Love is all you need
— The BeatlesLove is a serious mental disease
— PlatoIn honor of the month of Valentines Day, I wanted to introduce a collection of articles about what love is, the theory behind it, and the research that supports it. Poets, painters, musicians, sculptures, photographers and writers need not worry that science is muscling in on their territory. We just want to add our voice to the chorus.
In the book, A General Theory of Love, authors, Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini & Richard Lannon, review what we know about attraction and neuroscience. They generate an interesting framework from which to launch this series. They begin with something that provides a foundation upon which the theory and practice of love can be built: “Because it is part of the physical universe, love has to be lawful.”
They added the italics, not me. The laws of love (yes, it was a competing title for this series) might sound a bit dry and academic. In fact there is a general distancing between the rigors of science and something as ubiquitous as the search for love. Science tends to leave us cold, and love, as you know, warms us up.
Shouldn’t we scientists leave love to lovers and artists and leave a little bit of mystery?
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In your example you say a woman marrys 3 men who all, in some way, leave her “needing love from someone who is emotionally unavailable”, and this is just like the relationship with her father. But isn’t this just PART of the relationship with her father? Doesn’t he have other traits, traits that she likes? Why doesn’t she find a man just like her father’s good traits? Do we always look for someone with our parents BAD traits?
Good point!
I do not think that people look only for our parents’ bad traits in a potential partner. I think we look for traits that are familiar to us. Maybe it acts as a sort of “safety blanket”.
Great point! I hope to elaborate on this in the other parts, but essentially the idea is that we are trying to evolve, and evolution demands we have a clear idea of what needs to change. That is why we carry such a sting prototype of what isn’t ok. Thanks for the question. I will add to it in the other parts.
Ifshadow,
Good point!!
What say you Dr. Tomasulo?
Today’s neuroscience seems to support what psychodynamic therapists have known all along, but have not been able to prove:it’s the relationship that heals.
Wonderful article. I’ve been finding this in my own life, that no matter how much I try and steer away from it I do look to my parents for a model. It’s funny though, because my parents have a really happy marriage and we have a really close family – but that has it’s own problems too. Since I’ve grown up with a great family, obviously it would be really hard if my own family (marriage) someday isn’t as successful. Since my parents were successful I tend to take their word as gold and struggle in my own relationships when they don’t seem to “match” the way my parents work. Given that I do have a template of happiness, it’s hard to diverge from that even though I know that my own (happy) relationship may or may not look the same. Anyways, great points and wonderful article
Why would we get involved/marry a person with our opposite sex parent’s negative traits (rather than positive traits)? One answer is that people don’t tend to think very much, not really critically and the focus is more on “I’ll NEVER marry a man like my father” without focusing on what about father is positive and say, “Now, I want a man who is like my father in just this or that way.” Humans don’t tend to think like that and they don’t tend to think critically anyway. Plus, repetition compulsion is in play. The child thinks “if only” I had been good enough, or better at this or that, I would have gotten the love I need so the person looks for the negative traits, are drawn to the negative traits because surely it will work out this time. I WILL be good enough. But that’s never the problem to begin with. So the repetition compulsion continues until the person very consciously and thinks and works through what he or she is doing that is self-destructive and no, that they can NOT make the original relationship (the negative parts) right by being with someone who has similar dynamics going on. The past will only be repeated. Hence the saying, if we don’t learn from the past we’re destined to repeat it. Well, it works that way in relationships, too.
Great article , enjoyed it ,eagerly awaiting part two:)
The divorce rate is 50% so its important to learn to make new patterns and better choices so husband number 2 is a better choice than number one(lol)
Ava
Is it love that we are drawn to via familiarity or rather just circles of functioning that our past experiences as a whole “sort of” guide us to.
“Guide us to” is not really a good description, but I’m at loss for a better right now. I am hesitant to suggest though that a man for example will “love” a girl like dear old Mom, simply because she makes macaroni and cheese out of blue cardboard boxes instead of Velveeta.
Rather, gravitating to the familiar could be more an effect of the laws of probability, in that we are more probe to interact at all comfortably with people (and therefor potential spouses or mates) that fit behavioral patterns that overlap with our own. Sort of like a Venn diagram perhaps? i.e. I am unlikely to marry a tall leggy large busted blonde actress / model as I have grown up hanging out in bowling alleys and or country music square dance halls. Contrived example, but I’m tired. Hope you get the idea. It’s not that I’m not attracted to the hot blonde idea, I just don’t know where to find them.
People with crappy behavioral patterns, i.e. abusive or addictive in general tend to crowd a section of the Belle Curve perhaps, no? Then again, I know just as many rich people with miserable psychological and addictive behaviors as I do poor, so maybe I’m totally wrong on this.
My “theory of love” is based currently somewhere in the realm of non locality in physics, which may seem a bit paranormal and silly, but magic is just science unexplained, and we tend to discard and or ignore anything that lives beyond our senses, no? People of all ages and educations still drop cookies on the floor and blow the germs off it.
My hope is that someday we learn that love is really light and that the singularity, or the ultimately perfect black hole, which would have to consist of frozen light if you will as it would be of infinite mass having actually achieved the speed of light and sits in perfect static infinity of largeness and smallness at the same time, with no Planck length or events between the components (photons or something close), thus no time exists, love is light, and also perfect harmony.