Attraction or Love or What?

Synopsis: Attraction/love confusion problems; understanding attraction systems; nature’s way; sexuality attracts but love bonds; insecurity issues; sharing attraction system pleasures.

Attraction/Love Confusion Problems

“Where can I go to live, where I’d like to live and where there are no redheads?  I know it sounds crazy but, you see, I fall in love with just about every redhead I meet.  I’ll never be able to settle down and stay faithful because the next redhead will come along and I won’t be able to resist this ‘falling in love thing’ I do with redheads.”

Does this person really have a ‘fall in love’ with redheads problem?  No, not really.  This person appears to have a ‘fall in’ multiple, perhaps serial, attraction issue which they are confusing with real love.  I suspect this person hasn’t gotten even close to having anything like a true ‘love’ problem.  It would seem they, like many, may not have learned to clearly perceive, understand, and think about the big differences between love (the healthy, real kind) and mere attraction.

There are lots of other ways that the love/attraction confusion causes problems.  To really see that, read a few more quotes.  “I’m getting wrinkles, getting gray hair and looking older.  I’m really afraid my husband will quit loving me when I look old, and then he will fall in love with someone who looks like I did when I was 20, and he will leave me for her.”  The woman who said that did not understand that it is not looks, but love, that best holds couples together over time.

“My wife has recently developed this thing for young men with swimmer’s bodies, you know, the long, lean, smooth-stretched muscle types.  I don’t look anything like that, so does this mean she doesn’t love me anymore and she’s really looking for somebody else?  The answer to this man’s question is “probably not”.  It just likely means that her attraction dynamics direct her toward having some enjoyment and maybe mild, fantasy fun thinking about ‘swimmer’ types, but probably she loves her husband dearly.  Her love of her husband is far more important than any simple, physical attraction dynamics, and maybe some reassurance of that fact is in order.

“My guy can’t stop staring at other women, and looking at pictures of naked females and stuff like that.  Does this mean he doesn’t really love me?  He swears he would never cheat on me, and it’s just the way he’s wired.  I want to believe him but my girlfriends tell me not to trust him”.  Usually this sort of statement suggests that the woman saying it is insecure about her own attraction power, and she is confusing her man’s ‘natural attraction dynamics system’ with his couple-type love for her.  She also may have been conditioned by society, and/or her family, to incorrectly think love always alters a person’s attraction habits.  Who we are naturally attracted to, and who we love can be two very different things.

Attraction can lead to a relationship getting started but then, in the long run, love has to take over to keep it going.  Once love is strong enough it keeps couples together into old age.  But often a couple’s attraction habits, which were established before the couple met, remain the same and operate independently.  A couple who can share what they are in the habit of being attracted to usually are a much stronger couple than those who can’t share because they fear triggering insecurity and jealousy in their mate.  One more thing.  Listening to friends advising mistrust really just may be listening to fear-based, mistaken perceptions.

“My wife keeps wanting me to watch romantic porn with her, and then role-play being the guy we just watched while she plays the female.  She tells me it’s all just sexy, fantasy fun, but I can’t help wondering if this means she is on her way to searching for love with somebody else”.  This quote suggests a man who would do well to study what love really is as opposed to attraction.  It also may point to a man who could use a little more healthy, self love and/or a little more reassurance from his wife that he is the one she really wants to love and play with, and the rest is just a way to do that.

Understanding Attraction Systems

The above examples just are a small sample of the many ways that confusion between ‘love’ and ‘attraction’ helps mess up relationships.  Here’s what research suggests explains our attractions systems and the way they operate.

A large percentage of males, and a smaller but still significant percentage of females are genetically ‘hard wired’ to be attracted primarily by sexy, visual stimuli.  A large percentage of females, and a smaller but still significant percentage of males are genetically ‘hard wired’ to be attracted primarily by sexy, verbal/auditory stimuli.  That is why men’s porn is largely pictorial and women’s verbal or written.  Other people’s attraction systems may be primarily tactile, kinetic, olfactory or a variety of balanced combinations of the above.  Of course, there are those whose attraction systems are primarily oriented to anyone, and everyone, who are in some way quite powerful, intensely feminine or masculine, highly sociable, high in status or popularity, or attracted to personal characteristics like intelligence, kindness, being humorous, artistically talented, individualistic, stable, protective, sexy, etc.

The existence of love in a relationship doesn’t necessarily change a person’s attraction system, especially if it is quite strong.  If you are strongly attracted visually or auditorily only, or in any other way, you likely will stay that way, whether or not you deeply, romantically love someone or not.  Therefore, when you encounter someone who activates your natural, inbuilt attraction system you will observe and enjoy observing what you are attracted by.  The enjoyment comes from your brain making neurochemical compounds that cause pleasure sensations when your attraction system is activated.  This is not love.  It is your attraction system at work, doing what it’s supposed to do.

