The Difference Between infatuation And Love

What is Love?

In this article, you will learn about two concepts in emotional life that are vastly different, but often confused by many people, leading to great frustration and pain in relationships. Therefore, it is important to know the difference between the two.

You will learn to distinguish between infatuation and true love – and you will get definitions of both.

There is a difference between men and women, and we will also work with that. About the differences and unknowns.

You will also get a historical overview with explanations of the concepts.

Read more about therapist for couples at www.parforhold-parterapi.dk/couples-therapy-copenhagen, if you feel that it is too difficult to handle yourself.

Infatuation and Falling in Love is about desire for, biochemistry, bioelectricity, psychology, altered consciousness, and intense attraction.

Love, on the other hand, is something entirely different.
It is 1) understanding, 2) devotion – and 3) a choice.
It is indeed the choice to give your partner what they want.
To understand your partner and add value to the relationship (something that your partner perceives as valuable).
When both do this, they feel the love.

But often we only give our partner what we ourselves want because we believe that everyone else also prefers this.

Therefore, many think they cannot feel the love.
They cannot feel it. They mistakenly believe it is gone.

Definition of Infatuation

Feelings come and go. But love IS NOT feelings. Love CREATES feelings.

If you mix up the two concepts, infatuation and love, it can be one of the main reasons for the high divorce rate.

Infatuation and falling in love is a fever state. A temporary insanity that comes on its own. A rush. It makes you blind and deaf.
Infatuation is biochemistry, where hormones and other biochemicals race through the body.

Infatuation makes us see another person in a fantastically positive light, making us feel on top of the world.

Infatuation focuses on the partner’s positive sides. It is more comprehensive than desire, sexuality, and lust. There is also fascination, admiration, and idealization.
The mutual mirroring means that you see both your beloved and yourself in a new and positive light.

Nature has designed infatuation to attract two people to each other long enough for offspring to result, ensuring the survival of the species.
An infatuation typically lasts somewhere between a few months and a couple of years.

Infatuation usually happens only once in a relationship.
If you want to experience the same rush again, you need to take a line or engage in extreme sports (or find a new partner).

Infatuation encompasses your entire being. Thoughts, feelings, body, and actions are affected.
You want to do all sorts of things together and cannot imagine it ever being different.
But for many, things go wrong when everyday life sets in.

Here, couples therapy or couples coaching might be relevant to avoid problems from arising.

Definition of Love

In a relationship, infatuation should ideally be replaced by love, which is something entirely different.

Love consists of three things:

• Motivation and understanding
• Devotion
• A choice

You must be motivated to want good things for your partner and be able to understand them. Not necessarily agree, but understand in a way that makes sense. The willingness to understand your partner before expecting to be understood yourself. This requires good communication, which is not just about exchanging words and opinions.

Love is also devotion that fuels the motivation to understand, and the motivation to choose to give something that may feel silly, insignificant, or difficult but means something to the partner.

What may surprise many is that love is also the CHOICE to give your partner what they want – and when both do this, they experience love.

Love has very little to do with DESIRE FOR. That belongs to infatuation.
Often, we give our partner (and everyone else) what we ourselves want, and when both do this, neither feels they get what they want or need.

American couples therapist Gary Chapman wrote the book “The Five Love Languages”.
It provides insight into how people show their love for each other. He discovered that we experience love in five ways:

1. Words of affirmation
2. Quality time
3. Receiving gifts
4. Acts of service
5. Physical touch

Read more about this in detail on www.parforhold-parterapi.dk/couples-therapist/the-5-love-languages

When we are infatuated, we GIVE in all five languages to our beloved, and we RECEIVE in all five languages.
But when infatuation is over, each of us has a primary love language that we ourselves perceive as the one everyone else must also prefer.

Example

Imagine a West Jutlander married to a Copenhagen girl. The Jutlander’s primary love language is physical touch, so he touches his wife a lot. But when he is overjoyed, he says, “It could have been much worse…”

His wife’s primary love language is words, so she praises him and tells him how wonderful he is, but she does not care much for touch because it does not mean much to her.

Isn’t it clear that they have a big problem? They each give the other what they themselves want.

So love is choosing to give the other what the partner wants, and the greater the effort, the greater the love.

Giving Love

Love is understanding, interest, and acceptance of your partner as a whole. It includes both erotism, strengths, faults, shortcomings, and everything else.

When you speak your partner’s/spouse’s love language, they feel loved. And the same applies to you. When you give each other love, you feel love. Love is not about taking or getting. Love is about giving.

For YOU to get what you want, you must FIRST give your partner what THEY want. Then you must feel your needs and express yourself clearly, distinctly, and responsibly.

We each express and perceive love with our love language, as described above.

When the Infatuation Wanes

Why is it important to know your own and your partner’s love language?

Because it is what makes you feel loved, and allows me to love back.

Poor or lack of communication in the relationship creates misunderstandings and often means that we give our partner what we ourselves actually prefer. Therefore, both partners can become frustrated by giving and giving without feeling they are getting anything in return.

First and foremost, it’s important to identify your own love language.

Next, you can ask your partner what theirs is. This alone can lead to many good conversations with each other.

Of course, you can try to guess or figure out what your partner’s love language is.
You do this by paying attention to what your partner does for you, but the easiest and most effective way is to communicate directly with each other.
This way, you avoid misunderstandings and frustrations.

In fact, the same applies to your children and your colleagues.
Notice what they do and do the same for them.
You will become popular.
Does your colleague always praise others?
Do they often stand by the coffee machine?
Do they always remember anniversaries with a small gift?
Do they help you with little things without being asked?
Or do they always give a pat on the shoulder or a light touch on the arm?
If you do the same, you will succeed.

