False Forms of Love – Imprint Mating Syndrome

Synopsis: This Mini- Love Lesson starts with the example of Portia’s peculiar problem; and then
goes into the debated questions; understanding imprinting; understanding imprint mating theory;
the question “do humans do imprinting and imprint mating”?, a time limited factor; the why of
imprint mating; the questions – “could this syndrome be love?”, “could this syndrome turn into
real love?”, “can this syndrome lead to harm?”, “can imprint mating keep happening to you, and
what can be done not to be harmed by the imprint mating syndrome?”

Portia’s Peculiar Problem

Portia was in the center of an intriguing mystery and with some consternation she told about it at
a collegiate Love Success Workshop for graduate students.  Portia said, “My grandmother called
me fickle.  Am I fickle?  I was telling my grandmother about how I keep falling for guys with
beards and that’s when she called me fickle.  A while later she got out an old scrapbook and
showed me pictures of my father holding me when I was two years old.  Wow, was I surprised to
see that he had a beard just like the kind I like a guy to have.  Does this mean I’m in love with
my father and I’m looking for him?  If it does am I condemned to go from one guy to another
forever because I’ll never find my dad or a bearded guy just like him?  Actually, I really would
not want to find a guy like my dad.  Does this mean I have to give up on guys with beards?  I
really don’t want to do that either.  What’s this all about and am I really fickle?  I’m so
confused.”

Portia’s question-thinking gave a sort of Freudian interpretation of her romantic interest pattern. 
However, there are some other ways to understand this sort of attraction dynamic.  While
looking at several other possible explanations Portia suddenly said, “That’s the one.  That’s it. 
That one feels really right.  I’m caught up in an Imprint Mating Syndrome.  That explains
everything.”

The Debated Questions

Do humans, as well as certain birds and other animals, do imprint mating?  That is a rather
debated topic in some circles.  We know that early youth imprinting exists but does it have
anything to do with how and why people, or other animals, later choose love mates?  Some argue
“yes” and some “no”, and some say it’s only true for a few people, but others say maybe it’s true
for everybody.

Understanding Imprinting

To understand imprinting think of baby ducks.  The first thing baby ducks see moving they start
following after an ‘instinctual critical period’ starts.  They follow it faithfully and for quite a long
time.  Usually what they follow is a mother duck, but it could be a dog or cat, a mechanical toy,
or even you, or just about anything that moves around or away from them – not to fast.  The baby
ducks imprint the image of the moving thing that usually is their mother and they follow it, no
matter what it is.  When the image source manages to get away for a while and then returns the
baby ducks see it, rush to it and follow it again.

Understanding Imprint Mating Theory

Later when it comes time to get interested in mating imprinted animals may go through another
critical period, or biologically determined window in time, in which if they see something quite
similar to whatever they imprinted on they then get fixated on it, and want to be with and around
it a lot, and before long they want to be sexually involved with it.

Do Humans Do Imprinting and Imprint Mating?

No one knows the answer to these two issues for sure, but many think the answer is “yes” to
both.  The thinking goes something like this.  As a human you may go through a biologically
determined ‘critical period’ where you are very vulnerable to certain things happening, like
imprinting.  In this ‘window of time’ you tend to imprint on whoever is loving you best when
you are a child.  It could be a parent, a big sister or brother, or some other caretaker.  Then again
in adolescence you may go through another ‘critical time period’ in which you become fixated
on someone who looks, or sounds, or smells, or feels, or moves like the loving caretaker during
the ‘critical time window’ in your early childhood where you first imprinted into your brain a
love-giving figure.  When this happens you feel urges to go to that person, to be around them,
connect with them, and eventually have sex with them.

This could explain at least some preteen and teenage crushes, infatuations, romantic obsessions,
and early sexual involvements – especially when it involves compulsive attraction with a much
older teen or adult.

If your primary, loving caretaker during your ‘childhood critical period’ had long hair you may
always be attracted to people with long hair.  If they were always singing you perhaps will be
drawn to singers.  If your loving caretaker talked slowly you may find slow talkers fascinating. 
During adolescence, or young adulthood, or perhaps older ‘repeating critical periods’ you may
obsess on people with the right traits as described in another imprinting theory.  After the critical
period ends the whole system may turn off and stay off, allowing you to go on to real love.

