow imprint on your cheek, you are not afraid that you will be unloved for not conforming to the ideal image. Because there is no ideal image - there is you, a living person who, by definition, cannot look your best 24/7.

A period of some embarrassment at the beginning of a relationship is an absolutely normal story: at first, many of us want to look better than we really are. Over time, we understand that what is dear to our partner is not the carefully created image of a plastic baby doll without flaws, but a living person, with all his illnesses, extra pounds and a sudden pimple on his forehead. This is a sign that falling in love has grown into a real feeling.

Passion

Passion most often manifests itself in relation to brilliant personalities - movie or pop stars, famous artists or directors, scientific luminaries, musicians, writers and other people who have succeeded in life and arouse the admiration of others. Wives and husbands in love often sacrifice their personal careers to ensure the successful creativity of their chosen one. This feeling is based on sincere admiration for the abilities of the loved one and his achievements. You can live your life happily in such a marriage, but on the condition that the half of the family serving the genius is not burdened by such a secondary position.

Approaching

An excellent article by Evolution about what it is like - real, mutual love in adults, and what infantile love is like - love dependence, addiction, non-reciprocal love, gestalts and love with suffering - how and why it is formed. It is very useful to apply to yourself and your past experiences, current relationships.

On a similar topic, I recently wrote a post “How do “dirty” guys make girls fall in love with them?”

I remember that all my life I was proud of the fact that I wanted a relationship such that it was soul to soul, practically knowing each other’s thoughts) Not to be separated for a day. I remember it was really hard to be separated; the degree of merging was always strong in the relationship.

But if you don’t separate for a day for years, it’s true that somehow it usually worked out, but the relationship always ended up in discord, because... my rapid and strong fusion and dependence, and life in illusions in my head, without seeing the real other person, his desires and needs, sooner or later still led to an imbalance, or even started with it.

Then rolling pins, tongs on my part, stories or hints about what true love should be like, relationships towards a couple and attitude towards me, stretching out this attitude. The feeling that objective truth is on my side, this is exactly how love should be, and sooner or later the other one will understand this.

In essence, you treat the other as an object, a subject, and not a subject of the relationship. Even somewhere you don’t respect him and consider him flawed if he doesn’t understand “how it should be done.” You imagine yourself to be superior, you consider yourself a treasure for the sake of which another must reconsider everything. Although in fact, you are inferior, it is you who are clinging and waiting for something and demanding something, you are dependent and it is you who need his some kind of “special” love from the other in order to feel better, not him. Everything is fine with him, you are quite enough for him and this measure of merging, he doesn’t need any more, and sometimes, gradually, he begins to have too much of you.

In general, respect and gratitude are the main ways of sharing boundaries.

I saw exactly the same thoughts and problems in many girlfriends, and friends too, which is why I really want to bring this article here.

It’s great that now we have a theory clearly and concisely laid out in simple language, thanks to which we can better understand what is happening in relationships. If you have a theory, you can cover your blind spots with it. That's how it works.

One of my favorite quotes:

“No, I think, no joke, that in order to know love, you have to make a mistake and then get better,” said Princess Betsy.

- Even after marriage? - the envoy's wife said jokingly.

“That’s right,” Betsy picked up, “you have to make a mistake and get better.”

"Anna Karenina", Leo Tolstoy

For the article “True Love”, which I will give below, it is also good to read these articles of Evolution:

— “About merger” — “Appropriation” — “Why is love blind?” — “Stages of Border Merging” — “Merger and Balance” — “Personal Boundaries in Marriage” — “Subjectivity” — “The Secret of Ash”

"Balance Guarantee"

Also this is my selection:

— “How pressure gives rise to resistance and reduces one’s own desire and spontaneity”

Here is from this article linked above:

“The guarantee of balance is love without fusion.

In general, merging is also love. But peculiar. Infantile, immature. When merging, balance is impossible.

In merging, a person perceives the other as a part of himself, namely a physical part, an integral part.

Thanks to this, he cannot distinguish his emotions from the emotions of the other, that same bad “we” appears when a person thought, but it seems to him that they both thought, wanted, but it seems to him that they both wanted. And he builds his behavior on the basis of these erroneous ideas, based on illusions. »

And she also has many articles under the tag “resource of Love”.

It’s also worth reading about codependency on my blog.

And this, below, is the entire article by Evolution (Marina Komissarova) “True Love”:

There are two seemingly incompatible points of view about true love.

1. True love is mutual love.

2. True love is unconditional, unbreakable love.

If true love is mutual, it should pass as soon as the second one has cooled down, right?

But this means that love is not strong, but fragile, and always lives with caution, has the other one fallen out of love?

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Life hacks, secrets, guides, new items, stories. Some people solve the contradiction simply. Since true love is mutual, and it is strong, it means you need to fall in love harder and the second one will not go anywhere, it will also catch up. These are the most charming infantiles, heaven or the chemistry of love must do everything for them: attract a partner that matches their scent and ensure mutual love forever with the help of invisible but strong bonds.

