Love: It’s one of the few things in life that can create intense pleasure or intense pain in our lives. It’s the one force that has the power to put you on top of the clouds or in a deep, dark hole. Yet, no matter how much experience we gain in love, it seems like we’re all still figuring it out as we go.
IS LOVE BLIND?
As neuroscientist and best-selling author Abhijit Naskar once said, “The brain becomes illogical in the throes of new romance.” Something that makes it hard to figure out how to build healthy expectations and a sustainable connection is that in the beginning, love is blind. When you are in the midst of deep love, when the world is filled with rainbows and butterflies, everything your partner does is right. This is where the term “love is blind” comes from. You are so “blinded” by love that you cannot see any of your lover’s flaws.
Why is love blind? Why do we feel this way? Why do we act as though our partner doesn’t have any perceivable flaws or shortcomings? Because in the beginning, we are loving from our hearts, not our heads.
When you first get together with a romantic partner, it’s easy to block out any red flags or character flaws. You’re in the lusting phase of your relationship. In this heightened state of attraction, we tend to give our partners more leeway. There’s more space for them to make mistakes because the rules we have created within the relationships are different, and we have fewer of them. And in many cases, you don’t have any rules — you’re just thrilled to be in the same room with them. You feel lucky to have the opportunity to make them happy. No matter what they do or what they say, you are infatuated with the idea of them.
WHY LOVE IS BLIND
When you’re at the beginning of your relationship, you’re fully loving from the heart, instead of the head. You’re throwing caution to the wind and fully embracing this feeling of love and infatuation. This is why love is blind. When someone is loving from the heart, their thought process sounds like this:
“What would make my partner happy? What would turn them on? I am going to go to the ends of the earth to find out – and I’m going to have fun doing it. I’m going to have fun learning about them and enjoy exploring all kinds of things together. I’m going to feel alive, I’m going to make this relationship perfect.”
This experience happens to many of us. That’s why there are so many love is blind quotes and stories about this exact topic – it is incredibly relatable. At some point in our lives, almost all of us will meet someone who sweeps us off of our feet.. We will want to do everything in our power to keep the relationship going, regardless of the price on our mental or emotional health.
Where are the doubts? Where are the rules? If relationships were truly this easy, then every person on the planet would be in a happy union.
Where is the measuring of how much you are doing for your partner? How much are they doing for you? That’s right — it’s not there. When you are loving from your heart, in the “blind” stage, you don’t think about how much you are giving, and you don’t create ideals of how your partner doesn’t match up to the perfect partner in your mind.
So what brings that stage to an end? Why do we stop loving from the heart? When is love no longer blind?
LOVING WITH YOUR HEAD
Rabbi Julius Gordon said, “Love is not blind. It sees more and not less, but because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” Once your head takes over, you start to become more aware of the traits you ignored in the beginning of your relationship. You start to use logic more as you fall out of the honeymoon stage. Logic is a valuable intellectual trait but it can also be destructive, especially in relationships.
Here is the train of thought of someone who is in their head, instead of fully loving with their heart:
LOVING WITH YOUR HEAD
The answer is: Your head takes over. Logic is a valuable intellectual trait, but in the realm of relationships, it can be destructive. Here is the train of thought of someone who is in their head, instead of fully loving with their heart:
“I wonder what they’re going to do for me for my birthday. I planned such a great day for their birthday, and they loved it. But they haven’t even mentioned my birthday yet this year. What if they forget completely? Like they forgot to congratulate me when I got that promotion. Or like how they forget even the little things, like the fact that I don’t like ginger. How can I have a partner who doesn’t know I don’t like ginger?!”
At this point, the rules that you’ve made up in your head about how a partner will behave, what your relationship will be like and what you deserve have completely overtaken all of the positive emotions you had before when your love was still blind. Things our partner does are no longer thrilling. Their flaws are no longer “cute.” Instead, their flaws become annoying when love is no longer blind.
When we start to let the little things stack up, we begin feeling resentment or built-up tension toward our partners. We start to punish our partners for their flaws. That can escalate into a series of rejections that become toxic or abrasive – and ultimately simmers into a general feeling of repression, or learned helplessness, where you lower your expectations so much that you no longer feel any needs being met in the relationship. When this happens, you turn to other outlets for your love and attention, like your work, children, friend group or hobbies.
Sounds terrible, right? The good news is that you can learn the five disciplines of love and learn how to maintain a feeling of attraction to your partner through the power of polarity.
As Tony says, when you’re in attraction, love is easy. Love is blind. When you’re not attracted, you get in your head. You leave your heart and your body and you go to your head.
To get a deep dive into polarization and what it means for your relationship, consider attending Tony’s marquee event, Date With Destiny. You can also gain clarity on how to build a passionate and strong relationship with Tony’s Ultimate Relationship Program. If your relationship matters to you, it’s not too late to save it. Love may be blind early on in new relationships, but with the proper insights and principles, you can find a way to clearly see and appreciate your partner as time goes on.
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