I finished "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love" this week. I thought learning more about this phenomena would soften its blow, making my next go round more manageable. I thought I always had a choice whether to experience romantic love, as if logic could some how conquer all.
While I understand more about why we as humans act the way we do, I still find it all miraculous. For millions of years our brains have adapted to favor one person to breed with (yes, one even men have a very similar desire). How long we stay with that "one person" varies until we feel complete with child-rearing or fall into a new phase. Four years is usually when children aren't babies anymore and it's common for divorces to occur then. Also after two years when the "honeymoon" is over and lust gives way to simply romantic love or attachment. We can't live in that intensity forever and nature has given us a way to get back to "normal." Best advice for keeping the romance alive? Doing new things together - variety, variety, variety stimulates the brain and having common interests.
What struck me the most was that men have an attachment horomone like women do, called vasopressin, instead of oxytocin. Yes, love is pure chemicals as suspected. We create addictions to the way people make us feel and from there the roller coaster of emotions begins. I want to love logically if that's possible. To love with knowledge that someone doesn't belong to me and never will. The book also taught that reason and passion are inseparably linked. The brain has two ways for integrating emotions and reasoning and we can choose the one that serves us most. We can control the driving forces of love. As Aristotle said, "The brain tempers the heat and seething of the heart." Love does conquer all, but thank goodness we still have a choice whether or not it controls us.;)
Today I'm grateful for lust, romantic love, and attachment.
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