If you fit the mold of what relationship experts believe is the average person’s life journey, then you’ll probably experience three types of love in your lifetime. The first two are meant to prepare you for the real, big, lasting love. But you might believe you’ve found “the one” each time around.
According to the “Three Love Theory,” your first love comes disguised as a fairytale love. The one that you believe will last a lifetime. But experts say it is, in fact, an “idealistic” love. “This love is usually more surface level, with more importance placed on how the relationship might look to others,” writes Roxy Nafousi on the Poosh site. “While it certainly feels like true love at the time, it’s not usually the deep, raw love that you’ll experience later on.”
You might have heard of Mark Manson. He’s the author that loves using the “F-word” in the titles of his best-selling books. He explains that the “Three Love Theory” was the work of anthropologist Mary Fisher. Fisher studied the cognitive and neurobiological processes that happen when we are attracted to someone or fall in love.
Manson says our first love is based on lust. “It’s instantaneous and based on pretty straightforward physical and behavioral components of attraction,” he writes on his blog. “Lust can also leave just as quickly as it came. It’s transitory and shifts constantly within a person. It has no attachment or favoritism.”
Of course, when this love ends, it can feel like your whole world is crashing down and ending with it. In time, you will recover. But as they say, we never forget our first love. We are meant to learn something from each of our relationships. And the lesson from this one, according to the experts, is that falling in love feels amazing, but nothing lasts forever. And that often, Hollywood rom-coms lie.
The second love is the one that sweeps you off your feet and into a whirlwind of intensity. We might think we’ve found our soulmate. We see ourselves reflected right back from them. This is the crazy love. The mad love. The passionate love. At times, the bad love…
“As we fall into this intense love story, the relationship becomes a mirror into our soul: we see all our insecurities, our needs, and our desires staring back at us. In this relationship, we may experience jealousy, fear, and self-doubt that we’ve never felt before. The relationship comes with massive highs and dramatic lows,” says Nafousi.
Manson explains that passion has the power to override a person's logical functioning. It can trick us into making sweeping statements, promises, and commitments that we later realize we didn't mean.
"Think newlyweds and honeymoons. Think romantic getaways. Think Romeo and Juliet," he writes. "Passion is created by having a high degree of emotional chemistry as well as cultivating a sense of 'newness' or spontaneity within the relationship. Hence, old married couples who plan romantic getaways to rekindle the passion in their relationship."
Manson says these relationships can fizzle out as fast as they started. "Passion's death is wrought by a lack of shared experience and lack of newness," wrote the author. "Once a couple hits the point after 6-12 months together where the 'newness' of the other person starts to wear off, a serious test of their compatibility will arise."
Some couples are able to keep the fire burning. But those who can't will likely break up. And that's when things get real... This love is the one that shakes us to our core, cracks us open, and changes us, warns Nafousi. "The one that can leave us feeling guarded, distrusting, and hurt," she adds.
The life coach says that while the heartbreak from this relationship can be debilitating, it propels us forward, forcing us to grow and change. It is through this love and heartbreak that we discover our inner strength and eventually learn what we do want from love, and what we really don't.