Now I’ll tell you how the contradiction is actually resolved. I’ll tell you more precisely why there is no contradiction.

The words "true love" have two meanings. “Real” means realistic, without illusions. And “real” means expressed, strong.

So, realistic love is always mutual. It can be very strong as long as it is reciprocated, but when the reciprocity goes away, realistic love diminishes. Therefore, two adults can love each other firmly, faithfully and deeply all their lives, until their last breath, but if the spouse stops loving them for some reason, their love will also decrease or come to naught, let them go, or rather, let the other one go.

I want to draw your attention: this mechanism is built in by default, intrapersonally, evolutionarily, I will now tell you exactly how it is made, but the key in all this is “adults”.

An adult is one who has enough internal support, a normal locus and mature self-esteem; such a person does not live in illusions and does not fall into a love addiction, growing a crown.

He clearly sees and feels the attitude of the second person, sees when he is happy with him, and when he begins to feel burdened, and does not experience an increase in attraction at this moment, as all infantiles, having felt the cooling of their beloved partner, begin to want him more and more for fear of losing the source energy.

The infantile perceives his loved one as an object, as his own source of energy, which he must hold in spite of everything, for the sake of his pleasure. That is why, sensing that a loved one is moving away, the infant feels panic and protest. “I want to unsee you!” or “I wish this was a dream!” - and illusions come to the rescue.

An adult (a person with formed personal boundaries and his own core) respects the subjectivity of another and, noticing cooling, does not feel a passionate desire to impose himself, does not put his own wants above the other’s, and realizes the importance of his will.

What infantiles call “true love” is most often a blind passion that ignores the fact that on the other side there is another person with his own desires and needs.

The infantile loves and strives for another, wants intimacy, wants fusion, even if the other does not want it. It is this egocentrism that forces the infantile to create a layer of illusions and “not notice” the cooling.

Sometimes he sees that his love is not reciprocal, but then he takes out a box or other “magic” instruments, plays solitaire, looks into a crystal ball and sees that there is love on the other side, it’s just that a “unloved wolf cub” or a “treacherous homewrecker” has blocked road or “we must fight for love” or another form of crown.

The crown is secondary, the primary thing is that for him “I want” him in the first place and he hopes to deceive, bypass the will of another person, force, coerce, persuade, somehow “conquer” or simply “believe in the best”, no matter what form does the infant imagine as a justification for the fact that he is drawn to a person who does not love him? Many people call this “true love” and think that if they suffer and fight (read: rape a person, persecute, and also torture their loved ones with suffering), someone will reward them for this “true love.” What is the feat?

It's amazing how often people justify their desire to remain addicted by the fact that it is an addiction.

They say “I will not do anything with unhappy love, because I have met someone who is dearer to me than life.”

Sometimes daughters say this to their mothers, and they sometimes agree, “okay, if you fell in love so much, then fight, maybe this is your destiny.” It’s the same as if an alcoholic said “I won’t get treatment because I can’t live without a bottle.”

Man, if you can’t live without a bottle, then you need to get treatment urgently, your addiction has reached a critical threshold. “I can’t live without him,” it’s an addiction.

If he depends in the same way, you need to be together, get married, build a family, give birth to children, but in this case there are no special problems, no torment and suffering: mutual love ensures the location and presence of the other person.

Mutual love is always smooth and joyful, since attraction on both sides does not allow passion to flare up to panic, hunger, horror, as in the case of non-reciprocal love, full of doubts and jealousy.

The stronger the egocentrism, the greater the chances of falling in non-reciprocal love. I want it, it suits me, and I don’t care what the other side feels. I will achieve, I will force, I will beg, I will deserve, I will bend, and if the world’s mother is so cruel to the baby mammoth, I will frostbite my ears to spite her, I will disappear in lovesickness and loneliness. That mother has such mammoths - a huge herd, and let some really disappear if they don’t want to grow up. This is natural selection and no one will take care of you for you, remember that.

True love among adults is much more beautiful, logical and harmonious.

An adult sees the attitude of the other party and does not ignore her attraction to him. The attraction of a loved one to himself is as important to him as his own attraction, and even more important.

If he sees that the attraction is weak or non-existent, he realizes that he is useless, and his own attraction cannot grow in any way.

Non-reciprocal attraction grows when you feed it illusions!

Remember this law and everything will immediately fall into place, there will be no contradictions left.

For attraction you need food, this is how the brain works, you need reinforcement with the result. If there is a result, the attraction is mutual, and if there is no result, the attraction drops.

It falls until you start inventing an outcome for yourself to fuel the attraction. This is how love grows without reciprocity! All other addictions are growing in the same way (all 12, for each resource).