Nature’s Way

Humans are built by nature to have many attraction experiences.  This seems especially true for humans with various ‘strengths’.  By strengths we mean those who have strong attributes or desirable qualities like leadership, assertiveness, the tendency to ascend and succeed, all sorts of different talents, sociability and of course ‘baby making and bearing’ potential.  We are built by nature to enjoy both being attracted to others and being attractive to others.  The enjoyment reinforces the attraction system and its operations.

Long ago when there were far fewer of us this system helped especially strong males plant their ‘seed’ in a lots of different females, and helped especially desirable females get ‘seed’ planted in them from men with lots of varying, strong qualities.  That helped mix the gene pool and create more and more humans with various strengths.  That, in turn, assisted humans in becoming the dominant species on the planet, so the system worked quite well.

Our love systems also were incredibly important for helping us to survive, cooperate, protect and nurture one another, plus a lot more.

Healthy, real love can develop after attraction brings people into contact but there are lots of times when it does not.  This is one of the ways we know that ‘attraction’ and ‘love’ are different.  Love can influence attraction to a loved one to grow, broaden, deepen and keep happening.

Sexuality Attracts, Love Bonds

Attraction can be partially defined as that which draws people or things together, or pulls toward it that which is ready and free to be attracted.  Attraction brings things together so they have a chance to form a connection but attraction is not the connection itself.  It takes healthy, real love to hold a couple together once they have made a love connection.  Mutual attraction helps people go ‘psychologically toward’ each other and want to keep going toward each other.  If healthy, real love develops a couple may become love-bonded and stay together but if healthy, real love does not develop they will, in time, likely split up.

Those who worry about losing their mates because they have ‘lost their good looks’ would do better to worry about how well they are doing love.  Those who jointly love well tend to stay together and those who don’t – mostly don’t stay together.  There is nothing wrong in doing what can be done to stay physically , sexually, or in any other way attractive, unless it detracts from the more important issue of giving and receiving of healthy, real love.  Of course, there are unions in which things, other than love, are of paramount importance.  Sex object wives, success object husbands, trophy wives, sugar daddy lovers and husbands, and status entry spouses are classical examples of other reasons people join together.

Insecurity issues

Do you have self-security and love relationship security?  These two things go together quite nicely.  Are you insecure about your desirability or your ability to give and get healthy, real love?  Let me suggest security in couple’s love is best attained by love not by looks or anything else.  Therefore, the self-secure, healthfully self loving individual has a great advantage over the insecure and the less love-able.  The self-secure tend to avoid damaging their love-mate relationships with fear-based actions, like trying to keep a spouse from looking at attractive others, enjoy flirting with others, having fun with wide ranging sexiness, being around other attractive people, having jealous fits and practicing restrictive control via religiosity, shaming or guilt tripping.  Most of those attempted restrictions usually backfire and make your chances of losing somebody larger, not smaller.

Sharing Attraction System Pleasures

In a solid, healthy, love-based relationship people can share the joys of their own and their love mate’s attraction systems.  Here’s an example.  Harriet said, “I so enjoy pointing out sexy women to my husband and teasing him about what excites him.  He is so cute when he’s both embarrassed and turned on.  I’m not threatened by other females because I know our love is strong, and sharing what excites us makes for intimate, special fun that draws us even closer together.  I really like my man being a real man.  Real men are turned on by lots of women, just like us real women can let ourselves be turned on by different guys.  It’s all just harmless, naughty fun.  Both of us get off on sharing each other’s lusting and just appreciating how others are attractive.  It makes us closer and never afraid because we create our security by sharing everything.”

Well, dear reader have you given much thought to understanding the differences between love and attraction?  Have you been getting the two of them mixed up with each other?  Have people been attracted to you and thought it was love?  Have you been flattered by someone finding you attractive or have you had your ego boosted and then thought they were in love with you, or began to wonder if you could love the person being attracted to you?  There’s lots here that you might want to consider.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question What are you going to do the next time you are rather strongly, sexually attracted to a new somebody.  Are you going to do guilt and confess it, enjoy it, fantasize it, deny it, hide it, ignore it, share it, or go after it?

Related posts:

1. False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction Syndrome 

Can Your Religion Help You Love Better?

Mini Love Lesson #296

Synopsis: Here we are urged to take a look at what various religions have to say about love and its doing, so as to make our own doing of love more effective.  Religious teachings on love are recommended as a great source of wisdom, although with some cautionary considerations.

Most of the major religions have a lot to say about love.  What religions have had to say about love has probably helped more people than psychology, philosophy, literature or anything else.  Religious leaders of many faiths have given love a great deal of attention, contemplated love often, taught much about love and written many words concerning love.  Most of that was in an effort to help us understand love better and do love well.  Therefore, what religions have say about love is well worth considering.

