Are You In Love or Infatuated?
Or In Love With The Idea of Being In Love?
The PEA Experience!

If you answered #3 you are correct!

The chemistry of being "in love" is powerful. When couples fall in love they tend to see only the positive aspects of their partner, completely ignoring the negative. It seems that couples in love have blinders on.

Remember how excited you were when he phoned you ten times a day? Remember when she prepared a four course meal every time you had dinner together, her condo was spotless and her outfit was beautiful? Remember in the early stages of falling in love, feeling as if you were floating on air, perhaps you had shaky knees and your toes curled. This "in love" feeling causes infatuation that is by definition a foolish and usually extravagant passion or admiration. The chemical phenylalanine (PEA) triggers dopamine, the neurotransmitter that affects the ability to experience pleasure and pain, as well as norepinephrine, the chemical that triggers a sense of urgency. When couples have "in-love" sexual activity they are flooded with oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone that is found in a nursing mother's milk, which bonds the baby and the mother. Hence, new lovers form a very strong bond -- for a while!

If you have a broken interpersonal bridge, a dysfunctional attachment, you are a sitting duck for love addiction and the pseudoconnection caused by the chemistry of the "in-love" state.

The PEA experience wears off in three to thirty-six months and the couple returns to their normal chemical and hormone levels. Creating a healthy, secure attachment will depend on how much each person has developed his/her sense of self, emotional literacy and relationship skills. The PEA experience is the gift of love. Now couples need to do the work of love. If there are wounds from the past they need to be grieved. Ungrieved wounds either from childhood or past relationships become projections on your new partner. therefore skills need to be learned and used daily. Some of those skills are: expressing wants and needs, listening, gifting, esteeming others more than self, fighting fair, and developing unconditional love and respect for each other as a unique and valued person.