Morattu Uncle
Wellknown Ace
Stage three is an opportunity to love and appreciate our partner, to shift from the expectation of “ideal mate.”
Stage 1: Falling in Love
Falling in love is nature’s trick to get humans to pick a mate so that our species carries on. It feels so wonderful because we are awash in hormones such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen. Falling in love also feels great because we project all our hopes and dreams of our lover. We imagine that they will fulfill our desires, give us all the things we didn’t get as children, deliver on all the promises our earlier relationships failed to fulfill. We are sure we will remain in love forever. And because we are besotted with “love hormones,” we’re not aware of any of this.
When we’re in love, we dismiss naysayers like curmudgeon George Bernard Shaw who cautioned:
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
Stage 2: Becoming a Couple
At this stage, our love deepens and we join together as a couple. This is a time when we have children and raise them. If we’re past the child-rearing stage, it’s the time when our couple bond deepens and develops. It’s a time of togetherness and joy. We learn what the other person likes and we expand our individual lives to begin developing a life of “the two of us.”
During this phase, we experience less of the falling head-over-heels “in love” feelings. We feel more bonded with our partners. We feel warm and cuddly. The sex may not be as wild, but it’s deeply satisfying. We feel safe, cared for, cherished, and appreciated. We feel close and protected. We often think this is the ultimate level of love and we expect it to go on forever. We are often blind-sided by the turn-around of stage three.
Stage 3: Disillusionment
No one told us about Stage three in understanding love and marriage. Stage three is where my first two marriages collapsed and for too many relationships this is the beginning of the end. This is a period where things begin to feel bad. It can occur slowly or can feel like a switch is flipped and everything goes wrong. Little things begin to bother us. We feel less loved and cared for. We feel trapped and want to escape.
We become more irritable and angry, or hurt and withdrawn. We may stay busy at work, or with the family, but the dissatisfactions mount. We wonder where the person we once loved has gone. We long for the love we once had, but we don’t know where it went, or how to get it back. One of the other partners wants out, or sometimes people go on “existing together,” but without really feeling intimate.
Stage 4: Creating Real, Lasting Love
One of the gifts of confronting the unhappiness in Stage three is we can get to the core of what causes the pain and conflict.There’s nothing more satisfying than being with a partner who sees you and loves you for who you are. They understand that your hurtful behavior is not because you are mean and unloving, but because you have been wounded in the past and the past still lives with you. As we better understand and accept our partner, we can learn to love ourselves ever more deeply.
Stage 5: Using the Power of Two to Change the World
No one has to remind us that the world is not doing too well. There are continuous wars and conflicts. Racial violence seems to be everywhere. We wonder whether humans can survive. I wondered, “If we can’t even find peace between two people who love each other, what chance do we have to create a world that can work for all its peoples?”
But now, I look at the flip side of that question. If we can learn to overcome our differences and find real, lasting love in our relationships, perhaps we can work together to find real, lasting love in the world.
I believe that every couple has an opportunity to use the “power of two” to address some aspect of the world’s problems that touch their lives. Carlin and I are particularly tuned to issues that face men and women at midlife. We are writing a book, You Two: Renewing Your Mid-Life Marriage for Real Lasting Love
Stage 1: Falling in Love
Falling in love is nature’s trick to get humans to pick a mate so that our species carries on. It feels so wonderful because we are awash in hormones such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen. Falling in love also feels great because we project all our hopes and dreams of our lover. We imagine that they will fulfill our desires, give us all the things we didn’t get as children, deliver on all the promises our earlier relationships failed to fulfill. We are sure we will remain in love forever. And because we are besotted with “love hormones,” we’re not aware of any of this.
When we’re in love, we dismiss naysayers like curmudgeon George Bernard Shaw who cautioned:
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
Stage 2: Becoming a Couple
At this stage, our love deepens and we join together as a couple. This is a time when we have children and raise them. If we’re past the child-rearing stage, it’s the time when our couple bond deepens and develops. It’s a time of togetherness and joy. We learn what the other person likes and we expand our individual lives to begin developing a life of “the two of us.”
During this phase, we experience less of the falling head-over-heels “in love” feelings. We feel more bonded with our partners. We feel warm and cuddly. The sex may not be as wild, but it’s deeply satisfying. We feel safe, cared for, cherished, and appreciated. We feel close and protected. We often think this is the ultimate level of love and we expect it to go on forever. We are often blind-sided by the turn-around of stage three.
Stage 3: Disillusionment
No one told us about Stage three in understanding love and marriage. Stage three is where my first two marriages collapsed and for too many relationships this is the beginning of the end. This is a period where things begin to feel bad. It can occur slowly or can feel like a switch is flipped and everything goes wrong. Little things begin to bother us. We feel less loved and cared for. We feel trapped and want to escape.
We become more irritable and angry, or hurt and withdrawn. We may stay busy at work, or with the family, but the dissatisfactions mount. We wonder where the person we once loved has gone. We long for the love we once had, but we don’t know where it went, or how to get it back. One of the other partners wants out, or sometimes people go on “existing together,” but without really feeling intimate.
Stage 4: Creating Real, Lasting Love
One of the gifts of confronting the unhappiness in Stage three is we can get to the core of what causes the pain and conflict.There’s nothing more satisfying than being with a partner who sees you and loves you for who you are. They understand that your hurtful behavior is not because you are mean and unloving, but because you have been wounded in the past and the past still lives with you. As we better understand and accept our partner, we can learn to love ourselves ever more deeply.
Stage 5: Using the Power of Two to Change the World
No one has to remind us that the world is not doing too well. There are continuous wars and conflicts. Racial violence seems to be everywhere. We wonder whether humans can survive. I wondered, “If we can’t even find peace between two people who love each other, what chance do we have to create a world that can work for all its peoples?”
But now, I look at the flip side of that question. If we can learn to overcome our differences and find real, lasting love in our relationships, perhaps we can work together to find real, lasting love in the world.
I believe that every couple has an opportunity to use the “power of two” to address some aspect of the world’s problems that touch their lives. Carlin and I are particularly tuned to issues that face men and women at midlife. We are writing a book, You Two: Renewing Your Mid-Life Marriage for Real Lasting Love