Hinduism and Buddhism share The Four Great Immeasurable Ways of Love which have helped countless millions live more loving lives.  Judaism offers the foundational law of love by proclaiming love your neighbor as yourself which has been an outstanding guide for thousands of years.  In Christianity, St. Paul uses 16 terms to tell us how to do and not do love in his famous “love chapter” in his first letter to the Corinthians” which is read at more weddings than any other Bible passage in Christendom.  In Islam all 114 Sutras (chapters) of the Koran begin with a stress on Allah’s most merciful and compassionate love which followers are to emulate in their lives.  In Taoism, Lao Tzo taught the first great treasure of all treasures is love, and to courageously attack with love, and be secure in love as the strongest of defenses.  Confucius put forward that the main guiding principles to live by is that of loving others which meant to care about and secure the welfare of those we love.

In studying what religious sages and leaders proclaim about love, we can see a common thread appearing.  It is that love must be done not just felt.  For love to have any effect, love actions must be taken.  For love to work any of its wonders, loving behaviors must be accomplished.  For love relating to occur, love must be conveyed and sent repeatedly.  For love success to be the result, doing love actions skillfully and frequently is essential.  All that suggests love is to be studied behaviorally, practiced behaviorally, improved behaviorally and frequently used behaviorally.

Whatever your religion, you can focus on what it says about love and probably learn some very helpful things to do which will make your actions of love better.  If you have no particular religion, that suggests studying them all may be helpful.  You can also do that if you are rather ecumenical and open to learning from them all, or at least more than one.

Do be a bit careful.  In actual practice the followers of many religions have not abided by their own faith’s teachings about love.  In fact, they have done quite the opposite and sometimes even have become the proponents of hate, indifference and what can be called anti-love behaviors.  Hence, the potential for being led astray does exist.

Studying what religion has to say about love has aided an enormous number of people in doing love better, being better at relating with love and from love, and in forming love connected relationships, better than they would have otherwise.  Religion could be, if it hasn’t already, be the fine source for learning to successfully, broadly, deeply and wisely enrich your dealings and doings with love.

One more little thing: Why not talk over this little love lesson and its ideas with someone else?  That might help you learn a lot more from it and from them too.  If you do that, please mention this site and its many mini-love-lessons.

As always Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: What do you think of the dictum “To get an abundance of fine love, give it in abundance and do it as skillfully as you can – often”.

Multiple Sex Partners and Love

With dismay in his voice Vince blurted out, “Doesn’t everyone feel awful if their main squeeze has sex with someone else?

“Isn’t it natural to feel jealous or bad or something terrible if you really love someone?  So what’s wrong with me and my wife?  When I found out she had sex with a guy on a cruise she went on with her girlfriends it just turned me on.  That night, after she told me, we had the greatest sex ever!  Now she says she wants me to have sex with her friend, Sheila — so we’re even.  Are we both crazy?”

Vince’s bewilderment and similar variations of his confusing situation are not all that uncommon in my couples counseling practice.  The truth is no small number of couples who really do love each other get quite sexually aroused about their spouse having sex with someone else before, during or after it happens, or in fantasy.  Others keep circulating around a confusing mix of strongly opposing feelings and thoughts, while still others begin in agony only to later embraced and enjoy the very sexual behaviors they were first shocked and horrified by.

Another group seems to like it at first but not later.  For most people raised in a culture that condemns this sort of thing and promotes sexual monogamy as ‘the only way to go’ dealing with this issue usually is excruciating.  A great many breakdowns and breakups, along with all sorts of life chaos are the more usual experiences.  Even suicide and/or murder sometimes are known to happen when a spouse or love mate has had sex outside their primary relationship.

What some people find strange is the fact that an increasing majority of couples in the developed world don’t break up or breakdown when one or both of them has sex outside their relationship.  That doesn’t mean it is easy for all these couples to sort out.  Some find it a relatively important but still a lesser significant event in their lives, while no small number of others actually enjoy what is so devastating to others.  A surprising minority report that sex with others is actually good for their primary union, which is so totally opposite to what the majority of Western world couples experience.

What makes the difference between couples who are destroyed, couples who struggle through it and stay together, couples who take it in stride and are not much affected, and couples who enjoy and look forward to having multiple sex partners in their lives?  Before we go after answers let’s get a little perspective and some background.

Down through the ages men and women have lived rather successfully with all sorts of different standards regarding sex.  In all civilizations there have existed sexual standards which have at times included sanctioned and socially honored paramours, inamoratos, concubines, temporary travel spouses, concurrent secondary and tertiary husbands and wives, polygamist mates, and especially for the rich and the Royals various high status official positions for extramarital lovers of all sexual persuasions.  There also have existed official holidays from monogamy, religious ceremonies involving sex with priests and nuns, sanctioned orgies, broadly approved of incestuous assignments and a whole lot more you didn’t get to hear about in World History 101.  All major religions and major cultures have had extramarital, multi-person sex accepted and approved of in their history at times and in certain circumstances.

