Falling in love is not easy…

It can come with a lot of pain confusion and in a way it might seem like one of the biggest wastes of time.
However it doesn’t have to be.  In fact falling in love is great, you just need to learn more about it and that is what this post is about.

I have fallen in love a lot. 
I have had hundreds of relationships and for the past 4 years I have been in a monogamous relationships.  This is rare for me because for 13 years I was never monogamous (that’s how I was able to have hundreds of relationships).

I have a great relationship today because of my experiences I have had in life, as well as being a men’s coach for the past 10 plus years.

I wanted to write a short guide on what happens when you fall in love.  This is so you won’t have to be afraid of it.  You won’t think it is a sign of weakness and you won’t think it is something that you need to remain confused about.

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PHASE 1 | UNEXPECTED LOVE

You’re going to fall in love.
You’re going to want to share every moment of your life with that person, but that doesn’t last forever.   You need to know this.

No matter how much you plan out your love life it will almost inevitably end up in this path.  You can read the Red Queen or Sex at Dawn all you want.

You can talk with your friends about boundaries and what you want to do, or read the latest Dating Blog article on how much sense Polyamory makes.

If you’re actively having sex with someone and spending time with them, you’re going to feel more and more for them, eventually you’re going to fall in love.  If you’re dating multiple people and doing this it will happen for all of them, and eventually it will whittle down to one person.

Falling in Love is Normal
Despite what you think this is one of the most normal things you can experience.
So what does this first phase of love feel like?

You start having defining sex with that person.  You want to spend most of your time with them.  You love new experiences with them. You want to start new things with them like making a garden, go on adventures or even start a family or business with that person.   That is how love works.  It makes you think all those things.  It’s how you were made.  It is a part of your biology and DNA.

You Didn’t Screw Up
You’re not weak, stupid or inexperienced for feeling this.  You’re a human being.  Be more aware of it, enjoy it, and if you get swept away don’t be so hard on yourself it is truly in your blood to have this happen.

Eventually you do have to get wise about it.  But you need experience for wisdom.

I’ll be honest, it took me about 100 plus relationships to even get a grip on this.  You could probably do it a lot faster.  More the reason to talk about it and recognize it.

PHASE 2 | DOUBT

If you can make it past the inevitable unexpected love phase something interesting happens, and you can time it like clock work.  However, you’re not measuring this with time, you’re measuring it with emotion.   At the very point you realize you’re feeling something almost uncontrollable, you’re going to have doubt.  You’re going to have this doubt peak up throughout your relationship, but the first time you feel it can be very predictable.  In fact men have this and women have this both in their unique ways.

Don’t Overreact
This the the root behind so many emotional disrupts in relationships, unnecessary breakups and a points of confusion that don’t need to be so confusing.

Men Say Things Like
For men, if this is your first time falling in love you might skip this phase.  However, if you’ve gone through the throws of a relationship as soon as you fall in love again you’re going to catch yourself.  You’re going to start thinking things like –

“She’s not really what I want”

“The sex is good, but this thing bugs me”

“She’s great to be around, but I’m just not that sexually attracted to her”

“I am embarrassed to bring her around my friends”

“I can’t see us being together”

and so on.

 

Women Say Things Like 
If you’re in a relationship with a woman, I can’t speak for what she is going to feel, but in having hundreds of relationships with women I can tell you what they might say –

“This just isn’t working”

“I thought about this and this is just too much”

“I don’t know if I am ready for this”

“I want to do so much with my life and I am not ready to settle down”
Choice vs Reaction
There will be all sorts of variations of this, but if I get this first level of doubt, I can expect it, and am prepare for it.  Doubt and resistance cause reactions, and I don’t want anybody to make a reaction or act on a fear towards something that I value.

Now I know this comes from feeling too much too fast (thanks biology) and also probably experiencing some overwhelming emotions that can’t be controlled and past experiences.  I want to take whatever is causing the reaction off the table, calm the situation and show emotional support and give the person a choice that is clearly laid out.

I might say something like –

“Hey we don’t need to go so fast.  We can take some time off or whatever you need, but this shouldn’t be something that makes us confused.  Just know I care about you and don’t want a quick decision to end something good.  So let’s spend some time apart, decide what we want and in a few days or sooner let each other know what we think.”

There’s a few key things in here that you might screw up.  If you don’t do that middle part, making it clear that you care about them and want them to make the right decision and not a reactive choice, they will most likely listen to their fear.  Also if you’re not assertive and clear about what you want, they will listen to their fear.

For me, I kind of get this.  This doubt isn’t there because I don’t want to be with them or they don’t want to be with me, it is there because they do want to be with me and the feeling is too much.  Therefore the real answer is for us to call one another the next day and say,

“Hey, do we do this…?”

