The Psychology of Falling in Love

What Happens to Us When We Fall in Love?

Falling in love is often a dream come true, one that proves to be an undeniably powerful and life-altering experience that changes us forever, and when this miracle happens, it changes us both inside and out, mentally and physically. We become radically different people, something that both our worldviews and outward behaviors display with a flagrant intensity. This love is quite often fleeting, leaving us sobered and sometimes even feeling cheated, when that beautiful rush of emotions subsides, the storm calms, and we return to our well-ordered lives.

The science of our modern world has a lot to say about falling in love, as we now understand the physiological and biological processes which are involved when we fall in love. Did you know that your body responds to falling in love in the exact same way that it fends off an intruding virus? Did you know that dramatic changes take place on the genetic level when we fall in love, something that’s entirely outside of our control?

Both of these statements are true, a subject I’ve covered at length here in a story titled How Falling in Love Physically Changes Our Genes.

But there are other things that happen to our bodies when we fall in love, that magical phase that, if we don’t use it cautiously and build a solid foundation upon it, will be swept out from beneath us like a rug, often leaving us toppled and confused, and simply wondering, “What happened?”

The Beginning

It all starts with a massive eruption, not unlike the Big Bang, where suddenly we’re thrust into a new state of mind, a new way of being, a new way of walking and talking. This stage of love is called Limerence by social and biological scientists, and it happens in both the human and animal kingdoms.

Everything from elephants to dogs experiences the passionate, sex-crazed phase called Limerence, where they are granted almost godlike powers, at least perceptively, they’re energized, youthful, hopeful, and most of all aroused.

Possibly the most fascinating thing about Limerence is that only certain compositions of chromosomes and genetics are thought to cause it in us; that is, it takes place on an extremely small biological scale, operating from the ground up. If you’ve fallen in lusty love with a partner, chances are pretty good that you didn’t intend for that to happen, and you know that feeling that nobody else could make you feel quite like they do? That’s actually quite real and backed up by some scientific evidence.

“The interesting thing about limerence is that it’s believed that only certain people can actually cause it in us — that is, something about their composition. Researcher John Gottman says, in his work Principia Amoris, that people have to smell and feel right and basically be just right in order to activate this flood of neurotransmitters in our brains. In other words, not everyone can do it for us, and it requires a certain makeup in an individual for it to happen. What these things are, at current, are beyond our understanding, but we know they have a material base to be found in.”

Love not only takes place in our minds, but in our genes, and is a fundamental process of organisms on the most basic of levels. True love is a biological feature and what it means to be a sentient creature.

Chemical Stages

From here, our bodies go through a series of stages, starting with the dopamine rush of Limerance, which actually similarly mimics a long-term dose of cocaine straight to the brain, to the settling feeling brought about by the oxytocin, “the cuddle chemical,” which makes us desire to settle down, finding safety and refuge in our partners.

Soon the seeming emergency and feelings of panic and uncertainty are replaced by feelings of commonality and bonding. Many people dismay over this process, but personally, I find delight in it and think we should embrace it.

I described the series of challenges we face as couples (and more) as our relationships age and grow in my work Why Love Must Be Inconvenient (and Why It’s Worth It) which can be found here, and will note that resistance is the foundation of every great relationship.

We can attempt to cling to the stages of love past, but this clinging will be in vain, as we are designed to go through them and experience them — they should be augmented into a new framework of love, as we redefine our love, and embraced, not resisted.

Our newfound love has merely transformed to adopt new values, but we’re still very much falling in love with our partners every single day. Love is a process, not a destination, and should be treated as such.

It’s important to remember that not just anyone could have sparked this powerful surge of love within us. Only a select few people have the correct composition of chemicals to set off our chain-reaction of chemicals to cause love in the first place.

The Monogamy Gene

Did you know that our very genes might play a role in our willingness to adopt and participate in monogamous structures? Well, they do, and while the exact reach of our genes in our willingness to settle down is still uncertain, we know that people who possess a certain gene, RS3–334, a gene which modulates vasopressin receptors, are much more commitment-shy than their counterparts without the gene.

Monogamy may be a genetic trait, and some refreshing new science has shown that people with two copies of the RS3–334 genes are either less happy with their monogamous marriages, or more likely to remain single indefinitely, rather than fall into a long-term commitment. For the record, monogamy is neither right nor wrong, people should do what makes them happy with their own lives.

People with one copy of the RS3–334 genes fell somewhere in the middle, while people without the gene entirely were very much happily predisposed towards monogamous behavior. This study was not one conducted in isolation, and there is a large body of scientific literature which suggests that this gene plays a central role in our willingness to trust, allow ourselves to be open and dependent upon others (a necessary requisite for the later stages of falling in love), and ultimately spend our lives with someone.

Internalization

Internalization is a concept dating way back to the old school Freudian psychology, or psychoanalysis, whereby one party adopts the behaviors, mannerisms, ideas, and dispositions of another. This is called internalization, when we’ve been around our partners so much that we finish one another’s sentences, that we say things in synchronization when we know what they’re thinking before they even say it.

Ever hear yourself saying a certain phrase that you first heard with your partner months or years prior? Or them you? This is internalization, and it’s a powerful step in the process of falling in love.

Through internalization, we consciously or unconsciously adopt parts of our partner that we hold dear, the things about them that we value the most or the things which strike us with the most emotional resonance.

In a real way, one of the foundations of falling in love with someone is internalizing them and their behaviors, literally augmenting a part of their personality and who they are as a part of your very self and identity, not only in the mere realm of thought but in concrete actions in the world.

We act out our partner’s wishes when we internalize them, we carry a part of them with us, forever and always, as our memories stored in the brain have reinforced their traits to such a great degree, that they’ve infiltrated our very biological mechanisms behind our thoughts, and our physiology is completely altered forever.

And that’s why we feel so strongly that we want to keep that one partner who magically made us feel that spark in the first place, because they’re with us on the deepest levels, in the darkest recesses of our physiological beings, as we clutch and cling to every little bit of information they send our way, all the things about them that we love the most.

Love wasn’t designed to end, but to eternally morph and rebuild, to compound upon itself, to reanalyze itself, to become the powerful force through which we draw the substrate which becomes the fuel for our lives. It should be regarded for the wonderful miracle of nature that it is.

© 2019; Joe Duncan. All Rights Reserved