It is to be noted that traditionally matrilineal societies have had a whole lot less trouble with sex outside marriage than have patrilineal societies.  Also in quite a few male dominant, agrarian societies having multi-person sex partners has been much more OK for males and often not at all OK for females.  However, in certain hunter/gatherer tribes where male/female equality is greater, having multi-person sex outside a pair bond relationship, for both males and females, has been and in some areas still is highly approved of and is the norm.

Today around the world people in different cultures and societies react very differently concerning having multiple sex partners outside of pair bonded relationships.  In some tribal cultures to refuse to have sex with a visitor or an important personage could be grounds for divorce and it might even get a person thrown out of the village.  In other cultural groups multi-person sex can condemn a female to so called “honor murder” possibly by beheading or stoning.  In contrast there are, and have been, sub-societies where the more people a woman has sex with the higher her social standing and desirability.  And there have been the rare religious groups where even monogamous, marital sex has been deemed evil and equal to the sin of sex outside of marriage for both men and women.

You might say, “But all that’s ancient history”.  Not so.  In reviewing our current so-called civilized world I have seen a poll which showed that 67% of young, modern adult Peruvian women think sex with someone other than a spouse is quite justifiable.  This number falls to 59% for young adult Brazilian women, and 50% among female Argentinians under 35 years of age.  In a somewhat similar poll the UK number was 28% and the USA number was 38%, with various countries in the EU registering numbers similar to the South Americans.  Urban dwellers in China score similar to the Peruvian women but measurements in rural China result in scores more similar to the English.

Modern world customs vary greatly in regard to multiple sex partners.  The French have their custom of ‘separate vacations’ allowing for sex with another, and the Germans have Oktoberfest during which extra marital sex is not grounds for divorce.  There is research that shows every year more married people have sex with someone other than their spouse, but the percentage of people divorcing because of infidelity continues to decline.  Other research suggests that an increasing number of couples are jointly agreeing to engage in sex with other couples or a third-party.  An increasing number of prostitutes offer their services to couples.  Swingers’ clubs exclusively for couples are on the increase, and polyamore relationships where couples work to both grow and share real love along with sex with others are receiving increased attention.

No one is sure how many couples engage in Internet sex with others, or phone sex, or Second Life avatar sex, and the debate rages about whether or not any of that is adulterous.  Sexual robots and three-dimensional cyber sex with electrodes to provide the physical sensations are in the works, and meanwhile couples rent and buy more explicit, erotic videos than do single individuals, and married women are the primary purchasers of sexual fantasy and erotic romance books according to some researchers.  There’s a lot going on out there, and knowledge usually serves us better than ignorance.

So, with all that in mind let’s get back to what Vince asked.  “Doesn’t everyone feel awful if their main squeeze has sex with someone else?”  The answer obviously is “no” and reactions actually are quite varied.  I want to acknowledge that many are deeply hurt in these situations, I see them in my practice and help them through very painful emotions.  However, in this entry I want to relate that there are other responses that couples have.  There is a minority in our culture who are erotically aroused and generally quite positive, others are only moderately disturbed, while some actually are fairly indifferent about the whole thing.  This probably means your reaction to your mate having sex with someone else is probably not genetic or biologically ‘natural’ and ‘universal’, as some have argued.  That’s good news because it also means that with work (psychological, ethical, relational, etc. work) you have emotional and behavioral choice.

Let’s look at the love factor for those who do get hurt because their spouse, or committed lover, had sex with someone else.  There are those who argue that the more healthy, real, broad love you have the less you will see a spouse having sex with someone else as ‘vitally’ important.  Therefore, the more you both have real love for each other the more you will be able to successfully stay together, even when great hurt and disturbance occurs.  A supporting thesis goes like this.  Only those who are markedly insecure and inadequate at both love and sex have to break up over a mate having sex with someone else.  This might be because they can’t tolerate the idea that someone else might be better than they are at both love and/or sex.  Secretly they suspect they themselves are inadequate and other people will outperform them.  About that they are profoundly but secretly ashamed.  The truly loving and self secure do not breakup or break down, they work it through with and for love.  At least that’s some of the theory posited for this complicated issue.

