IS There A Difference Between Passion And Love?

Posted on 07/11/2022 by mscyprah

When we speak about Love, many of us treat Passion as entirely separate from it. We often hear about dates ‘falling into lust’ at the beginning of a relationship when the two people are so into each other. They’re so attracted and mesmerised by one another, they want to spend as much time together as they can and to make love as often as possible. The feelings at such times seem deep, exciting and endless.

On the other hand, there are many couples, especially in long term relationships, who have lost their ‘chemistry’, and their Passion for each other. They do things mechanically and without motivation as part of their settled routine. Many have not even had sex for years or affirmed each other in any way.

These love extremes have led some people to believe that any intense passionate feelings when two people have just met cannot be relied upon as a good barometer of lasting Love. That because it is tied to ‘lust’, the ‘real Love’ comes much later on, or not at all. We also talk of having a ‘passion’ for something: an interest, hobby or activity that gives us great joy. Thus we can usually tell how meaningful something is to us by how we feel about it; the way it moves us to want to express our feelings for it and be devoted to it to greater levels.

That’s what Passion is, in a nutshell: the intensity of feeling we have for someone or something. Passion is not something in its own right, like Love. It has to be associated with something else to have any value. It gains its existence by demonstrating how much we actually care about something that’s important to us. Thus the degree of Passion is the giveaway sign.

Passion, when applied to a relationships, is like a marker, a ruler or yardstick, but it is not Love itself. Passion is essentially the intensity of the Love we feel. If we have rapidly lost our passion for someone it’s not because we didn’t love them in the first place, or we only felt lust for them. It is more likely because, over time, as the person has revealed him/herself, our Passion has gradually decreased in its level, or increased, and we are feeling differently about them. So lust isn’t really separate from Love. Both are the same at the beginning because both can take off or fall flat, depending on the level of passion we feel for the object of our affection.

It seems that Love reveals its true self, and has a chance to blossom, when passion subsides, but not too much. If we use a numerical scale for assigning levels of passion, say 7, with seven being the greatest level and one being the lowest, lovers who have recently met and are passionate about each other (the ‘lust’ phase), would be rating a 6 or 7 in their feelings. As the couple settle together, passion will steady itself to a 5 or 6, depending on how much the couple continue to affirm, nurture and validate each other. Those who have started to take each other for granted, but are still in love because the passion is strong (chemistry) will have a steady rate of 4 or 5. But it seems that, for Love to continue with the couple indefinitely, the level cannot fall below 4. Level 3 in passion becomes highly problematic and levels 1 and 2 mean the relationship is dead or on its way out – becoming unsustainable.

In essence, Love cannot exist without some kind of passion because passion is the driving force behind it. Passion allows people to come alive to one another. It gives a kind of adrenalin rush, regularly, but not constantly. It is fired up by interaction of one kind or another. When that does not happen, feelings subside, too, and inevitably change to something else more detached or negative.

If you are trying to work out how you really feel about someone just now, especially whether you love them or not and should marry or settle together, but you can’t feel much passion, or you don’t feel rejuvenated, excited or getting that butterfly feeling, please don’t go there! Your Passion is at too low a level to start something with a long term commitment. Yes, your feelings of Love might increase, but then the person would feel more like a dear relative to you than a lover, simply because passion is the fire that lights your Love. When that fire goes out, so does the Love, eventually, to be replaced by something indifferent, negative or even repellent!

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Feeling Neglected, Though Part Of A Family

Posted on 26/09/2022 by mscyprah

One of the biggest causes of breakdowns in relationships is simple neglect of a partner once children appear on the scene. No attention, no affection and, worst of all, no sex, as spouses become lost in the routine and minutiae of child rearing, forgetting how those children came about in the first place! This unwitting form of rejection, especially in the early years of marriage, is perpetuated in many homes and often sets the seal for trouble ahead.

New additions to families have the knack of grabbing all the attention. Daily, many mums (in particular) strive to accommodate this sudden, pervasive and persistent demand on their time, often in an unnecessarily guarded and protective manner, that gradually excludes their partners and spouses. Invariably, it is men who lose out at this time. Some do not take such exclusion lightly, often feeling jealous of the new rival, but not quite sure how to react in these sensitive and uncharted waters.

When the demands of the child constantly interfere with the normal togetherness and intimacy the couple enjoys, it is difficult to maintain a positive, romantic or even sympathetic perspective. Inexperienced, anxious mothers are primarily concerned about their new and vulnerable charges, while excluded fathers are reduced to the role of helpless bystanders, often withdrawing emotionally from the situation while constantly fretting on the quiet. It won’t be long before they look elsewhere for comfort and affirmation, judging by the disproportionate number of divorces in the UK which involve young children under 11 years old (68% of all UK divorces in 2017 – 30% with children under 5!).

