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love, infatuation or obsession

From the time immemorial, many people have mistaken infatuation and obsession for love. People just don‘t know how to recognise and differentiate between each of these emotions. Incidentally, many singles are guilty of this. The universal misconception of each of these ideologies is one of the chief causes of divorce, single parent homes, and broken hearts. Read on to tell each of these emotions apart.

Love connects you to your partner in positive, enriching ways. Love is the energy you feel and exhibit which is used, unselfishly, to promote your partner‘s well-being, success and happiness. Love is much more than sweet nothings in your ear, sex and passionate feelings of longing. Love is concrete, measurable behaviour and action that demonstrates to your partner and the whole world that you respect and care for this person.

Words of love and romantic passion make promises to satisfy your needs and get you all worked up with the possibilities and the fantasies. However, love in action keeps those promises and satisfies those needs consistently and dependably until those fantasies become a reality. Loving moves your partner and yourself forward. You grow and develop and change to be the best you can be.

Infatuation and obsession, on the other hand, are the feelings that you must have or be with this person, no matter what. In many instances, this is someone you don‘t know very well, or someone that has flatly told you s/he is not interested in a relationship with you. You formed an attachment based strictly on fantasies of perfection or your wishes alone - no matter what the object of your affection feels about it. You cannot think, eat, or sleep without thinking of him/her.

Some people go off the deep end and become stalkers, calling and hanging up to see if s/he is at home, following them around to see where they are or whom they are with. The most dangerous obsessives are those that decide that if they can‘t have you, nobody will. Stories abound of obsessed persons that were shunned and turned around to become murderers.

Infatuation is superficial. One is usually infatuated by another person‘s looks, attitude and behaviour. When you know a person in and out, you tend to feel for him/her. This is pure infatuation and not love. Infatuation wears off fast and weakens with distance and time. If you are not in touch with your infatuated partner for a long while, it will tend to weaken and eventually wear off.

Infatuation is more common these days than actual love. One should know when it is infatuation and when it is true, romantic love, which develops slowly and gradually, while infatuation develops at almost no time. Those who rush into marriage learn by sad experience of self-made miseries. Infatuation is rushing into a bad decision, while true love is attracted to the total personality of the person. Infatuation is mainly interested in the physical features, which depend on a few non-sense things, while true love is attracted to most of the qualities of the one loved.

True love affects your whole personality. Willing to learn, adjust and change to bring out the better qualities. Infatuation is blind, illusion and fantasy, trying to believe that the only thing that matters is their love for each other. True love is not only interested in the whole person but that interest is growing warmer as the day goes by. In infatuation, the interest for each other grows between hot and cold, if not freezing.

It is on record that separation and distance make true love fonder; but infatuation will not survive the test of separation or distance but will seek happiness in another person. True love always cultivates to nurture the relationship, always complimenting, never dominating.

True love causes two different personalities to grow intimately together that even a short separation will help in evaluating that emotional love..

True love can easily resolve quarrels and disagreements for healthier relationship. Infatuation can ignite little disagreement into a massive forest fire, leading into permanent break-up. While true love is concerned with giving way to improve and build stronger relationship, infatuation is concerned only with getting and receiving from the relationship for personal gains and interest.

True love is always unselfish, always giving. Infatuation is always waiting to receive. True love dwells in genuine humility and sacrifice for the loved one. Infatuation dwells in human ego and castle of arrogance.

True love is always responsible, willing to pay the cost, willing to endure hardship and suffering. Infatuation is always ready to escape into the open sea of unreliability. True love is not love at first sight but the result of knowing and accepting the person just as he is. Love requires knowledge.

True romantic love distinguishes between a body and a person. Choosing a girl because of her beautiful figure is unstable criterion. She might become Coca-cola shape (in cans) in just the next few years. Selecting a guy for his physique and good looking face is a treacherous decision that may result in a lifetime of suffering. A person who easily falls in love with the appearance will also easily fall out of love.

True love is self-giving; it is not what you can get from another person but what you can give without expecting anything in return. The passionate desire for his/her body is not love but lust. Any prostitute can fully satisfy that burning desire.

True love can thrive without physical expression until full commitment for marriage. If your only reason for having a sweetheart is to have someone to hug and caress, you had better buy yourself a life-size doll!

True love seeks to build a life and permanent relationship of marriage. The objective and goal of any relationship is marriage. Marriage is a triangular relationship between God, a man and a woman, not a triangle between three persons. Lust will not settle for octagon.

True love embraces difficult and serious responsibilities. Marital responsibility is far more than money. It is commitment to love the other person come what may. Lollipops and roses have nothing to do with true love.