We also must look at the healthy self-love factor.  With enough healthy self-love and healing love for a spouse forgiveness, healing and relational improvement becomes more possible.  Splitting up over anything sexual acts to make sex more important than love, and indicates it is likely self-love is deficient.  Some religious leaders have taught that successfully staying together after infidelity is a special application of the great admonition “love others as you love yourself”.  It seems like more and more couples are coming to new psychosexual understandings and with those understandings are working toward staying together.  They do that with growing love for themselves and for each other.  Also they jointly work against the common, cultural training to divorce over ‘going sexually astray’.  This cultural training makes sex so incredibly important that it can, and by these societal standards, should outweigh healthy, real love.  Fortunately for many couples, children and families real love often does prevail, and the problems our culture gives us concerning multiple sex partners are overcome and defeated.

It must be fully recognized that millions have been heavily programmed to give sex great importance, and some argue far more importance than it logically deserves.  This is especially true for those living in the modern world where the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy can be responsibly guarded against.  It also must be fully recognized that how much one hurts in a multi-person sexual situation may be heavily influenced by how one has been subconsciously programmed to feel and think about sex with someone other than a primary mate.  How one has been programmed to behave about all this also is of great import.  Acts against one’s self or against others almost always are counterproductive and they often negate the healing power of love.

Healthy, real love is protective (see the entry “A Functional Definition of Love") so those acting from healthy, real love take appropriate precautions for both sexual and emotional health.  All persons in a multi-person sexual involvement are best treated with love, in fact the more love the better because that will produce the most health and healing when needed.  Love between all participants also will assist in the healthiest resolution of difficulties.  Making an enemy of one person usually just makes everything take longer and be much more difficult.

For the hurting couple grappling with their many difficult emotions here are a number of things to look at so that healing can occur.  Everyone’s sexual background programming and beliefs, along with each person’s own sexual experience history, along with everyone’s religious training are well worth examining – but examining with love and with a loving attitude.  The trick is to be very love-oriented and to combine that with being extremely truthful.  It is love-centeredness mixed with truth that wins the day for most couples and for anyone else involved.  Healing self-love, mate love and love for all concerned is the medicine that makes the difference.

Truth with love can defeat the problems while deception, lies, half lies and attempts at manipulation just make everything worse in the long run.  Being not love-centered but fear-centered, or centered in authoritarian/judgmental controlling, or in victimhood, revenge, self-pity, judgmentalism or anything else can prevent love and truth from doing their healing work.  Blame, accusation, condemnation, rage and other negativity aimed at yourself or others just helps you get a negative outcome.  Be as loving as you can be to yourself and all concerned, be as truthful as you can to yourself and all concerned and you are much more likely to come out better than before.

Again and again that is the result I see in counseling with people dealing with these difficulties.  I have worked with hundreds of couples hurting, struggling and battling their way through these issues.  Those who do love mixed with truth are the ones who come out OK and often even better than they were.  Seek the help of a loving, nonjudgmental counselor or therapist who only ‘takes the side of healthy resolution for all concerned’ and your journey to well-being will be both better and quicker.  At least that is my experience and the experience of those therapists and counselors I have supervised.

Now, let’s look at the love factor for those who don’t get markedly hurt, upset, etc. about their love mate having sex with someone else.  Swingers, polyamores, sex sharers, sex surrogates, erotic communalists, cyber sex aficionados and everyone else engaging in some form of sexuality with multiple people who really do a good job of showing their love-mate lots of healthy, real love usually are the ones who do best.

The general guideline is ‘do lots of love toward everybody involved’ or trouble will probably start and grow.  Lots of truthfulness mixed with lots of love actions keep sex with each other more emotionally safe and nonthreatening.  The couples who are less loving, less truthful and generally less successful at life tend to fail at having multiple sex partners in their lives.  At least, in my counseling and consulting practice that’s what I have seen.  Healthy self-love, mate love, reliance on truth, plus self-disclosure love and protective love (both physical and emotional) help toward a good prognosis.  Anything less loving is likely to be much more problematic.

As in so many things those who do best at multi-person sexuality are those who are highly loving of self and others.

Again, the aim of this entry is to inform about diversity in the human condition.  What we may have been taught is usual, normal, regular, etc. may be different for others, may be changing, and may have much more variation.  What I promote is not a particular relational style but rather health and love in all things.

As always, Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥  Love Success Question
How do you know the ways you think about love and sex are not just the result of your family’s and your society’s programming and not necessarily about what is natural or best for you?

Related posts:

1. Can You Talk about Sex – with Love?
2. Making Love OR Having Sex?
3. Do You Want To Say ‘Love’ When You Mean ‘Sex’?
4. Monogamy for Love & Monogamy for Sex
5. Sex Drive Differences and Love 

Brains and Love Behavior: Oxytocin and Other Healthful Neurochemistry

Synopsis: This mini love lesson starts with a discussion of how we get better brains from love; then goes on to how love influences our brains which in turn influences our general health; how a lack of love may lead to death via your brain’s reactions; what fake love does; results from love labs; and ends with an important “take away”.