Two individuals trying to live harmoniously together is no easy feat and sometimes we unwittingly set a train of action into motion, blissfully unaware of the consequences until it flattens us to a pulp. Like this routine-looking scene in my local park one Sunday that masked many anxieties. Running noisily around a park bench was an animated group of children, with a male and female guardian in their thirties. Three very lively youngsters buzzed around the woman, competing with one another for her attention. Seemingly concerned, she sat very still, holding on tightly to the youngest child, cradling his head against her warm body as if she could not bear to let him go. With her head bowed in a sort of reverie, she seemed oblivious to the merrymaking and intermittent noise around her, and was equally oblivious to someone else standing in front of her.

Signs of Frustration
A man of similar age, rather windswept and miserable, looked down at her longingly. Sporadically, he looked away at the people around him and back to his companion in a cycle of futile expectation. Her lack of response unnerved him. He seemed trapped by the situation, in which he was expected to give attention to children wrapped up in their own game while feeling decidedly excluded himself. Perhaps he was her lover, or her husband. Either way, these simple signs of frustration pointed to a relationship heading for trouble.

The haunting look in his eyes as he tried to appear nonchalant, when he clearly wanted her attention, and perhaps a cuddle too, was not difficult to see. He scoured the park for similar situations; for the reassurance that as a man he was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. But the reassurance was not forthcoming and the look of bewilderment on his face betrayed not only a desperate kind of wonder at what he could do next, but also his increasingly obvious feeling of being unwanted and on the periphery. The young toddler might have required attention at that precise moment, but the woman was so focused entirely on his needs, everything else appeared to be in suspended animation. That scene has been indelibly etched on my mind ever since.

With children in tow, this couple is likely to be married. And, with this type of relationship providing the most up-to-date statistics on living together, it is easy to see the downward trends in the length of marriages once children are on the scene. Love is universal in its effects and emotions are always predictable be they personal, individual, peculiar or particular. Any two committed people sharing the same space can expect a repeat of what happens to many other couples, especially with new additions to the family. The advent of children, even as a welcome third party, could spell doom for most couple’s relationships unless they are strong, knowledgeable and mature enough to deal with the new situation sensibly. Often this is not the case, as no one has prior training for such sensitive times. The results can then, sadly, be seen in the courts.

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How Emotional infidelity Begins

Posted on 23/09/2022 by mscyprah

People tend to fall in love, become starry eyed at the prospect, ignore the warning signs of incompatibility at the beginning of the friendship, then slowly repent their choice when things begin to go pear-shaped later on. Emotional infidelity often becomes a substitute for what is missing in a partnership but, given the right opportunity and circumstances, it can be physically realised.

Emotional infidelity begins with neglect, which itself stems from a lack of appreciation and value. In short, it arises from a deep emotional need when our feelings are unfulfilled and when our emotional health is low, especially from a lack of ATTENTION.

In any relationship, everyone wants to be treated with love and respect, to be valued and desired. When that does not happen, a feeling of isolation and rejection takes its place. For some reason, perhaps because of the need for security, once people become settled with each other, they tend to take each other for granted. The little things they used to do for one another, the loving acts they delighted in during dating, the obvious value they placed on each other, tend to take a back seat while partners become weighed down with domestic and career responsibilities. It is not too long before one or both parties begin to feel lonely, left out or unappreciated. In such a case, affection and sex are usually the main things that gradually disappear. If not addressed, it eventually turns into neglect and acute loneliness – and the worst form of loneliness is one which is shared with a partner.

Warm Feelings and Attention

When someone feels neglected it leads to unfulfilled yearnings, particularly around what is absent from their lives. It isn’t long before the person begins to yearn for what is possible. It might start from admiring a celebrity in an appreciative way, then switches to more realistic targets like a neighbour, a work colleague, someone online, a friend or a complete stranger. For people closer to home, it might begin with just talking, bantering, making jokes or sharing life circumstance. It is not long before they will also be sharing the problems in their lives and offering emotional support to each other.

Sooner or later, there is likely to be either quiet or expressed desires around that person, wishing to be with them, to be loved by them and to be close to them. The main difference with emotional infidelity and physical infidelity is that most times the party doesn’t want to leave their spouse, to cause any hurt to them or to break up their family for the object of their affections. They just love the warm feelings, the attention, in particular, and the feeling of appreciation and value they get from that friend or stranger.

One might never physically meet the object of that desire, but the mere thought of dreaming about what is possible with them, affectionately and sexually, and imagining warm thoughts of value around them begin the emotional infidelity process. This can often lead to the real thing if what is lacking in that person’s life is not admitted, discussed or addressed at all.

There is a mistaken belief that emotional infidelity is ‘harmless’ and doesn’t really matter in the life of a couple; that it is mainly fantasy and only occurs in one’s head. It’s nothing like the real thing. However, that is not true. Emotional infidelity is usually the beginning of the physical reality, the precursor to it. It simply needs the feelings to get worse, the object of desire to be accessible, and the opportunity to bring it to life. The rest is often inevitable.

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