Romeo and Juliet, Callisto and Melibea, Beauty and the Beast, who has not ever dreamed of a book love? From small we learn an ideal of biased love, since that idea of perfect love is implanted in our society, where you love and are loved at the same level. A relationship in which you would give your life for the other person and wish the other person would give it for you.
However, we know that love is much more complex than what they sell us in the movies. But, what they do not explain to us is the phases that people go through before fully loving. Many times is confused between being in love and truly lovingTherefore, in Psychology-Online we want to explain to you from the point of view of psychology what are the differences between both concepts.
According to the dictionary provided by the American Psychological Association, the term love it is:
A complex emotion involving strong feelings of affection and tenderness for the object of love, pleasant sensations in its presence, devotion to its well-being and sensitivity to its reactions to oneself. Although love takes many forms, including concern for human beings (brotherly love), parental love, erotic love, self-love and identification with the totality of being (love of God), the triangular theory of love proposes three components essential:
passion, intimacy and commitment.
The combination of these three elements of Stenberg's theory gives rise to 7 types of couple love.
We understand as love that emotion experienced towards another person once we have already known him in a deeper way. That is, we know the defects and advantages of it and even so the affective feeling towards that person continues to exist. Once this phase of romantic love is over, people are no longer based only on the attraction, romanticism and idealization that we find in falling in love. In this, the need to respect, commitment, desire to share and forgive they become more and more present. Here you can see What is unconditional love.
As indicated by the neurologist and psychiatrist Mora (2007), we know the concept of falling in love according to psychology as:
The state of a person dominated by a lively feeling for another, whom he considers the highest good of her, with whom he would like to be united forever and for whom he would sacrifice his own life, if necessary.
Infatuation is often considered as the first phase of a love relationship, where people report feeling attracted to a specific person and with whom they feel a series of physiological changes when they think or see that person.
During this phase, lovers do not really know the other person and, therefore, see everything they do, say and surround them as correct and ideal. Base part of an attraction which drives us almost involuntarily to focus all our attention on it. This is due to the sensations that its presence produces in us. In this article you will find more information about the process of infatuation.
After seeing the definition of Maor and infatuation we can conclude that it is not the same, but how do you know if you are in love or love? What concrete differences are there between love and falling in love according to psychology?
According to Fromm (1957), a series of points could be identified in which there is a difference between love and infatuation:
- The infatuation is born when feeling a attraction towards a person and by which we drop the "barriers" that separate us from other individuals. While love is born once you have met the other person Really.
- In infatuation we have the feeling that we have created a special connection with that person, so we share our inner feelings and thoughts with them. In love, opening up with the other person is a consequence of the trust created Between both.
- There is a chemical change in our biological organism. Thanks to this change, the person in love feels happy and in a good mood. Love no longer gives rise to these organic processes.
- During this phase, the person in love has the feeling that the person you are in love with is perfect and that she is the most wonderful in the world. This point is considered the biggest difference between the two concepts.
- You begin to love when you stop being in love.
- To loving takes a while to know the other person, both the good and the bad, both the defects and the virtues.
- Love starts from the basis of reality, where you stop seeing your partner in an idealized way.
- It is considered that to love a person you have to weigh the good and the bad of him and then love him.
- While falling in love is the first contact with the other person, love is born from real coexistence with her. Of sharing and receiving. To live interests and dreams in a shared way.
- While falling in love may not be entirely reciprocal, love has to be. You can't love someone who doesn't love you. In falling in love, the idealization of her can make you accept that she does not love you as much as you love her, However, if you love someone and that person is not interested in you, you will experience a sense of frustration. If this is your case, it can help you to read this article about How to forget an impossible love.
- In the infatuation phase, people feel affection and admiration for the other person, while in love these feelings disappear to give rise to what is known as attachment.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
