This is a great book. Here are some highlights:
>Is love real? Is it not brain chemicals that humans developed in order to be inspired to mate and thus keep the human race going? A sort of evolutionary necessity. Perhaps it is a cynical way of thinking. Maybe if I fall in love one day, I’ll believe in it. In the mean time, I observe others being “in love”.>
Love is real. It is what we depend on to survive. Love means that our partner is there for us, can hear us, can come help us if needed, is concerned about us, and values us. If we don’t have this, we fall apart, freeze up, become rigid. If we have it, we can be open to new information and become curious about the wider world.
Do our problems lie primarily in our internal conflicts and unconscious fantasies (Freud) or in our external relations (Bowlby)?
“Curiosity comes out of a sense of safety, rigidity out of being vigilant to threats… The more we can reach out to our partners, the more separate and independent we can be.”
We need close connection with others. Historians observed that the unit of survival in the Nazi death camps was the pair, not the individual.
In 1939, women ranked love fifth as a factor in choosing a mate. In the 1990s, both men and women ranked it first.
Underneath all the distress, partners are asking each other: Can I count on you? Depend on you? Will you respond to me when I need, when I call? Do I matter to you? Do you need me, rely on me?
