Nuances of love
Love has always been an area of research for me, from both Psychological and real perspective. There is no one way to either define or experience love but in this essay, I am blurting out my thoughts referring to love as an emotion that holds high in a romantic relationship. I am not looking at the idea of an “arranged marriage” here because the base is not love but just an “arrangement”.
According to Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, ““First and foremost, love is an emotion, a momentary state that arises to infuse your mind and body alike. Love, like all emotions, surfaces like a distinct and fast-moving weather pattern, a subtle and ever-shifting force. As for all positive emotions, the inner feeling love brings you is inherently and exquisitely pleasant — it feels extraordinarily good, the way a long, cool drink of water feels when you’re parched on a hot day. Yet far beyond feeling good, a micro-moment of love, like other positive emotions, literally changes your mind. It expands your awareness of your surroundings, even your sense of self. The boundaries between you and not-you — what lies beyond your skin — relax and become more permeable. While infused with love you see fewer distinctions between you and others”
I totally agree to what Professor Fredrickson has said. And I would personally put love as a higher emotion than even joy or happiness. As a keen observer of love and relationships, I have seen different variants (I am talking purely about romantic relationships here and I will come to the spiritual dimensions later in this piece). I have observed the following types of love;
Intense physical attraction: Where people are attracted to the physicality. In this kind of relationship, everything is intense, whether it is sex, possessiveness et al. The lovers in question may even get disenchanted very soon. This is frequently observed when we hear of lovers stalking (especially the males) and many a times resorting to brutality. There was a recent case in India where a man killed his live-in partner and to hide his crime, he cut her body into many pieces before disposing it off, piece by piece. Though some of the intense lovers may well have a very long term relationship as well. There are many couples who are intense all through their lives.
Sustained and Engaged infatuation turning into love: Where people just get used to each other’s company as they end up meeting often and imagine it to be love. Later on they get used to each other and perceive it to be love (I see this phenomenon happening more, especially in the times of technology). I once asked a relative when she declared that she would be marrying a particular, to share her story. She said that she met that guy in a conference and then they started chatting on WhatsApp and this led to their attraction. In the case of one of my clients, he stayed a lane away from his girlfriend (his wife now) and they could meet often. However, when I saw him with his partner, I felt that the chemistry was missing and they did not have anything in common. It was just a sustained infatuation which people understand as love.
Organic Relationships: Such relationships mature over time and people usually start off slow and many a times they are merely friends who get to know each other, little by little and finally decide to be together. Such relationships have a probability of a longer duration, although one cannot be certainly sure of longetivity as for a relationship to work, “How” is more important than “why”.
There would be many other kinds of love relationships but what I am sharing is purely my perception and based on pure observation and not an empirical research.
Besides these types of love relationships, there is a viewpoint that people should marry those who uplift them and where the relationship leads to an intellectual stimulation along with romantic love. I see few people who married the absolutely right partner and they both compliment each other’s energies. This is rare and perhaps this ideal partnership is what Professor Fredrickson is talking about. Love happens and it is not a well thought of exercise so when someone deliberately tries to find an intelligent companion may not succeed or may have to wait for the right moment of serendipity to emerge.
A friend of mine who believes in all divine messages says that one is pre-destined to have a life partner. I am doubtful of that. There are many relationships that are brutal and toxic. When I asked her about this idea, she said that those relationships are given to us so that we could get spiritualy cleansed. I find this totally unacceptable. In many of such toxic relationships, the women sometimes face deadly repercussions while the men generally have a patronage from the patriarchial mindset within the families. I am not at all gung-ho on attributing present miseries to past life Karma. I would ask the voteries of Karma if they would feel the same if their loved ones go through the trauma of abuse.
As this piece is about love, I feel that love is also a mattar of chance as for many people, if a relationship works, they are happy but then not all relationship work in an ideal fashion. People who intentionally want their relationships to work need to look at the idea of taking help from a relationship coach or a counsellor. In terms of developing positive love relationships, there are many ways through which couples can find meaning and purpose in their relationships. These interventions include having gratitude, mindfulness and active constructive feedback. As a coach I use these tools to help couples.
I am a Career, Wellbeing and Relationship coach who work with individuals in helping them develop their own solutions. Please write to me at hello@sandeep.com.co
