Falling in and out of love
Have you ever wondered about the expression ‘falling in love’? Like accidently falling into a hole!
I think we all notice how stories of romance, love and loss are so predominant in our daily life through books, films, music and social media. Also how eager we are from our early teens to co-create our own dramatic stories in the intoxicating dance of love and romance.
Here are my thoughts and experiential reflections after a lifetime of curiosity.
Attraction: Whether across a crowded room, club, party or a picture on a dating app etc, something is triggered visually and often instantly. Eyes meet, we feel excited, maybe scared but attracted. A laugh, a smile, a shape, eyes, lips, tone of voice, the way they move and smell and more.
What’s happening here? Chemical changes are occurring and we literally become intoxicated on a powerful cocktail of hormonal chemicals triggering our attraction. Norepinephrine fills you with libidinal energy, oxytocin wants you to touch and be close, serotonin boosts your self-confidence, and dopamine generates a shot of anticipatory excitement. This can be a very strong cocktail designed by evolution to create bonding, procreation, family building and genetic continuity.
Romance and courtship: With many twists and turns, this phase can sometimes be brief. However, if it doesn’t fizzle out, we can soon become caught up in very strong emotions which don’t seem part of a rational process and it seems the rational brain (prefrontal cortex) gets sidetracked by more urgent instinctual drives.
These feelings are powerful and full of paradox. They are akin to fight flight survival responses. “I love you.” “I need you.” “I can’t live without you.” Our attention can become obsessively focused on the other person. Endless texts/calls/emails etc - we can’t sleep, we worship the other. We do everything to impress them - not to forget our sex drive because sexual validation is often paramount at this time. But if we could step back, at this early stage we may realise that we don’t really know this person. But we do want to maintain these fantastic feelings as long as possible. They are ‘the one’, but it’s terrifying too. Our hopes and fears can swing around in extremes. Do they love me? This was meant to be. I have found my home/soul mate. But I may be rejected or abandoned? We are the sexiest people on the planet. Can’t everyone see how fantastic we are?
We are intoxicated with the best drugs your body can conjure up and we don’t want to come down.
Unfortunately, in our intoxicated state we didn’t meet each other as our normal everyday selves. ‘Being in love’ is so good we have idealized and idolized the other as they probably have done with us. We can’t contemplate imperfection so we try to maintain an idealized state of being by continuing to dramatize and reconfirm our feelings to each other – this ecstatic bond must never end.
But alas, what goes up must come down the love drugs gradually begin to fade. Critical evaluation begins to creep in, our idealized other seems to have changed. How can this be? Is it my fault or are they just being mean and withdrawn on purpose? This feeling is often mutual ,although the timing of the love drugs diminishing may differ between partners.
The power struggle: (H. Hendrix (1993). And the cycle of Pain, blame shame. (D. Miller 2026)
Symptoms of the power struggle are the increasing rows and arguments. There is often an escalation of blame, anger and confusion that the other isn’t doing what we want. “You’ve changed”, “why don’t you tell me you love me” ”you don’t listen to me anymore”. We are easily hurt. Jealousy and passive aggression become a strategy to maintain control; “You say you love me but you don’t really mean it”. Suspicions can arise “where were you when I called”. This stage is also the stage within which both coercion or control by threat and emotional or physical abuse can manifest.
A typical phrase I hear from couples is ”I love you but I’m not ‘in love’ with you anymore”. There is truth to this because the love drug cocktail which triggered the whole falling in love thing – the freshness and newness has all but faded away.
In the power struggle couples are fighting it out trying to the process fear of rejection and abandonment. We can’t seem to listen or discuss things. Arguments become more black and white, right or wrong, good or bad, win or lose. Dialogue and the attempt to understand the other person seems beyond possibility. Someone or something has to be to blame, it can’t be our fault, but, inside we also feel bad about ourselves. Maybe we aren’t good enough and the failures are own fault.
Mature love: We can make this work…..
Hopefully the struggles will diminish in intensity and we begin to accept a new sense of connection. We allow each other to be who we are. We begin to take risks to share feelings honestly and calmly rather avoiding hard truths. We begin to accept each other’s imperfections and make the choice to go on living together. Perhaps we also manage to recalibrate because we lower our expectations that everything must be fantastic and brilliant all the time. We begin to appreciate that there is something between us that was always there but its difficult to pin down. It’s an energy of really liking the inherent unnameable qualities of the other. We finally surrender and commit fully.
When I work with couples, I often try to remind them that connection and disconnection comes and goes and this is normal. The trick is to be able to acknowledge positive connection, warmth, and closeness without trying to ‘capture it’.
When we persevere gently and with tenderness we are offering safety, security and belonging. This requires bravery and patience but eventually there can be a deeper level of intimacy and real connection to a real other. Maybe also passion can be risked again but more consciously this time around.
A word of caution: Mature love is not to be confused with a version of unhealthy ‘co-dependency’. Briefly this is when we are still in the power struggle trying to control the other in more or less subtle ways. And we can also fall prey to people pleasing or fawning to stay safe. If we notice this behaviour it’s the signal to take care of ourselves. To learn how to be calmly assertive around our wants and needs and keep clean clear boundaries. And remember – we can request change but we can’t, in reality, change other people.
But/and/or sometimes our gut tells one or the other or both partners that enough is enough, we made a bad choice and we decide to end it. In this case it’s rarely one person’s fault, and next time around try and make sure we take care of ourselves on the rollercoaster falling in love ride.