The Time-Limited Factor

All of these dynamics operate only for a while and then the ‘critical period window of time’
closes.  When that happens you may still find yourself drawn to people who have the imprinted
characteristics but no longer are they as captivating and enchanting as they once were.  Then
again you may be left wondering “what in the world was I doing and why was I ever attracted to
people like that”?

Now, suppose you are caught up in the dynamics of ‘imprint mating’ and you get married, get
pregnant, or at least get really committed to someone and then the ‘imprint mating window’
closes.  Well, for most people that is a very unsettling, confusing and trouble-making
experience.  Perhaps rather suddenly you are no longer in love with the person of your
imprinting, or you are getting interested in somebody else for different reasons, or you just are no
longer drawn to who you previously thought was the love of your life.  Perhaps this accounts for
a good number of cheating incidents, affairs and breakups.  Often a lot of hurt can be involved
with a person who is relating to you only because you fit their imprinting model and then when
the ‘critical window’ closes they are no longer interested in you.

Why Imprint Mating?

No one I know of really has proven that the relational dynamics just described really happen, but
there are case histories which seem to strongly support the theory that they do occur.  Some think
these dynamics are in our DNA but they are not really strong enough in most people to really
control love mating behavior.  Others see them as extremely strong, at least during the critical
period itself.  If they do exist it probably is one of mother nature’s many ways to get us to mate,
mix the gene pool by having babies with various different parent partners and, therefore, keep
our species surviving and improving genetically.

Could This Syndrome Be Love?

“No” is the answer to this question.  These relationship dynamics do not last and usually don’t
involve the protection, nurturing and healing components of real love.  During the ‘critical
period’ of attraction there may be anti-love behaviors showing up in the form of possessiveness,
jealousy, suppressive controlling, and other destructive obsessions and compulsions.

Could This Syndrome Turn into Real Love?

It seems like the answer to this should be yes and that probably is possible, but also probably
very unlikely.  The available evidence to date, such as it is, would lead us to conclude and advise
– don’t count on it.

Can This Syndrome Lead to Harm?

It is thought that a good many teenage and young adult romances, and younger person infidelities
may be a result of imprint mating dynamics.  That means very serious and strongly emotional
things will be going on and being handled by rather immature people.  In that case the recipe
seems to be one for frequent disasters occurring.  Romance and breakup related depressions,
anxiety reactions, violent episodes, breakdowns, murders and suicides are all more likely with
immature individuals trying to handle the difficulties involved in love and sex relationships in
general and ‘imprint mating syndrome’ would probably make all that worse for at least some
people.

Can Imprint Mating Keep Happening to You?

No one knows for sure but it seems likely ‘imprint mating’ can happen, at least in some people
more than once.  There are cases in which people seem to have gone through these relational
dynamics in a repetitious, fixated manner, over and over again.  This probably would not be true
for most people given what we know about imprinting in animals.  When real adulthood is
achieved the mechanisms of imprinting are thought to extinguish.  So, the likelihood probably
diminishes with real maturity.

What Can Be Done Not to Be Harmed by the Imprint Mating Syndrome?

By far, the best thing to be done is to be well-informed about this syndrome and to watch out for
it.  If you get romantically involved in a way that seems to be compulsive and obsessional, talk it
all over with loved ones, family, friends and perhaps a love knowledgeable counselor.  If your
friends and family tell you the one you are fixated on is bad for you or just doesn’t fit you, go
very slowly.  Test the relationship in lots of different ways and give it lots of time.  As you do so,
examine your own childhood and especially those who were your loving caretakers, looking for
similarities that might suggest you imprinted them.  If you are particularly attracted by or
fascinated by certain odd and probably not really important traits or characteristics be extra
careful.  Then compare what we know about healthy, real love to what’s going on with you and
see if those things really match up.  For doing that comparison I recommend reading the
Definition of Love and its discussion and elaboration entries on this site.  After that I especially
suggest going to and making use of the entry at this site titled Healthy, Real Love or Toxic,
False Love and its 20 factors checklist.  Love-knowledge and love-practices are great protectors
from hurt and harm.

