Anatomy of Love

“When you feel excited, safe and emotionally attached with a person, does it mean you’re in love?” – Sheila (from Sunday’s Facebook Wall)

Love makes your heart dance when the phone rings or when you’ve got email. Love makes you sit up until sunrise fretting after your first fight. It’s what compels a man and a woman to stand at the altar and profess their devotion “as long as you both shall live.”

And love is extraordinarily important: It drives us to unite and create another person together.

Love is really our ancestors whispering in our ears. It was part of Mother Nature’s grand plan that you would meet your husband, fall head over heels in love, have a baby or two, and perpetuate the human race. We are simply programmed to fall in love.

That’s the easy part.

The hardest part is staying “in love.” You’re bowled over with these overwhelming sensations that come with being in love. You feel like you’re going to be walking on air forever. And suddenly, you hit the ground. That’s because while love itself is completely natural, our expectations of it are decidedly unnatural. Evolution defined love as the force we need to produce children. That’s all. We have defined love as something that will give us companionship and happiness for the rest of our lives. And we’re not quite designed for that.

That’s not to say that staying in love can’t be done, however. Fortunately, love is one of those rare areas where you can fool Mother Nature. You just need to know how she works.

Ok, so here is how it works: The Anatomy of Love.

Certain animals do what scientists call pair bonding. And in humans, love is part of that process. Humans have evolved three emotion systems of brain activity that compel us to go out and find a mate.

The first is lust. Lust is driven by testosterone, a hormone that both men and women produce, although women have less that men. Lust’s sole purpose is to get you out there looking for someone.

The next emotion is attraction, or romantic love. Attraction is activated when you find Mr. Right. When you feel romantic attraction, your brain is flooded with natural amphetamine-like uppers such as dopamine, which cause the punch-drunk exhilaration, giddy energy, and reduced appetite associated with passionate love.

Next comes attachment. Often, after about one year, the high begins to wear off, perhaps because your brain steps up production of what could be called cuddle chemicals: vasopressin and oxytocin (chemicals that produce feelings of relaxed satisfaction and attachment).

So what goes stale?

Sometimes, after about four years, those feelings of serenity and attachment begin to turn to boredom. This is what people go through when they feel like they’ve fallen out of love. It’s no coincidence that around the world, divorce (or separation) occurs most often at the four-year point in a marriage. In some cases, “two years” is the new “itch.”

That’s why as years of marriage go by, you may have periods when you don’t exactly feel “in love” with your boyfriend/husband all the time.

“Falling in love is natural. Staying in love is not always natural.”