January tends to be an awful month. For many individuals loneliness increases, and they yearn to be brought to life by the passion of romance. This passionate romantic love is not just a form of love, it is an entire psychological package consisting of a combination of beliefs, ideals, attitudes and expectations. Passionate, romantic love is the single greatest energy system in a new relationship. It can drive us wild, “crazy” out of our heads. In the short run, sex, transcendence, wholeness and ecstasy seem like the only important values in life. In the long run, we are unaware of how contradictory ideas coexist in our unconscious minds and impact our reactions and behavior. We have automatic assumptions about who the other person is and what they are about. Blinded by love, we are over come with feelings and ignore warning signs, obvious though they may be.

Even unrealized fantasy romantic love doesn't mean just loving someone; it means we are “in love” and that somehow being connected to this other human being will forever eliminate our life's sorrows. Our unconscious belief is that our lover or spouse will always provide us with this feeling of intensity and safety.

When we are not “in love,” we spend much of our time with a deep sense of loneliness and frustration over our inability to make genuinely loving and committed relationships. Usually we blame others for “not being the right one” or for failing us in some essential way. It takes a surprise jolt or some therapy to acknowledge that perhaps we are the ones who have to change. It is our own attitudes and the expectations we place on other people and on relationships that need fixing.

When a man and a woman first fall in love, they rarely understand that they may be as different as two species, each seeking some lost piece of themselves. For many men it is their lost feminine side---feelings of relatedness, community, a flowing of souls. They start off seeking their unlived feminine side through a particular woman and magically believe she will stay just the way she seems. Many women, who in spite of themselves idealize masculine values, feel inferior if they aren't sufficiently logical, rational, linear thinkers. They feel inferior and have poor self esteem because they intuit or feel what is going on, but can't verbalize it precisely.

These women spend much of their energy in efforts to make a loving relationship with a man and to deal with his seemingly incomprehensible feelings, ideas and reactions. At the same time, he is often befuddled, by the flux and flow of her endless supply of emotions. It's almost as if they are speaking two different languages: She: one of romance. He: one of functionality and “fix the problem please.” Sometimes the roles are reversed and she can be the practical pragmatic one, seeking to be swept off her feet.

When two people are in this wonderfully romantic phase, the urge to merge outshines all potential problems. Being “in love” seems to heal all wounds.

Ah, but what happens when the veils are lifted and time and the tasks of ordinary life begin to intrude? Somehow, the very qualities that once seemed “perfect” are now pains barely endured. In this phase, a couple has the opportunity to develop a real, committed working relationship, or split. Real, long lasting love and being “in love” are experiences that are worlds apart.

During this New Year, whether you are alone or already in a relationship, short term or long, think about what it will take for you to heal your own wounds and/or to learn from your partner in order to become whole. This is a very difficult process, requiring much effort. This New Year, are you ready to make the effort?

Life is too hard to do alone,

Dr. D.

Dorree Lynn, PH.D.