False Forms of Love – Spouse Acquirement Syndrome

Synopsis: Examining ladder of success pseudo-love; Hugh’s story; The men’s self deception
program; Race to marriage pseudo-love; Edith’s story; The woman’s self deception program;
Family and cultural press What about marriage before love; and Protection and cure.

Ladder of Success Pseudo-Love

Hugh told his story with vestiges of bitter discontent.  “At first I found it quite curious that I fell
in love a week after I learned that I absolutely had to be married to get the career promotion I
was after.  It wasn’t an official, written rule but my mentor at the home office explained it was
just the way things worked in our particular, culprit-corporate culture.  So a week later I found
the future Mrs. Me, and not long afterward I was thanking the Almighty for letting me get this
‘resume requirement’ out of the way in such a timely manner.  The amazing thing was I was
completely convinced I loved her, and she had been sent by heaven at just the right time, just for
me.  I also saw her as an omen-like proof that I must be destined for great things in my
occupational endeavors.  I never even bothered to question whether or not she truly loved me. 
That was an automatic given, as I saw it.”

“Following the appropriate course of actions we married and I mentally ‘put her on the shelf’ and
went on to my true destiny of wealth and status attainment.  It was not until I caught her in bed
with not one but two of my ‘frenemy’ (enemy disguised as a friend), in-house, company
competitors that I began to suspect something might be drastically wrong.  Truth was I was
devastated, heartbroken, crushed!  Did she not love me like she was supposed to?  Wasn’t  I a
grand provider?  Could I somehow be sexually inadequate?  Surely not!  Was she secretly a
whoring slut?  Had I unknowingly sinned against my deity and was being drastically punished
for it?  Fortunately she soon dragged me to couples counseling where I discovered the problem
was entirely different from what I had been thinking.  The emerging truth was we didn’t really
love each other.  How in the world had this come to be?”

Hugh continued, “Now I see how devious and powerful self-deception can be.  I was entirely
controlled by what my therapist calls a Spouse Acquirement Syndrome.  It began with me not
having the slightest idea about what healthy, real love actually is.  That set me up for being
subtly, but ever so thoroughly, influenced to travel my family’s and my elite subculture’s
requisite path.  The subconscious, programmed path required that I believe I was in love so that I
might marry the appropriate female who was required for social and career path success.  Like a
robot I had followed this program exactly.  That my subconscious programs could do this to me
was appalling.  I vowed to re-program, break free, discover real love and what was true for the
real me.  Since then I am glad to say I have been traveling a much improved life path and
healthy, real love has turned out to be part of that path.”

The Men’s Self Deception Program

It is unfortunate that many males who live unexamined lives and are not trained in the skills of
introspection discover the same things Hugh so unhappily found to be true about his life.  I find
it especially sad that men in a number of cultures, in effect, are subtly led away from learning
about both real love and false love and their dynamics.  This results in many lives damaged and
often life ruining experiences.  Women generally, in many cultures, are given far more stimuli to
think about love, but what they are guided to think it is often destructively erroneous.  In a
different way they are just as programmed to fall victim to the Spouse Acquirement Syndrome as
are men.  For example listen to Edith.

The Race to Marriage Pseudo-Love

Edith said with eager, earnest expression, “I was getting close to graduation and getting
desperate.  Everybody in my circle was getting engaged and I wasn’t about to ‘come in last’ in
the race to marriage.  So, I started seriously looking around for who was available and a
surprisingly good candidate showed up.  Soon I convinced myself it was true love, and I seduced
him into bed and then to the altar.  At first it seemed like a really good marriage and I was
particularly tickled that my family and friends saw me as having done better than expected. 
Socially I had moved up a bit by way of marriage, our sex life was totally amazing, and my
sisters were totally jealous of me – so everything was just about perfect.  For a time I really
thought it was going to work out, even if I didn’t have all the feelings I thought I was supposed
to have toward him.  Then things began to slow down except for our drinking, that significantly
increased.  We didn’t have anything new to say to each other, and more and more we discovered
we just weren’t very alike in all sorts of ways we had previously avoided looking at.  We both
drifted into affairs which lifted our spirits individually, and actually seemed to sort of help our
marriage for a while.  Having small children distracted us, and both of us got and gave all our
love to our little ones but not to each other.  We didn’t fight, except when we were drunk, and we
didn’t hate or even dislike each other, at least not when we were sober.”