You feed the non-reciprocal attraction yourself, with illusions (that everything is not as it looks, but better) and dreams (that everything will be as you want).

And if they didn’t feed, this attraction would begin to decrease on its own.

You wouldn’t have to get rid of it, “tear off the bloody pieces,” no.

None of this is necessary if you respect the will of the other from the very beginning. You just see that you are not needed, look at yourself through his eyes, see indifference and don’t fantasize about how good you are together, what passion you have, how you fit each other, you stop drawing pictures of mutual love. And your attraction decreases. Same! According to the law of the psyche, according to the law of nature: without nutrition there is no life, without reinforcement there is no motive.

True love is indeed very strong, because if two people fall in love with each other equally strongly, then they will become even more attached to each other, since they will have a common house, children, many common affairs, and can become inseparable.

This is also a law: the larger the common space, the stronger the connection (only the space should be both material and emotional, and not alienation).

The love of one person will not just disappear out of the blue if people really loved each other and built a common life together. Loving couples slip into default or imbalance very gradually; they have the opportunity to correct everything at every stage.

But most people form a couple when there is already an imbalance or a default, so everything collapses faster.

That is, true (realistic, mutual) love really has a huge margin of safety. But this is not marble, of course, because everything in this world is in movement and development, and in which direction the couple and everyone in it will develop depends on them. They are subjects, which means the center of movement is inside them, not from outside they are being dragged like a boxcar.

But infantile love (non-reciprocal, illusory, based on the ego) also has a reserve of strength, or rather stickiness and stickiness, if the infant dynamically moves into the negative, into addiction and does not want to turn back. I specifically write “does not want” and not “cannot”. At the serious stage of addiction, he almost can’t (although he can still), and in the first stages he just “doesn’t want to.” He doesn’t want to, because he doesn’t see the point in giving up free cheese, doesn’t see a mousetrap, doesn’t think that free cheese is somehow worse than others. Free cheese in this case is his illusions, his belief that everything will be the way he wants, because he wants it that way and should be given to him.

He (she) suits me, which means I will assume that on the other side there is also attraction in my direction. Or it will. But I will present it as if it already exists, because it’s more fun that way.

See how the illusions of such an infantile work.

He does not receive enough steps towards him, but he is afraid of “freezing off” (he is afraid of loss of appetite and emptiness).

He seemed to have already opened his mouth and was preparing to swallow food, but here he needs to close his mouth and go look for other food.

He cannot simply be distracted and transfer his attention to his other affairs, he must decide clearly whether to close his mouth or keep it open, and if he closes it, he must urgently look for a new object (all his sources of high are external), and cross this one out of life.

But since there seems to be no reason to cross out, and he can’t just get distracted, he opens his mouth wider and begins to rationalize why the other one doesn’t take steps. At the same time, he fills the box too, that is, he creates the illusion of reciprocity out of garbage .

This is how the infant grows the figure of the chosen one, while the chosen one does not think about him and does not grow anything.

If the infant had his own supports, could emotionally fill and feed himself, he would not need to connect to one external source and would not try to dot all the i’s.

His attraction could increase from reciprocity and decrease from non-reciprocity. The result would be the most natural positive and negative reinforcement of his feelings.

And here he found Love and latched onto it, he wants to receive a lot of energy from the development of relationships, he wants dynamics, he wants to immerse himself in the relationship. And if on the other side the interest is much weaker, I am forced to either urgently tear it up or eat energy on credit.

So he grows an addiction gradually. From your own illusions.

Addiction is an energy debt, interest on loans that he has been feeding on all this time.

That is, for real, realistic and mutual love of an adult, personal support and respect for the subjectivity of the other are needed.

In this case, there will be neither hunger clinging nor the desire to “hope and believe against everything,” that is, to ignore the real attitude towards you. This is how real love can grow, mutual, on both sides, and not on one side - addiction.

Therefore, without growing up, true love does not shine.

It’s wrong for anyone to think that love comes from outside whether it’s real or fake.

It grows in the heart and what love will be like depends on the maturity of the heart (personality). Will you love each other a real person or will you cling tightly to your own larva, so that you will then have to be torn from it with blood.

Do you see how logical mutual love is and how many illusions are needed for the growth of non-reciprocal love?

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How to fall in love yourself

Many are waiting for their person and want to feel that same feeling as soon as possible.

To do this, you need to look at your life from the outside and give a truthful assessment:

• To find true love, you first need to be open. If a person is tense, embarrassed, silent, then he is unlikely to be able to find sincere feelings soon.
• Honesty to yourself and others also makes it possible to see exactly who you are among people.
• Self-confidence is a step towards self-realization, which attracts the opposite sex.
• A free heart is the main condition for finding true love.

You need to live life to the fullest and not dwell on past mistakes, continue to search, and sooner or later the very person you were missing will appear.