Love is a wonderful, yet vague and all-encompassing term. We describe a juvenile relationship where partners get to know each other, a mature one where we get to know how to live with each other, and an ancient one where the old grandparents find peace in being together all as the same ‘being in love with each other’. They are, but clearly there are differences in the type of love that is present in each of those relationships. Love is built on progressively deepening forms of connection. The levels are attraction, attachment, commitment and compatibility.
Attraction is the initial phase where your reaction is along the lines of: “Woah, who is that person? I must get to know her,” based on their appearance and behaviour. This stage is most obvious in the start of a relationship, as without attraction there will not even be a beginning. Later in the relationship this building block is often forgotten and not consciously considered. Once you’ve committed to each other you expect the importance of attraction to go away and forgo any effort in this area. It is without this focus on attraction that you come across common mistakes such as taking each other for granted. Keep working on staying attractive in general, and thereby also being attractive to your partner.
Attachment develops once contact has been established and you get to know each other better. You share past personal experiences, and experience new situations together. Like attraction, this connection-building activity should be ever-present during your relationship. It is a much easier choice to stay committed to a well-fed emotional connection, than having to choose when dealing with a malnourished one.
Commitment has been reached non-verbally when you realise that the connection between you two has developed to such a state that you would like to continue together indefinitely. It is reached verbally whenever one of you asks the other for a courtship. It is right at this stage’s gates that you filter out who is ready to be in your future long term, and weed out all those that have been enjoying the ride with no intention of going steady.
You would think everything is settled once you’ve attracted each other and build up to a committed relationship, but the work is not done yet. Now you enter the territory of compatibility, where you test whether a life together works out for the both of you. It is here that you decide to accept incongruencies as they are, one or both of you changes the differences, or both remain strong-willed and fail to pass the stage of compatibility.
Once you understand that all of these levels give you the feeling of ‘being in love’, you also understand how that feeling is not sufficient to explain the success of a relationship. It can be completely valid to feel in love, but you can’t seem to make living together work and break off the relationship. You’ve successfully navigated the phases of attraction, attachment and have even committed to staying together as a couple, but are unsuccessful in finding compatibility in the way you live your lives. Stopping a relationship between the stages of commitment and compatibility is a painful experience that comes with questions such as “How could this happen? We’re so into each other!” Love has not been enough, as it missed the compatibility part.
In my experience, getting the attraction part right has been a matter of delivering results in the areas of health and environment. The teachings on relationships will help out in growing attachment. You should’ve had it relatively easy to arrive up until this point. Most of the factors can be in your control, and are things you’re working on anyways. Commitment is influenced by many factors in the topic of growth, but also requires the other party to think similarly. Don’t feel let down when a relationship doesn’t progress from attachment to commitment, as it is a rare occurrence. Even more special is when you discover you are compatible after committing to each other. These are the partners you want to treasure, as you won’t experience it often in your life. Don’t think lightly about letting these people go for stupid reasons. They might say: “There’s plenty more fish in the ocean,” but you don’t want a fish. You want a mermaid.