How the ‘love myth’ is preventing Americans from finding true love. The piece quotes Jonathan Haidt:
As I see it, the modern myth of true love involves these beliefs: True love is passionate love that never fades; if you are in true love, you should marry that person; if love ends, you should leave that person because it was not true love; and if you can find the right person, you will have true love forever. You might not believe this myth yourself, particularly if you are older than thirty; but many young people in Western nations are raised on it, and it acts as an ideal that they unconsciously carry with them even if they scoff at it. (It’s not just Hollywood that perpetrates the myth; Bollywood, the Indian film industry, is even more romanticized.)
I believe that "true love" is an adolescent fantasy, a psycho-utopian fantasy. All real relationships have problems and challenges. And real life presents endless problems and challenges which effect relationships lasting longer than days or months. In Western, monogamous cultures, the trick is making it work. What else do I believe? That there is no single "right person" for anybody, that humans are not emotionally monogamous, and that many people expect far too much emotional fulfillment from their spouses than any one person can provide.
I would never disparage feelings like passion, desire, "urge to merge," and "chemical attraction". These things are intoxicating. They have prevented Homo sapiens from going extinct. However, they are temporary, and often not sturdy foundations for building a life or raising a family.
Related, Mate Expectations from F- Feelings:
Discovering that your long-term partner isn’t really the person you thought she was can be shattering. It’s not just a loss of love and a certain way of life, it’s feeling like you’ve lost your ability to see the world accurately, protect yourself, and know whom to trust. Suddenly, your marriage seems like the Matrix.
More fundamentally, you can no longer trust your ability to know what’s meaningful and what’s predatory. In case you think you’re alone, think of all the novels and films made about this phenomenon. You’ve been stripped of a pillar of your self-confidence, and you have to build yourself back up. At least you’re just searching for your self-esteem and not a one-armed man.
Nobody is who you thought they were, and vice versa.
