Love or Limerence - what are romantic attachments?t

Romantic Love Relationships: I do feel like I'm walking on air much of the time

" My life has been massively improved by my being in the state of limerence. It is, in my case, quite mutual and quite intense on both sides. It has improved my mood and my ability to deal with the sometimes difficult ups and downs of life much better. I do feel like I'm walking on air much of the time and I, most often, have a big smile on my face. I also feel immensely rejuvenated and there is a spring in my step. What could be bad about a thing like that?."

Romantic Love Relationships: there are more advantages than disadvantages to romantic love

"Having done much research into the area of love and relationhips, there are a few books I'd like to recommend: Jansen and Newman: Really Relating: How to Build An Enduring Relationship
Stephanie Dowrick: The Universal Heart: Golden Rules For Good Relationships
Susan Anderson: The Journey From Abandonment to Healing
David Schnarch: Passionate Marriage
My concern is that your article focusses on the down-side of romantic love - perhaps you've experienced this recently - and needs some balance. According to Jansen and Newman, there are more advantages than disadvantages to romantic love, some being:
" - romantic love leads us to value and appreciate someone else, rather than just exploiting them to gratify our won needs and desires
- romantic love provides wonderful feelings of significance, of joy, of delight in living
- romanitc love can be the basis of a deeper and ultimately more satisfying love
- romantic love is fun!"
Let's celebrate the advantages even though we acknowledge the disadvantages of romantic love: disillusionment and disappointment when it ends. "

When we "fall in love", we slip into feelings of oneness and completeness with our beloved. This profound sense of unity and belonging gives us those deeply desired feelings of blissfulness as our heightened sense of passion finds its expression in each other's embrace. But when we are separated from or lose our beloved, we plunge into emptiness and insufficiency like nothing we have ever known before. Others may observe this as the most pitiful derangemnent. The intense painful anguish and aching we feel can become so consuming that our lives are driven almost to despair. This agonizing bliss of union in romantic love is the nature of this divine madness. Its bliss enlivens us and its absence distresses us." Rodney