Better Brains

Love, the healthy real kind, makes your brain change.  Not only that, it apparently can make your brain change for the better in quite a few ways.  More exactly, when you receive the behaviors that tend to convey real love your brain responds by making different and more healthful neurochemistry.  That neurochemistry then makes your body respond in more healthful ways.  That in turn makes for better brain, body and often relationship functioning.

Here’s an example:  Person A, Ann, wants a hug from person B, Bob.  Ann says to Bob, “Can I have a hug?”.  Bob on hearing this request feels a bit elated and thinks, “How nice, she wants my hug”.  That little touch of elation means Bob’s brain, especially its limbic system, has responded by making certain endorphins which are flowing into Bob’s bloodstream and causing him to feel good.  That occurrence is stimulating and improving his immune mechanisms which will defend him against infection just a bit better.  Bob then hugs Ann.  As they hug she and he both enjoy what they feel which in their words means they feel a little bit more emotionally close, mutually supported and more relationally connected.  Those feelings mean that their brain’s limbic systems are processing the hug and creating a brain chemical compound called oxytocin.

Oxytocin is very important in helping people feel bonded to one another and oxytocin also helps in some other biological functioning.  Thus, the simple act of asking for and getting a hug has caused both Ann and Bob’s brains to positively process love conveying behaviors, make doses of health assisting neurochemical compounds which then flow through their blood streams assisting their biological functioning and at the same time strengthening their relationship with one another. If Ann and Bob do that sort of thing with each another, along with other love conveying actions, on an everyday basis they likely will have better functioning brains, healthier bodies and a strengthened relationship.

If they seldom do those types of love conveying behaviors their brains, their bodies and the relationship will miss out on those biologically and psychologically positive influences.  They then will be less than they could have been.  If their love conveying interactions are too sparse they may come to suffer from psycho-neurophysiological love malnutrition which could destroy the relationship.  These dynamics are what a large and growing body of  brain and behavioral research is pointing to and is helping us to better understand the phenomenon of love.

Brains and Love Making Health

In social psychology certain major groups of behaviors have been discovered which tend to convey love and, therefore, trigger the brain into making its limbic system love responses.  Each of these groups of behavior is thought to be linked to different biological, health improving benefits.  What is thought to happen is that the brain influenced by receiving love conveying behaviors makes a variety of healthful, neurochemical compounds which flow into the brain’s bloodstream and then into the biological body, causing all sorts of things like lowered bad cholesterol, improved blood pressure, increased cancer fighting T cells and a host of other healthful reactions.

Many of these brain and body reactions to love behaviors have do with lowered anxiety, decreased depression, along with increased mental functioning and greater happiness.  So, if someone is actively and behaviorally sending you healthy, real love and you are good at receiving that love, the love is likely to be making you both physically and psychologically healthier.  That is what recent brain and behavioral research is pointing to.

No Love, No Life?

Do you know how in the early 1900’s the “germ theory” and the need for tough soldiers helped kill 98% of infants left in orphanages?  Can you guess?  Well it worked like this.  It was thought the germ theory dictated that the less infants were touched and directly dealt with, the more they would not catch various diseases going around.  The social theory of the time held that loving on babies would make them spoiled and grow up weak and, therefore, they would not be fit to become good, brave, strong soldiers who might be needed to defend the country.

Consequently newborn infants in orphanages received quick, efficient care and were left alone a lot.  They mysteriously died by the thousands all over the Western world before they reached the age of two.  They died of marasmus and failure to thrive illness.  Those that did manage to stay alive tended to be damaged and dysfunctional.  It was not until pediatric psychiatrists discovered behaviorally loving on babies got them to stay alive.  They then started a campaign to rescind the ‘no love’ childcare policies of the time which, sad to say, still linger in some parts of the world.

Adults also die without love, but this is usually by becoming more disease susceptible, maybe more accident prone, more addictions prone and more suicidal, or so it seems the evidence indicates.

Fake Love Doesn’t Help

The various forms of false love don’t seem to do much good either.  Unfortunately, there is very little research on this sort of thing, but some clinical evidence and thinking suggests that false love will either do no good or actually will do harm to the health and well-being of people.  It is argued that false love may not effect brains in the same way as real love.  This makes logical sense.  When love actions are fake, false or insufficient a fair percentage of people seem to sense this and react with apprehension, defensiveness or withdrawal.  Some may just figure it out and retreat from fake-filled relationships.  It is to be expected that various forms of false love would lead to weak, sparse and inconsistent demonstrations of love.  From that can come more relationship dissonance, increased stress, psychological pain and dissatisfaction resulting in hurtful and harmful breakups.

