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Falling in love and staying in love aren’t the same thing.  Falling in love is romantic infatuation when one is completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love.  The chase, the initial courtship and the first kiss get one’s heart racing, palms sweating and make him want to sing to the world.  At this first stage of a relationship, one tends to believe that all her troubles are now over and loneliness a thing of the past because she has found the one.  They are both convinced that they’ll be in this kind of dizzying love forever.

But it’s humanly impossible to remain in this stage for a long period of time.  During the winter break, I asked my 19-year-old daughter Jane how things were between her and her boyfriend of nine months.

“Has the fighting started yet?”  I queried jokingly.

Jane giggled.  “Yeah …”

“Why do you fight?”

“I think we spend too much time together.”

“Hmm… Maybe it’s wise to maintain your own circle of friends and continue developing your own interests so the two of you don’t suffocate each other.”

“That’s true.  It got really bad for a while, but we’re learning to compromise and work things out.”

“You know Jane, it’s okay to fight.  But chronic fighting isn’t healthy for a relationship.  So stick with the issue and work it out.  And remember not to attack his self-worth in the heat of the moment.  You don’t want to say hurtful things that can’t be taken back.”

“Thanks mom for the advice. I’ll work on it.”

Infatuation is both an early stage in a deepening sequence of love/attachment, and at the same time a potential stopping point if it fails to grow into a more mature love.  Many people call it quits because they are no longer ‘in love’.  What they are actually saying is that they no longer have the same dizzying feelings towards their partner when they first fell in love.  The infatuation stage is an addictive experience and therefore people move on to the next relationship to fall in love again and again.

For those who believe that the whirlwind and intense Hollywood romance is the real love, they are likely to dismiss the everyday day love as boring or unrewarding.  Hollywood isn’t real life.  For one thing, in real life people don’t always look so perfect and sexy. We get tired and have limited time, resource and energy.  We have to go to work and are frequently stressed out.  In real life, the mature love that is deeper and more secure is equally rewarding.

After 25 years of marriage, the great romance between me and Joe can be when Joe calls me every morning on his way to work asking me about what I dreamed about and how I slept, when I deliver his favorite fruit and drink to his study after dinner, when we exchange a loving smile in the midst of a social gathering, when he dances awkwardly in front of me every time we run into each other in the house, when I tell him if time goes back 25 years I’ll still choose to spend the rest of my life with him …

Staying in love is hard work.  But if you know in your heart that you’ve found the one, it’s worth everything in the world to stay committed to the relationship, to work things out in an open and non-threatening way.  What Jane needs to learn is that withdrawal is as devastating to a partner as being an attack dog.  She should pay attention to the patterns of how they get stuck and look for alternative and more constructive ways of communication.

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” (by Bruce Lee)