Familiar face
But in order for the alchemical retort of love to melt, an initial impulse is needed-a meeting with him. How do we recognize this person among many others? Sometimes we tend to believe that the meeting happens by the will of chance. And psychologists believe that we are guided by our unconscious. Someone's gesture, voice, facial features, posture or gait awaken in us a dormant memory of the very first and deepest emotional connection in our life - the connection with the mother. Love is based on a sense of deep identity between yourself and another person. And so it was in childhood: the child does not feel separate, he is one with his mother. Initially, I do not exist by myself. I'm all in that face that leans towards me. I experience myself through it. Lovers often describe the impression of instant recognition, which they experienced at the first meeting, or the feeling that arose soon after the acquaintance, "as if we had known each other all our lives." And this is not a metaphor. Recognition does happen. Without realizing this, we fall in love with those who remind us of people who have been with us since our birth.
Second half
The most important thing for the boy is the mother's face, and so it will be. The girl's feelings are undergoing changes. Initially, her affection is exactly the same as that of the boy, is directed to the mother. But over time, she "re-learns" and begins to focus on her father. " If there is no father in the family, his place will be occupied either by an adult replacing him or by a collective image created on the basis of stories, books, films, meetings with acquaintances. In some cases, there is a choice from the opposite: we fall in love with those who at first sight are completely different from our parents - or even seem to be their complete opposite. However, in any case, the "point of reference" is the mother or father. In addition to appearance, habits, ways of communication, views are also important. In a family, a person learns certain patterns of behavior and beliefs. For example, if a mother sacrifices herself for the sake of her father's career, then it is more likely that a girl who has grown up in such a family will find a partner similar to her father - in order to realize the maternal model of behavior. Matches are not always literal. Suppose a father is a scientist who gives all his strength to science. This does not mean that a daughter will marry a scientist. Quite possibly, her partner will be a businessman devoted to his work, but forgetting about the family. It's like dancing: we choose a partner who knows the same thing as us, with whom we can dance together.
Finding the ideal
Despite the fact that we lived without it for many years or even decades, in a few hours or days it becomes vital to us. We treat the partner we have found as uncritically as an infant to the mother - the source of our own existence. It will take a long time before the child begins to judge his parents and realizes that they are not perfect. Falling in love, we seem to return to early childhood, lose the ability to reason with reason, and in return we find the blissful feeling of the found perfection. We close our eyes to the faults of our beloved. We idealize it. But do not assume that idealization is bad. To be in love is to discover all the best that is in another person, and sometimes create. The distance between what is and what may be is not so great. We live in a world of opportunity. I am what I can become. Seeing in the other person dignity, including potential, we help him to discover opportunities, which he had not previously suspected. And due to the fact that we do not distinguish between it and ourselves (after all, it seems to us that we are a single whole), we in ourselves discover the best that exists in us or could be.
Unbreakable unity
When we are in love, reality expands, all contradictions disappear. Infatuation is the restoration of the primary fusion with the world. Reflection isolates the "I" from everything around him. Having ceased to reflect under the influence of a strong feeling, we again plunge into a state of unity, indivisibility. The infantile feeling of love for the world and at the same time comes back to us - for the boundaries between me and the world have disappeared, there is no longer a division into "we" and "others". We experience the limitlessness of being, our "I" becomes infinite in time and space. I can not think myself far from someone I'm in love with. It would be a gap within yourself. When lovers promise - aloud or mentally - to love each other forever, there is not a drop of lies in it. In fact at this moment they, really, stay within eternity. And so the thought of separation is intolerable, like the thought of death.
In return for the lost paradise
But the eternity of love does not remain unchanged. Feelings develop. "In love, as if against the background of the experience of the absolute, the transience of existence is felt. As if one had to pay for excellence with a sense of finitude, transience. At some point, there are doubts: how long will this last? Anxiety visits lovers, any hint of parting is painfully experienced. But despair is followed by hope: maybe everything can be returned! This is very similar to the relationship of the baby and the mother. Milk, weasel, complete unity. Then they part, the child experiences separation, but now he hears the steps of his mother ... There is a cycle, and these cycles are reproduced in the soul of lovers. Pleasure, fear, despair, hope. These are children's experiences, they are in no way connected with complex interpersonal relationships. " Love reproduces our very first emotions. But we never get used to them, each time feeling them as new. Or as real and correct. They make us want to start everything from scratch. Should I leave my wife the next day after meeting someone else? We do it without hesitation! While oxytocin holds us in its captivity, the mind is silent. But one day we will see that the chosen one in many respects differs from us and can not satisfy absolutely all our needs. What then? Either cooling, parting and empty life before meeting with a new "single" - or we have to learn to negotiate, forgive imperfections and rediscover another person in all its dissimilarity towards us. Love and love are not identical. There is love, which does not grow into love. There is also love, not grown from falling in love. She has a different beginning: less passion, more responsibility and trust. Perhaps we could say, thoroughly paraphrasing the famous aphorism of Leo Tolstoy: we all fall in love equally, but we love in different ways. Now we know the role of love in human life.