Some have hypothesized that false love could be neuro-electrically sensed differently in the brain than real love might be.  That then could lead to unhealthy brain chemicals being produced and circulated causing anti-health, biological occurrences.  Some research supports the idea that this is the way it could work but, by no means, is this conclusive.  (To learn more about false loves consult this website’s False Love and Myths series).

Love in the Lab

Comparative animal psychologists discovered the same thing that the early pediatric psychiatrists discovered.  Infant monkeys, and later other higher order mammals, who did not experience the behaviors that convey love tended to die in infancy even though they were well taken care of otherwise, just like the human babies died.  Animal brain autopsies showed a lack of full brain development, poor inter-cell connections and other brain deformities.   Those animals that did stay alive were significantly dysfunctional in their ability to relate to others of their own kind and their brain functioning was markedly impaired.

Our brains seem to benefit directly and significantly from love.  Both lab animal and human brain research on those who receive loving touch, looks, sounds, etc. have better developed and better functioning brains, more broad branched brain cell networks, better brain responsiveness and better general cognitive functioning.  If you want to know more about these things you might want to consult these books: The Brain in Love, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life both by Dr. Daniel Amen; The Compassionate Brain by Gerald Hüther; The Neuroscience of Human Relationships by Louis Cozolino; and The Emotional Brain by Joseph Ledoux.

The Take Away

The suggested ‘take away’ from this mini love lesson is as follows.  If you want those you love to be psychologically and physically healthy and if you want your love relationship with those you love to be strong and lasting, learn and consistently practice the behaviors that convey healthy, real love.  To help you do that, study the mini-love-lessons listed under “Behaviors” in the subject index at this website, read Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages, read my book Recovering Love, and if you run into love relationship problems try to find a loving and love-knowledgeable counselor, or therapist or personal coach.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
When someone shows you an action that may convey their love for you, how good are you at receiving it, absorbing it and fully feeling that demonstration of love?

Related posts:

1. Parenting Series: Love Motivating Your Child (& Every One) Toward Good Behavior
2. What About a Scientific Definition of Love?
3. Living Well via Loving Well
4. Listening With Love and IN and OUT Brain Functions
5. A Behavioral (Operational) Definition of Love 

Is Feeling Love, Love Itself?

Synopsis: This mini-love-lesson starts with a review of some of the many troubling contradictions and confusions that exist about whether feeling love is a feeling or not; the lesson then posits a clarifying and for some a contentious answer to the beginning question; more.

Contradictions And Confusions

“I’m totally baffled!  I don’t know what to believe. Most of my friends seem to think that love is an emotion but some strongly disagree. A teacher I respect says that true love is only the feeling of joyful compassion that leads to lifelong commitment and connection. One book I read said love is a wonderful emotion but like all emotions it is temporary and fading and, therefore, untrustworthy and relatively unimportant. Others say love is a mysterious, emotional power that makes the world go-round, and others suggest that feeling love is just part of the mating drive, while still to others love is just an insignificant but strong feeling you get when you play the ‘game of romance’.

I hear supposed experts saying things like love feelings lead to a parasitic, addictive dependency, best avoided or escaped. I also read love is a powerful, vital, natural, long-lasting and, once started, love is an ongoing psychoneurological process which mostly happens in the unconscious limbic system of the brain. That thought takes some contemplation. I understand that some historians suggest romantic love feelings were, in a sense, artificially invented and continued by Western world culture, starting with the French royals in the 12th century. But I also understand that animals probably feel love because their neurochemical, neurophysiological and neuro-electrical responses have been found to be the same as humans when they are behaving in ways thought to represent love occurring.

To make matters even more complicated my religion teaches me things like “God is love”, “love is everlasting”, “all true love (including couple’s love) comes from and is a manifestation of the Deity’s love”and consequently to think that love is merely an emotion, especially a temporary emotion, can be seen as sinful and heretical.” All those statements originated from a foreign graduate student, working hard to develop a cross-cultural, core understanding of this thing we call love.

So what do you think? Have you been taught, or led to believe, that feeling love is love itself? Is love an emotion? If love is an emotion is it impermanent, temporary, unstable and undependable or even fleeting and fickle? Is love only an emotion and, therefore, is not of much lasting importance?

The Perception of Love

One of the more common, perceptual mistakes people make is to confuse the perception of something internal with the thing itself. If I feel rumblings in my stomach I may be sensing  my digestive system functioning. But the sensing of it is not to be confused with digestion itself. In fact, my digestion mostly goes on without me being consciously aware of it – the natural process of love may work that way too. So, feeling love may be seen as occasionally accessing, or becoming aware of, an inner, ongoing, natural process which may always be there inside us once we truly love.