Love is about giving the other person what they want.
When both do this, they experience and feel the love in the relationship.

So, you shouldn’t expect infatuation to ever return to your relationship.
That kick or rush you miss must be found elsewhere, such as in extreme sports or similar activities.The Little Big Difference Between the Sexes

Do you know the “unknowns” of women?
That is, things that most women consider normal and familiar, but many men rarely know how much they mean.

Desired

The woman wants to be desired by her man. For the man to take on his leadership responsibility in the relationship as a man and desire his woman, which has little to do with sex. When the woman is desired, she should just respond to it and clearly express her satisfaction, joy, and happiness.
The reason this is so important for the woman dates back to prehistoric times, when the woman was physically weaker than the man and depended on him to defend her and their offspring. If he ran off with a concubine, she was at the mercy of wild animals.

Contain Emotions
Women want to feel that the man can contain her and her emotions.
This means that he can stand as a ROCK in her emotional storm, and not run away, or go on the offensive, or come up with all his “sick” rational explanations.

Express Themselves
The woman would rather hear a bad news than no news at all. The woman/the feminine wants to express herself and get a response, while the man/the masculine prefers to stay silent. The woman needs to feel her man. If he is just silent and closed off, it can feel like pure torture for her. Many men believe that if they don’t have good news, it’s better not to say anything. A typical man wrestles with his problems on his own until he has a solution ready, and when he finally presents the great result to his woman, he can’t understand why she has become angry in the meantime!

Want To
The man often has to do the OPPOSITE of what feels natural, easy, and simple for him to get what he wants (which is love, respect, recognition, etc.). This probably surprises most people. But if you haven’t gotten what you want so far, it may not sound completely illogical. Until now, you have mostly done what felt natural, easy, simple, normal, authentic, etc.… and are you where you want to be, and have you achieved what you wanted????
Of course, it doesn’t feel good at all to do something you definitely don’t WANT to do…

Accepted
The woman wants to be supported, accepted, and respected exactly as she is. She doesn’t want to be changed. But at the same time, she wants to change things and improve everything herself.

Contact
The woman wants to have contact with her man throughout the day. Either physically, by phone, or just a text message. She needs to be able to FEEL her man regularly. It gives her security.

Explore
The woman wants to explore and be explored. But she doesn’t want to be overlooked or figured out. At the same time, she wants her man to know her and her habits well, for example when they are at a restaurant, and the man knows what her favorite dish is, and what she doesn’t like from the menu. The man must constantly make an effort to get to know her – even if they have known each other for many years.

Sex
The woman feels the desire for sex through love and closeness – unlike the man, who feels love and closeness through sex. There is a big difference between men and women, and it’s important to realize that this difference exists. There is nothing wrong with the difference. It just IS.

Lie
Men think that women lie when they express themselves bluntly. He might say, “Yesterday you said you loved me, and today you say you hate me. Does that mean you lied to me yesterday, or are you lying today?”
But the woman is just expressing her feelings – and they change all the time.

——

The man

In contrast, the man has only one “unknown”. He wants a happy woman, where he can feel that she admires and respects him. Nothing else. That’s the only thing that interests him and that he wants.

Divorces and Frustrated Feelings

When someone says: “I can’t feel the love anymore. I want a divorce” it is the rush of infatuation they miss. Then they go and fall in love with someone else, and thus continue in an endless chain of one relationship after another – until they discover the secret behind life’s mysteries.

If you are solely driven by your DESIRE and your FEELINGS, you have chosen to be a pawn in the Circus of Life.

Historical Overview with Explanation

Romantic Love comes from the chivalric era about 800 years ago, where it started with being painful with obstacles and separation, but full of passion.

Romanticism 600 years later was less dramatic. It was more about the ideal and the happy. Nevertheless, there was a clear distinction between infatuation and love, where the latter was associated with tolerance, cohesion, loyalty, and support for the common project. Marriage was the safe framework for family members and a society-preserving institution.

Today we have towering expectations of both passion, romance, loyalty, friendship, sex, and individuality. It can be difficult to meet when there must also be room for children and careers.

Learn the love languages! Use them! Feel the love!

It might be that your partner or yourself find it difficult to rediscover the love for each other – but what if both of you had better strategies and habits, so you could easily fulfill your desires and meet your needs?
So you could have the relationship you want and deserve to have?

You can relatively quickly and easily learn better communication strategies and gain a greater understanding of your differences in couples coaching.

Clarification

I would like to offer you a clarifying conversation over the phone, at no cost to you, where I will help you gain clarity on the life and relationship you desire, as well as identify the most important thing that stops you and prevents you from achieving what you want. These two clarifying points will highlight the necessary steps you need to take to reach your goals. Please call me at +45 – 21 79 18 50 to schedule a time for the clarifying conversation.

Are you thriving ♥ – or is it painful in your relationship?

• I can save and improve your relationship quickly and effectively with very specific communication tools and strategies, so you come to understand each other.
• If the relationship is in chaos with anxiety, anger, confusion, or stress, there may be a need for overview, structure, and clear common rules to create mutual understanding of each other.
• I am a sort of driving instructor, teaching the “Traffic Rules of the Relationship”. In a way, it involves theory, parallel parking, city driving, night driving, and slippery roads. All of this must be learned thoroughly before finding your own driving style – also in the relationship!

See more articles in English at www.parforhold-parterapi.dk/couples-therapist