 

PHASE 3 | DO WE DO THIS?

This is a fast phase.  When you come back from that doubting phase you’re going to be a little apprehensive for a few moments.  One of you will call the other up, in fact she might call you and say the unexpected (but you should except it)
“Hey I gave it some thought, and I don’t know if we should do this…”

That’s fine, like I said she is feeling this resistance most likely out of reaction and I want to make sure it is a true choice.   I would say,

“I understand, we should meet up because there are a few things I’d like to talk to you about.”

At this point you either stay together or you don’t.

Life and love is all about experience.  You will need to have these experiences to be a healthy person in relationships.  Let yourself have them.  Make some mistakes and learn from them.

If you’re a man join a men’s group to find unity with people on your path.  Of course you can join ours HERE.

This point in a relationship is where things usually can get a little bit more serious.  You either want to be in it or not.

 

PHASE 4 | REALITY COMES KNOCKING

Love Has Gotta Change
At this point your relationship may be going for a few months, a few weeks, but love cannot sustain in the way it has been going forever.  It needs to change.  Sometimes it was the companionship that made it click, other times the sex or maybe it was the lifestyles you live.  Soon enough those things that worked will stop working.  Maybe you were blind to see them before, maybe they just never came up.  Maybe an emergency or an important event came up in your life where things changed.

Remember this because it is something you will see in all aspects of your life – What made you isn’t what will sustain you.

It Isn’t Just About Sex
All the things that made you fall in love won’t necessarily stop working but you will need more than this.  You will need to your relationships to change.  In fact you will not need love to make it work, because you may not have that overwhelming feeling that you once ran from in the ‘doubt phase’ you will fell like you were never in love.  Perhaps this was all a mistake.  Perhaps you just got carried away and you never really wanted this.

Don’t Get Caught Up In Reacting
The fact is that once again this is a reaction.  This is a reaction to the long term feeling of complacency.  We start to feel trapped, we start to feel bored, we feel like things just don’t work.

This is also a feeling that will come up again and again in a long term relationship and you need to be in a place where you can make a choice about your relationship and not react.  In order to do this you need to take some time to yourself without doing any big actions.

Distance
Literally one of the best things you can do for your relationships is give yourself some distance.  Let me clear this up, because I am not saying do anything behind your partner’s back, but what I am saying is spend a little more time without your partner that does not disrespect them or go against any agreements you’ve made.

And hey, we are only human.  If you do go against any agreements, like cheating, well…it happens a lot.  Don’t beat yourself up about it.  Consult a trusted friend about it, but rather than reacting and making a rash decision that might cause more harm you might want to think about the best way to handle a situation like that.  If you want to understand a little bit more about what I am saying Check this out.

Bottom line is reality will knock on your door.
The pink cloud of love will hit the ground, and you’re going to truly have to decide – is this what I want, or should we break up?
If you need any help breaking up, well here’s another resource – Learning Relationship .

 

PHASE 5 | THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LOVE

For those of you who have had love in your life you know how great it can be, but you also know how much it can hurt.  Even if you have never gone through bad break up you know that love is powerful.

Love is Much More than You Might Think
Love is so much more than just a fleeting feeling.  It is so much more than the boundaries of monogamy, polyamory or celibacy.  If you have fallen in love know that it will change.  It will change into different feelings, experiences and will be hard to understand.

What I have learned from my experience is that I need to be responsible for the love that enters my life.

You Make the Rules
If I am going to have a relationship with someone in my life, we make the rules.  It isn’t about power and it isn’t anyone else’s decision.  It is what myself and the other people involved agree upon.  It is never one sided and it is always compromised for the benefit of how we live.

I need to know that something so powerful as live needs my patience to understand it.  I need to know there can be long periods of time where I doubt, feel pain, insecurity and don’t know what to do.  I need to have a support system to help me through it and not react and make stupid decisions.

If I do break up, I need to know that that means.  I need to know how to do it best and recover from the separation of love and what that does to me.

I can say this.
Love is amazing.

I am in love today.  It is great.  We have been together for 4 years.  What keeps Maria and I together is still love, but in order for us to stay with one another we have to stop thinking we could control love by putting our rules round it.

Rather than thinking of some rule book for yourself or a template of relationships to follow, go out and let yourself fall in love a few times.  Learn the responsibility of that.  Try monogamy.  Try something else.  Try something based on what you read about online, but realize when it all comes down to it, those are all just manmade attempts to try and figure out lover, sex and life.  Not because people knew better, but because someone once overwhelmed with love and made the foolish error of trying to put a force of nature in a box.