IS IT LOVE OR INFATUATION?

Missing someone? Can't get them out of your head? Did you meet someone new? Wondering if you have them on a pedestal? Wonder why you give up too much of yourself in a relationship? Getting cheated on? Did you become unattractive to someone? Wonder if you have your family on a pedestal?

What is infatuation?

According to the dictionary.com infatuation is a foolish or all-absorbing passion. According to Wikipedia Infatuation or being smitten is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion.

In this article we will direct it towards the area of human relationships.

Infatuation is a state where someone is only seeing the positives side of a person, place thing or situation. It is often confused for love in relationships. It usually occurs when a person first meets someone. The love at first sight feeling is really an infatuation response of the senses. Dopamine releases in the brain and a person goes into this intoxicating high. In this high a person only sees positives, benefits, and similarities. Even if the person sees a red flag it will be ignored because their emotional positive charge will be greater than the negative red flag. This high lasts for three to six months. In some cases it can last a year. It is a form of an emotional addiction. It applies to men and women. There is a reason why women push away the soft nice guy. There is also a reason why men push away a smothering woman.

Social and cultural rules of conduct feed into infatuations and make them stronger. An example of this is if a girl is pressured by society, religion and/or family that she must be married with kids by the age of thirty(and she’s in her late twenties). she will have an even bigger infatuation when she feels she found the right guy because she feels she found the guy to help her fulfill those cultural, religious, and societal roles.

Most infatuations have roots in the past. People develop emotional wounds from their past for various reasons. A girl may not have grown up without her father, her first male model in life, so when a man comes in her life she will smother and suffocate them, unconsciously thinking they will slip away like the first male figure in her life. A man may have been bullied by peers and put down by family so when a woman shows up in his life he feels that is the best thing that ever happened to him like if she is saving him from his past.

Infatuation is what makes you miss someone. I have had clients that are having relationship issues because they are still infatuated with a past relationship they had 15 years ago. As long as they have that past person on a pedestal they will never fully embrace their current relationship. They are playing a one-sided fantasy that the past was better without looking at the drawbacks if they were still there. This can even be applied to grief but that will be explained in a different article.

Psychologically if you are still infatuated with someone from your past or present they will fill up thought space in your mind and you will lose focus on priorities. They will run your life and you will give up a lot of yourself thinking you are doing it for love. Wake up! It's infatuation not love. You are seeing more positives in that person than negatives so life will bring you a situation to wake you up from that fantasy.

If you are in a relationship now and are infatuated with that person, you will give up too much of yourself. You will let that person make all the decisions and you will put up with a lot fearing they will leave you. You will become unattractive to that person because you give up too much of yourself. You lose value. You are living for them and not for you. You are too available. If there is no chance you can slip away you lose value and the other person may go looking for something that is challenging and valuable. What people think is love is just infatuation that can cause many problems in your relationships.

“If you smother, there will be another!”-Dr. John Demartini

Love is seeing the bigger picture. Love is honoring yourself as well as the other. Love is knowing a person also has a negative side. It may sound harsh but love is knowing everyone is replaceable. Allowing someone to leave when they wish to leave is real love. God, the universe, life... always provides everything and all the traits you see in someone. If a person leaves your life one or many will take over their traits. Society has in a way brainwashed us with these fantasies on love but life will bring us negative situations to wake us up from these fantasies.

Drawbacks of being infatuated: -Run the myth or illusion of "They’re the only one." -Give up too much of yourself. -Give up your priorities. -Give up things you like. -Put up with a lot of negativity. -Give up your decision power. -You become real soft in your relationship. -Won't enforce your rules. -Let things slide. -Not speak up. -You fear losing that person. -You want to be their priority. -Smother that person to the point they become unattracted to you. -Blind yourself to their negativity.

-Anxiety

-Emotional

Benefits of Infatuation Release: -Bring that person down from the pedestal. -Feel empowered. -Realized that you are not missing anything. -Realize your fantasy. -Feel free from that emotion that is running your life. -Let a person go. -Allow a new person in -Gain the power to say NO. -Gain the power to put your foot down. -Realize how you dis-empowered yourself.

-Take responsibility.

Here at Emotional Health Counseling we break all issues down to a scientific pattern that can be understood and worked on by our applied scientific methods. Everything is very simple and clear. Schedule a free phone consultation with us if you feel you are infatuated with someone and don't know how to bring them down from the pedestal.

Best Regards,

Tim Delgado