Love is not a word, it is an act

Love, as an abstract concept, is very difficult to define: From poets, psychologists to neuroscientists, they have tried to place a distinctive and assertive stamp on its definition and we are always left with the feeling that it does not define the term in its entirety.

The truth is love can be defined through action, which shows that love has an absolutely subjective definition. Let’s dig deeper.

Of families and couples

The family can be considered the nuclear cell of society. and an exchange matrix where central beliefs, meaning structure, functions, identity, etc. are simmered. Thus, it is constituted as one of the main pillars of people’s psychic life.

A posteriori, in the process of individuation -from we are to individual being-, This whole cluster of conceptualizations, some translated into original mandates, are embodied in each of its members, that they will reproduce -by opposition or adhesion- in other groups, couples or constitutions of other families.

On the other hand, In the couple, the family will always be the matrix, the scale and the reference standard for each of its members. They are the ones who provide a feeling of independent identity that is mediated by the sense of belonging.

From this perspective, a couple can be defined as a system made up of two people, spokespersons for two systems that were made up, in turn, of four systems that, in turn, were made up of eight systems and thus in a geometric relationship. ad infinitum.

So, a couple can be defined as two people of the same or different sex coming from two families of origin, who establish a link with the project and common objectives of developing as a team and provide each other with the necessary support and motivation in their own space that excludes others. Furthermore, its members relate to the environment as a couple and preserve, in turn, the individual spaces of relationship with themselves and social relationship.

This description clearly demarcates the boundaries of the consolidation of a couple to which it could be added that Both spouses are bearers of guidelines, norms, culture, functions, codes, mandates, values, beliefs, meanings, rituals, styles of emoting and processing information, etc., which is what each of the members brings in their suitcase and which they are willing with greater or lesser resistance to exchange and agree on.

From the synergy of all those components that each one brings to the relationship, a couple will be built. That is, in the same way that in the process of family individuation we go from we are to being, in the construction of the couple from being we go to we are. That is to say, What each person brings to the relationship (properties and attributes) makes up a couple with its own identity: couple identity.

Although a member may have some of their properties in common with their partner, Generally there is complementarity: ““What do you have that I don’t have, what do I have that you don’t have.” And it is in this relational matrix where the essence of the bond lies.

However, these same differences that give the blow in the election, can be categorized as antagonisms and sources of claims of a partner to another over time. For example, features may be required that were never had.

It is a phenomenon that comes from individual and couple growth, a negative impact that entails arguments and that can lead to disqualifications, attacks and different types of defenses where one of the spouses is discredited by the other. But… what about love?

Fell in love

One of the distinctive characteristics of the human couple with other animal couples is love. Many have been and are authors who have tried to define love. Romantics, poets, scientists, artists, therapists have embarked on such a task, imposing the most dissimilar descriptions from their models of knowing.

It is true, that like most of the repertoire of abstract terms, Love is extremely difficult to explain, even more so when rational resources are used. or that concern logic.

Trying to translate love into rational meanings and imposing, if you will, a quota of logic on it, can plunge us into a deep complication. The biologist Humberto Maturana points out that “Love has no rational foundation, it is not based on a calculation of advantages and benefits, it is not good, it is not a virtue, nor a divine gift, but simply the mastery of behaviors that constitute the other as a legitimate other in coexistence with one“.

Love is a feeling that emerges powerfully from the jaws of the limbic system. It does not pass through the sieve of the left hemisphere, rational and logical, although sometimes attempts are made to evaluate what were the characteristics, particularities or attitudes due to which one person has fallen in love with another. It is, then, when love is thought, but it is thought when it has already been established. Or when in doubt. When you are not convinced that the feeling towards the other is love.

The partner in love feels and converts that feeling into actions that try to be consistent and coherent. And love, that is, a feeling. Unlike the emotion that is unexpected, the feeling involves emotional, cognitive and pragmatic variables and a fundamental factor: time, which is responsible for exercising the three previous variables.

Although, Sometimes, love is confused with other emotions. Being in love is not being trapped, linked, trapped, hunted, hooked or imprisoned. These are false conceptions of love, they are feelings and emotions that confuse and that have their progeny in psychopathological links, communication dysfunctions and connections of personality types.

Basically, then, we affirm that love is not a word, but an act; That is, love does not have a precise definition, but is defined within pragmatics through actions that entail interactions.

A human being translates into gestures, movements, actions, words or phrases – oral or written – the need to let the other know, to transmit, that deep affection. A transmission that contains the secret expectation of loving reciprocity, of relational complementarity, which produces in the protagonist the knowledge that he is not alone in such an undertaking (loving without being loved is one of the most frequent causes of despair).

Besides, This transmission seeks the belief of security. A utopian security, since the search for loving reassurance causes the present of love to be neglected in favor of reaffirming the future by mortgaging it. And this carelessness has unfortunate consequences when the worried gaze focuses on ahead and not on while and during.

Who charms who?

When two people meet and love desire appears in them, verbal communication is activated. Words flow in harmony, although sometimes fears of rejection block that free flow. The phrases are imposed almost poetically. Even in the least histrionic, the seductive imprint permeates the words.

A certain cadence appears in the speech, a certain tonality in the weaving of the sentences. The gestures are modified. The mimicry is more subtle and the movements are hunched and slowed down. The eyes narrow, the mouth moves more provocatively and the glances feed back into this whole game. A whole communication complex that tries to captivate and seduce the other in order to generate a loving union.

Neurobiologically, When two people meet, there are endocrinological and biochemical fluids that are secreted.

The stomach hardens and triggers anxiety, which produces greater appetite, which translates into voracity. Although on other occasions, the opposite phenomenon occurs: the stomach closes and does not allow free passage for food intake.The secretion of adrenaline increases, placing the person on hypervigilant alert.The muscles tense and one is aware of the other’s attitudes, which will be understood as signs of attraction or acceptance, indifference and rejection.

All these are the alerts that accompany loving desire. Alerts that, if reciprocated, make a couple form. The growth of the bond, read the knowledge of the other in their values, tastes, virtues and defects, etc. It generates a complementarity that allows slow progress towards the formation of a family if desired.

The establishment of the relationship makes it possible to lower the levels of romanticism (both verbal, paraverbal, etc.). Not because one is less in love, but because it varies qualitatively, since in this romantic period, lovers are concerned about being reciprocated in love, therefore, they do things that captivate the partner and are skillful detectors of which details are that seduce to the other and try to put them into play. It is a stage in which we work to ensure the relationship, beyond the chemical and instinctive fumes that accompany the process.

However, The establishment of the relationship does not imply letting oneself be in the couple, quite the opposite. A couple is a loving relational work that must be carried out throughout life.

Daily life, routine, work, parenting, disparate evolutionary growth, among others, are attacks on the stability of the relationship. Therefore, love must be worked on to continue creating new definitions of love that lead to new actions that generate growth not only for the couple but for love itself.

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