What Happens When You Fall in Love?
Falling in love ignites imagination. When putting one’s heart and soul into love, one does not look with the eyes but with the mind. With fantasies, people can see love in the way they want.
Soon he just started to seem like the man of my dreams… I thought that he was the one for me. Reality and the whole existence become ennobled in a manner of speaking. I found myself enjoying all the small things. Life is good and the whole existence reflects the bright gloss of newness. I was so energetic and active and filled with powerful feelings.
Experiences of symbiosis and regression take place at the initial stage of falling in love. The one in love starts behaving like a little child. Falling in love serves the aspiration to revive the experiences of happiness and pleasure from early childhood. It was so good and easy to be with her from the beginning: she really understood me and we didn’t have to say everything out loud. Similarly, the need for intimacy and affection, as well as sexuality, strengthens. Lovers want to be with together and long for each other’s proximity.
We just sat in each other’s arms, enjoyed each other’s proximity. The other one’s company is like balsam. Togetherness is enjoyable and along with it mutual trust, tenderness, and sexuality are strengthened. I missed his endearments and wanted to give those to him/her as well.
You would give everything, wouldn’t you?
Togetherness and isolation appear more powerful.
Togetherness is so intensive, that the moments apart rend. I thought that I would die if the other wasn’t there.
Togetherness is the only thing that matters. The surrounding world disappears. Lovers see only each other and are happy together.
As if you weren’t in this world, that you just hope that you could be and let yourself float.
Sense of time disappears: here and now. Lovebirds even apprehend time in a different way than others. They took the time they need and set aside everything else they can in order to be together. They would prefer time to stop when “the world gives its best”.
Caring secures. Also mutual caring and tenderness increase. It seems as if the lovers had a sixth sense which they use to sense what the partner needs. Whether one desires more caring, independence, or safety, that is exactly what the other offers; and no words are needed. It seems that lovers are capable of extremely skilled unconscious performances when adjusting to each other’s expectations.
You care so much about the other that you want to, you know, start taking care of the other in a way that it outstrips even your own needs. When lovers nourish each other with spontaneous caring, togetherness becomes enjoyable and easy without saying anything. They become more and more certain that living together will go without problems: they both know what the other one needs.
I thought that he was the one for me. I thought that he would be a good partner to live with and plan the future together. Childish manner of speaking and playful behavior. Lovers’ mutual manner of speaking resembles infants’ language. They coddle and it seems that they have an endless amount of the terms of endearments for each other. We didn’t lack of nicknames: honey, sugar honey pie, funny tummy, and goldilocks. They laugh at the same things and discover new reasons for joy spreading cheerfulness, joy, and energy around them. Lovers need for togetherness and touching each other may arise from their disbelief of what has happened to them.
They have to make themselves certain that this all is for real by touching each other. The language of touching helps to adjust without words. I couldn’t believe what had happened… that this kind of amazing feeling of happiness, and then again, I was afraid or felt insecure if this will last. When falling in love, also fears and insecurity start gnawing. Therefore, not only many previously experienced feelings of happiness from childhood revive but also confusion and fears: the fear of excessive intimacy, the fear of losing love. Even the fact that one does not know the other very well yet is subject to cause insecurity. What if one falls in love entirely and if the other one leaves; how you will handle that.
Love Blinds You: The Significant Other Dazzles
The one in love sees the other as ideal through the rose tinted spectacles. No wonder they say that love is blind. That girl was like an answer to all those wishes what I could ever have expected of a woman. Looking with the eyes of love the pockmarks seem dimples, says a proverb. When falling in love, even the negative features are seen as a positive light or explained in a positive manner. This can result from the desire to ensure or stabilize the continuity of the romance. Sometimes one’s image of the loved one is more real to him/her than the brute truth.
I clothed him with the colors of my yearning.
Love believes in good. Almost all the other one’s features are seen as positive and lovable although they might be troublesome for the life together. At the phase of admiring, the target for love is thus regarded as one-of-a-kind, exceptional, and irreplaceable.
The personality of that person made me fall in love; the personality was so strong. This is how the beneficial conditions for a successful relationship are created.
She is everything to me… I love her and nothing on earth can change it.
The Magical Mirror of Falling in Love: One’s Own Self Becomes Stronger
Along with falling in love, an individual’s image of himself or herself becomes stronger in many ways. One feels more skilled and capable than before, the expansion of the contents of self takes place, as well as self-esteem increases.
I noticed new things in myself; I laughed more, I was more social, I felt being filled with energy. That was a wonderful feeling. When the partners try to reveal and specify the features in themselves, falling in love may also improve self-knowledge (Leary, 2001). When being endorsed, cared, and appreciated, the young become ensured that they are good and worth loving. I enjoyed all the attention that this person gave me. When in love, the young expect, or actually are out for, positive estimations from the target of their love.
When I knew that the other cared, I was able to get rid of my insecurity. Sometimes the eagerness to fall in love can be so compulsive that the dividing line between love and deep gratefulness for positive feedback becomes unclear. At the time life being filled with conflicts and crises, the need for finding a point of reference-a magical mirror, which reflects oneself as good and beautiful-is the most absolute. People in general tend to wish for praise and appreciation, rewards and recognition: “people have a passion for praise”. The young make the effort of giving a fascinating or favorable impression of themselves to the target of their admiration or love. If one’s own self-esteem has been desolated, being praised and appreciated is outstandingly grand, primary, and flattering in love. Parents may even find a youngster’s ways of strengthening self-esteem deplorable. Some become addicted to falling in love. This addiction results in the spiral of love, love addiction, when an individual is enchanted of being enchanted, besotted with being besotted, and in love with falling in love. This can also be described as love dependence, an obsession, which makes people repeat the same behavioral pattern all over again.
They hurry from a lap to another. Continuous zest for life, not willing to be tied to anyone as there is still so much to experience…
A young person’s life can be filled with the chaos of love or sexuality, where the pleasure and experiences are pursued nonstop by new relationships. Every new conquest is used for strengthening one’s self-esteem. It is about a struggle with identity as well: the young want to test through other people what others think of themselves. They want to experience life as a great adventure or continuous experiment.
