"Of all the misconceptions about love, the most powerful and pervasive is the beliefΒ that 'falling in love' IS love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potentΒ misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion asΒ an experience of love. When a person falls in love, what he or she certainly feels is βI love himβ or βI love her.β But two problems are immediately apparent. The first is that ... We fall in love onlyΒ when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated. The second problem is that theΒ experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, weΒ sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough.Β This is not to say thatΒ we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say that the feelingΒ of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. TheΒ bloom of romance always fades away.
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Most of us feel our loneliness to be painful and yearn to escape from behind the walls of ourΒ individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside ofΒ ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escape β temporarily. The essence ofΒ the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individualβs egoΒ boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her own identity with that of another person. TheΒ sudden release of oneself from oneself, the explosive pouring out of oneself into the beloved, andΒ the dramatic surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of ego boundaries is experiencedΒ by most of us as ecstatic.
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United with our beloved we feel we can conquer all obstacles. We believeΒ that the strength of our love will cause the forces of opposition to bow down in submission and melt away into the darkness. All problems will be overcome. The future will be all light.Β The unreality of these feelings when we have fallen in love is essentially the same as the unreality of the two-year-old who feels itself to be king of the family and the world with power unlimited
Just as reality intrudes upon the two-year-oldβs fantasy of omnipotence, so does realityΒ intrude upon the fantastic unity of the couple that have fallen in love. Sooner or later, inΒ response to the problems of daily living, individual will reasserts itself. He wants to have sex; she doesnβt.Β She wants to go to theΒ movies; he doesnβt.Β He wants to put money in the bank; she wants a dishwasher. She wants to talk about her job; he wants to talk about his. She doesn't like his friends; he doesn't like hers. So bothΒ of them, in the privacy of their hearts, begin to come to the sickening realization that they areΒ not one with the beloved, that the beloved has and will continue to have his or her own desires,Β tastes, prejudices, and timing different from the otherβs. One by one, gradually or suddenly, theΒ ego boundaries snap back into place; gradually or suddenly, they fall out of love. Once again,Β they are two separate individuals. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of theirΒ relationship or to initiate the work of real loving.
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A major characteristic of genuine love is that the distinction between oneself and theΒ other is always maintained and preserved. As an adolescent I used to thrill to the words of loveΒ and the early American poet Ann Bradstreet spoke to her husband: 'If ever two were one, thenΒ we.' As I have grown, however, I have come to realize that it is the separateness of the partnersΒ that enriches the union. Great relationships cannot be constructed by individuals who areΒ terrified by their basic aloneness, as so commonly is the case.
Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other but actually seeks toΒ cultivate it, even at the risk of separation or loss. The ultimate goal of life remains the spiritualΒ growth of the individual, the solitary journey to peaks that can be climbed only alone."
