The Falling in Love Syndrome

Mindful Loving: 10 Practices for Creating Deeper Connections
by Henry Grayson, Ph.D.

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The kind of love that characterizes what we feel when we fall in love is not Empowering Love; it's not unconditional; indeed, it is based failingly on need and powerlessness. Just think of the familiar colloquial phrases to describe this feeling of falling in love: "Falling head over heels"; "being swept away"; "I'm crazy about you." All of them indicate a state of ungroundedness, as if a force has taken us away from our sanity. And a marriage that begins with our need for the other person's love is doomed to fail so long as it stays on that track.

It seems that much of this "love" is what Eric Fromm, in his classic work The Art of Loving, called immature love. Immature love says, "I love you because I need you," while mature love says: "I need you because I love you." He goes further and gives a more detailed definition of this kind of mature love: "Mature love is a state of productiveness which implies care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. . . . It is an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person, rooted in one's own capacity to love." His definition says nothing about barter, conditions, seeking, or expectations, but focuses solely on caring for the other person.

When need is dominant, we are ultimately weakened we see ourselves as dependent on other people as the source of love we need, and anytime others do not meet our needs in the time, place, or manner we desire, we are set up for disappointment and suffering. At this point we often try to seduce, cajole, manipulate, control, attack, or even kill that person. Hence the murders in families and between lovers.

A marriage that is based on the belief that love is a commodity that can be given and received cannot make people happy. By believing that love exists outside of ourselves, we think that other people hold the power of giving and withholding the love we need, and thus we experience ourselves as at their mercy. And when one relationship after another proves unsatisfactory, we still believe that the only solution is to fall in love with someone else. And our suffering continues.

Sarah, for example, was unhappy in her marriage, and it was quite clear to her that her husband, David, was the cause. She told me that he did not listen to her, that he did not communicate with her, that he was frequently critical, and that they had not made love in over two years. In addition to his hour's commute to his job in New Jersey, he worked late into the night at home. Often their only contact would be a little hello kiss when he walked through the door on his way upstairs to his home office. Sarah craved nurturing and complained that she'd married a man who was just not a nurturing person. Not only did she feel depressed and in fear that her marriage might not work out, but she was also plagued with a plethora of physical symptoms that were very debilitating.

Sarah, like many of us, believed that the cause of her unhappiness was that she had married the wrong person, someone who could not meet her needs. It probably comes as no surprise that David held an almost identical perspective. Each was certain their unhappiness (and possible happiness) depended upon the behavior of the other person, and each was convinced that the other was at fault! If only David became more attentive and less critical of her, Sarah would be happy and the marriage could be saved. David felt similarly: If only Sarah weren't so needy and became more independent, then he wouldn't feel so suffocated and might want to spend more time together as a couple. They were in a vicious cycle, each reacting to the other's behavior as well as their own thoughts about the other person.

Does this situation seem familiar to you? Do you believe that your happiness always seems contingent upon someone else's behavior, thinking that if only they would do what we expected of them, then we would be happy? The person we blame for causing our unhappiness could be our mate, parent, or child. But it could also be a boss, an employee, an obnoxious store clerk, or even a rude and thoughtless driver in fact, our happiness most often seems dependent on everyone we interact with on any given day. "If only my husband would listen to me . . .", "If only my wife were more loving . . .", "If only my boss was more helpful . . .", "If only my kids would do what I ask them to do . . .", "If only my friend wouldn't make promises that she can't keep, then I would be happy."

When we're unhappy, we usually see others as either doing something hurtful to us or withholding something desirable from us. In essence, we experience ourselves as at the effect of others, not in charge of our own reactions and moods; and we also tend to blame others for our unhappiness. But people rarely do what we expect them to do; in fact, their complaint is often the same of us if only we did what they expected us to do, then they could be happy, and then they would make us happy as well. And so when we decide that our partner will never wise up, we often exchange that person for another, and the cycle repeats. Why does it seem so impossible to have happy relationships?

Copyright © 2003 by Henry Grayson, Published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., all rights reserved, reprinted with permission from the publisher.

About the Author

Dr. Henry Grayson is a pre-eminent psychologist and the author of three acclaimed professional works and the bestselling "Sounds True" audio teaching series called The New Physics of Love, on which Mindful Loving is based. He founded and directs The National Institute for Psychotherapies in New York City and is frequently invited to speak at churches, synagogues, hospitals, libraries, and professional conferences.