This understanding goes well with people who say things like “I know that I always love my child (children, spouse, family member or whoever they love)” but I don’t always feel that love”. It also is in accord with people who automatically and powerfully act to protect those they love in the split second of sensing that a loved one is in danger. Actions to save acquaintances and strangers tend to be much slower and less likely.  Does not the quick action to save a loved one tell us that the love is already there inside us and is ready to automatically motivate us to be protective. Also the tendency to risk one’s own life to rescue loved ones is not only far quicker but is far stronger than the tendency risk one’s own life rescuing others we do not love.

Another ‘evidence’ of love having an inner, ongoing and consistent component instead of being a fleeting and/or fading feeling can be seen in this example. John got up from a brief nap grumbling and griping about how hard it was to go to his second job. Later at that job a fellow worker asked him why he took and continued to hold this second job because it was so obvious that it was hard on John. John answered, “I do it to help pay my daughter’s college costs, and I do that simply because I dearly love her.”

Now, examine John’s statement. John is experiencing other emotions than the nice, warm, happy feelings often associated with feeling love. In fact, with his griping and grumbling he might be seen as feeling anti-love feelings. However, John’s negative feelings can be seen as somewhat shallow. Underlying them is a far deeper, pervasive, consistent and powerful process of love which keeps motivating John to do his love-motivated actions year after year.

Accessing Love

It seems that once love is solidly established, the people who truly love always can be aware of that love; they can access it, be motivated by it and bring forth actions that demonstrate it. Sometimes this is associated with having the feelings, or emotions, that go with the word love, and sometimes not as is evidenced in John’s example above. Whether it is felt or not, it is there. There are countless millions of other examples, especially among people  who have had long-term love relationships in which hardship or strong challenge has been faced because of their ongoing love. In sickness and in health, in adversity and stress, in deprivation and defeat, love prevails as nothing else can. If love were but a temporary emotion it would not be consistently accessible and available for motivating the great and heroic acts it does, indeed, motivate. 

Love Labeling

If someone strongly and sincerely says they love you, it would seem that perhaps they have gotten in touch with a strong, natural, inner process which may continue throughout life and actually may produce a great many other emotions along with many thoughts and life-changing actions. It is reasonable to think that it takes a lot more than a mere, temporary emotion to achieve all that.

It is true that a person saying they love you may have what can be called varying and various love feelings for you, along with that love, but there is far more to love than just those feelings. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “I am feeling loving toward you, or for you”. Perhaps it also would be accurate for someone to say “I’m feeling loved” rather than the perfunctory “I love you too” response. After a time, two people in a love relationship may have the emotion of feeling lovable. Feeling lovable, loving and loved are all probably reasonable labels for emotions that flow out of love itself. Those feelings may come and go but the love that underlies them is probably most accurately understood as stable, dependable and consistently present, not temporary.

Evidence That Love Is More Than Emotion

Another source of evidence pointing to love being something other than just emotion comes from the research into love’s physically healing effects. Along with that is the research that shows the lack of love, or the absence of behaviors that convey love, can result in failure to thrive illnesses, psychosocial dwarfism, heightened susceptibility to disease and other physiological maladies. Serious depression and anxiety conditions also are associated with people who insufficiently receive the behaviors that convey love. Then there are the amazing incidents of the presence of a loved one having healthful effects on people in deep, comatose states. There also is accumulating evidence in the brain sciences pointing to love being a deep, usually unconscious, vital, powerful, natural process.

Research in systemic and interactional variables having to do with how two or more people, or animals, interrelate and what that interrelating does to their biological functioning, also shows interesting results concerning love. Some researchers think they have evidence which suggests that two people, or two animals, who are in what can be called ‘a love bonded relationships’ sometimes exhibit very harmonious neuro-electrical and neurochemical synchronicity which apparently does not occur in non-love bonded pairs. Lovers, parents and children, brothers and sisters, twins and others are thought to also sometimes exhibit this phenomenon. Is that evidence of love at the neurophysiological level? Some people think it is. Much more research on this has yet to be done.

Research in comparative animal psychology, social psychology, anthropology, pediatric psychiatry, and even behavioral economics tends to correlate with what the brain sciences have been finding concerning love.  Behaviors that bring about ongoing, close, caring connection, nurturing, protectiveness and healthfulness are all associated with the neurochemistry that seems to be a part of love responses, and love relationships in humans and higher order primates, as well as other members of the animal kingdom.

The Answer

The answer to the question “Is feeling love, love itself?” is no! The preponderance of available evidence from many sources points to love being far more than just a feeling.  It also suggests that when we feel love for someone, an animal or anything else, we actually are just becoming aware of an inner process which is natural, powerful and vital to full, healthful functioning. That process, the evidence also suggests, is something ongoing within us whether we consciously are aware of it, or not.

Therefore, it is sensible to conclude: Love is so much more than a feeling or an emotion.Feeling love is just a sensing of a much greater thing.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Who do you know you love, whether you feel that or not at this moment?