Where does romantic love come from?

If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.

-- Lynda Barry

So you are in love.

I was madly in love and did not know what to do about it. My life was a mess at the time. I was so unhappy beforehand. After falling in love, I was desperately unhappy and miraculously happy at the same time. Then I knew I had to take action. But I did not know what to do. My life was complicated at that time. I wanted to rationalize what I have been going through.

During my research I figured, it is really all about your family and your childhood traumas. You are wounded somehow, you want to fix it. Understand it by re-staging the conditions to resolve this time. So you choose people for your wounds. If it is a parent, you choose a partner who you can transform into this parent you have issues with. A little familiarity is enough. In every relationship we are not in our own personalities. We act a differently. Our partner demands it so without noticing.

Romantic love is all about shadows. Shadows of two people talk to each other in their own way. What you cannot face, what you cannot cope you put it in your shadow. The good thing is they don’t stay there long, and romantic love is a great way of facing yourself. Real love transforms you and your partner into something new and stronger.

What makes love?

Three things. Intimacy, passion, commitment.

Intimacy is sharing. Showing oneself your true self with all the good things and the bad things. Showing your true face, the one you cannot look alone. You have to share. You cannot hide. If you hide, if you are afraid, you wont have intimacy.

Commitment is saying this is the person I am with. After the commitment, once two people know they will be there for each other no matter what happens, it creates a strong bond. Without commitment the couple cannot feel the trust and intimacy gets wounded.

Passion is the hardest part of the triangle. It is between two bodies, it is between souls. It is a gift. It is a miracle. I don’t know how to achieve it, however I know when two people really connect in a deep level and do not fear their shadows, it can happen.