me away without a justifiable reason and a promise to get back to me soon.
Reflections
The sections with the highest total scores are the areas in which you already have a high degree of skill. Below, list your skill sets (Mindful Self-Awareness, Relationship Skillfulness, and Care and Nourishment of Your Relationship) in order, beginning with your strongest one, then your second strongest, and finally where you are most challenged. The great news is, all of these practices can be learned over time — and even an area in which you got your highest score can be improved.
#1:
#2:
#3:
Keep these results in mind as you move throughout the rest of this book. Every exercise will help you get closer to one of these three qualities of wholehearted love — sometimes several at once.
Let’s move now to understanding the Love Cycles model.
We have to be whole people to find whole love, even if we have to make it up for a while.
— CHERYL STRAYED, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Someone Who’s Been There
It’s easy to absorb the romantic tales of novels, films, TV, and other media and conclude that all intimate relationships reliably progress from the initial juicy moment of meeting, to giddy infatuation, to a series of small trials and tribulations, and finally to a quietly blissful state of happily-ever-after. It makes for a satisfying and comforting story, but it’s not how real life operates. The truth is, love is a journey without a final destination throughout our lives. We shouldn’t expect that at some point in some particular relationship, we’ll look back at the obstacles we overcame and exult, “That’s it! We’re here! We made it!” It’s difficult to see in advance, but beyond wherever you are now another hurdle awaits.
But we can manage these hurdles. Learning more about them and equipping ourselves to respond to them effectively is a crucial part of sustaining a rewarding long-term relationship.
In the Love Cycles model, intimate relationships move through five stages: The Merge, Doubt and Denial, Disillusionment, The Decision, and Wholehearted Love. Imagine these stages not as stepping-stones to a final outcome, but rather as a series of seasons that we move through in an eternal cycle. No matter how glorious a summer may be, a cool autumn breeze will eventually blow through that will one day give way to icy winter. Likewise, even the harshest of winters will melt away in time. The fresh breath of spring always returns.
Although people experience these cycles differently, the skills and road map are useful for everyone. The journey to wholehearted love is never a straight or easy line. That said, I have certainly seen those who begin their relationships with a lot of self-awareness and wisdom already gleaned from their lives, having already experienced the cycles of love enough times to know how to pass through the earlier stages more quickly. We can all get to this place. As we do this work, we will learn to move through the tougher stages with more ease, grace, and kindness, and we will find ways to hang out longer in the bountiful stage of Wholehearted Love — and maybe even dip back into the deliciously sensual moments of Stage One.
Stage One: The Merge
In Greek mythology, Cupid — the god of desire, eroticism, and affection — dipped his arrows in a special love potion that caused innocent targets, when struck, to fall into a mad passion for the next person they saw. As it turns out, this tale accurately reflects the biochemical changes in our brains that both trigger and maintain infatuation. In 1979, psychologist Dorothy Tennov coined the term “limerence” to describe the state of mind that occurs when our brains are flooded with a cocktail of hormones and chemicals that includes pleasure-inducing dopamine and endorphins, aphrodisiacs such as phenethylamine (also found in chocolate), and oxytocin, which promotes empathy and bonding.
The Merge is the initial sweeping romance that consumes a couple. The passion and chemistry of this first stage are what we customarily associate with the concept of love — all-encompassing joy in the presence of our partner, utter fascination with the other’s personality and life story, and insatiable mind-blowing, deeply connected sex. We feel we’ve found our “perfect match,” a person who seems eerily similar to ourselves and for whom we can check off all the boxes on the list of characteristics of our envisioned ideal partner. Our emotional brain drowns out our rational one as we give ourselves over to the delicious pleasures of infatuation.
In this stage, partners always want to be together, communicate constantly when apart, and believe their love can see them through whatever challenges life may bring. Just as the infant merges with the mother and cannot tell the difference between itself and another, and just as the new mother lives in constant awareness of her newborn child, so it is with new lovers. Boundaries melt away, and the sense of “we-ness” is paramount and intense.
And have you ever noticed that this first stage of love also makes you feel better about yourself? The magical new person in your life seems to bring out the best in you. You’ve never been so spontaneous, so witty, so warm, so sexy, so open! You marvel at your new capacity for compassion, patience, and generosity. Your whole being simply glows.
Some couples may skip the infatuation stage, establishing a relationship of companionable and caring friendship without the fireworks. For the majority of couples who do experience The Merge, the glorious intensity may last anywhere from several months to a few years, although some pairs find the ecstatic free fall lasts just a few weeks before giving way to judgment and disappointment. Here’s what I know for certain: there’s no straightforward path from that initial biochemically induced plunge down the rabbit hole of infatuation to the kind of mature committed love that will last a lifetime.
Stage Two: Doubt and Denial
For some partners, doubt
