Romantic love is that passionate, spiritual-emotional-sexual attachment between two people that reflects a high regard for the value of each other. If being in love has caused you pain, however – and welcome to the club – you may have concluded that being detached and distant and not caring for another is the safest place to be. But, if romantic love can bring out the worst in us – those irrational, needy and childlike traits we thought we had left behind long ago – it can also bring out the best in us. Consider what Ethel Person has said about love:

“Romantic love, subjectively experienced, is an emotion of an extraordinary intensity. The experience of love can make time stop, therefore giving one the rare opportunity to live in the present.  Love may confer a sense of inner rightness, peace and richness, or it may be a mode of … enlarging and changing the self.”

Someone else has said that you fall in love and then you grow up and live happily ever after. A healthy, loving relationship has the capacity to enhance us into better people.

But, be aware. There is a faux love going around – attachment hunger. Or, what I like to call, the serge leading to the urge to merge. In these cases, loving feelings take on an urgency and desperation and therefore, instead of leading to “enlarging and changing the self,” lead to distortion and narrowing of the self. This difference – that a loving passion enlarges us while an addiction inevitably diminishes us – is a crucial distinction.

And so, we each must examine ourselves to be sure we are ready to love – we must let go of infantile attachment that narrows and expects too much – to adult mature attachment that enlarges us, and the other. We must be ready to risk having our hearts broken again for love.

Which is it for you? Are you enlarged or restricted in your relationship? Do you seek ways to connect rather than hide? Are you ready to really extend your self for another person? If you are ready to give up your need to be right about which way the toilet paper comes off the roll, you may be ready for love. If you can let go of the need to win those inevitable battles of will about inconsequential matters, you may be ready for love. 
      

David Hawkins, Pd.D., has worked with couples and families to improve the quality of their lives by resolving personal issues for the last 30 years. 

He is the author of over 18 books, including Love Lost: Living Beyond a Broken Marriage, Saying It So He'll Listen, and When Pleasing Others Is Hurting You. His book, When the Man in Your Life Can’t Commit, released in February 2006. Dr. Hawkins grew up in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and lives on the South Puget Sound where he enjoys sailing, biking, and skiing. He has active practices in two Washington cities.