“We grew quite an alcohol problem, so we both started going to different AA groups.  Along
with that we went to couples counseling at the insistence of our AA sponsors.  In couples
counseling the unhappy truth came out.  It became apparent to both of us we really didn’t have a
genuine marriage-type-love for one another.  It looked like we had grown a sort of sibling-love
for one another, except for still occasionally having great sex together.  I figured out that I had
convinced myself I loved him so that I could get married because it was ‘next on the program’
for how my life should go.  In our deep loneliness for real love we both turned to alcohol and
others.  My husband confessed that he was quite mad at me but also was angry with himself for
having allowed himself to be acquired instead of truly loved.  With help from the counselor we
divorced amicably and got into being real good at cooperative, co-parenting.  Actually, in a way,
we love each other better than we ever did before, but as friends.  We both have found people to
do real love with and we are really fond of each other’s new spouses.  We’re also really glad for
the children we had together, but a whole lot of our previous marriage just was a big, phony
waste.

The Women’s Program

It used to be, and still is in many places, that a woman could not be considered OK unless she
was, or at least had been, married.  Singles were considered losers.  Singles used to consider
themselves losers just because they were single.  In many social spheres of the urban,
westernized world this has changed, or is changing.  More and more women, along with men, are
finding out they can be single and well loved.  Still, the Spouse Acquirement Syndrome lingers
on in a great many women and in no small number of men.  In a woman thusly programmed it is
still required that she convince herself that she is loved and in love with the man she aims to
marry.  For many women, to live in the social status of their family and friends, or in the cultural
sphere they aspire to, they must believe romantic love is occurring before they can give
themselves permission for their societal-required marriage.

Cultural And Family Press

For many people, cultural programming directs the way they live even more than family
programming.  Of course for many, the family and cultural press works together subconsciously
programming people for the same, married, lifestyle agenda.  In ever so many families and
cultural spheres the teaching is that you will (or must) fall in love, get married, have children,
participate in the appropriate cultural rituals and gatherings, and act like you are living happily-
ever-after.  If you don’t ‘fall in line’ with this agenda you’re out of step, out of line, and soon
living outside the limits of social acceptability.  Fear of that exclusion and rejection keeps many
people living by the dictates of their subconscious Spouse Acquirement Syndrome.

What About Marriage before Love?

Two people marry but only one of them loves the other.  The hope and plan is that in time, and
perhaps with work, they will both come to love each other.  Some arranged marriages exemplify
this hope.  Sometimes that does happen and turns out well.  Frequently the Spouse Acquirement
Syndrome gets people to marry without the couple first convincing themselves that they are in
love.  Often it is their hope that they both will grow to eventually love each other.  I have
counseled a fair number of couples whose marriage was arranged by their parents or by other
people of influence in their home culture.  Most of them were taught that love would grow after
the marriage got started, but they came to couples counseling with me because that was not
working out as well as desired.  Often the various counseling results are a happy marriage,
sometimes a compatible divorce, and once in a great while some unusual alternate lifestyle.

Protection and Cure

As you probably are well aware, everywhere in the westernized world (and in pockets all over
the world) increasing numbers of people are working to make their own, independent choices
when it comes to romantic or spousal love and marriage in its multiple forms.  Nevertheless,
subconscious programming from family and culture may be guiding them more than their own
conscious thinking or their natural instincts.  The major protection against a Spouse Acquirement
Syndrome negatively affecting your life is to become aware of your own, likely, love
relationship programming and carefully abide by the tenet that “love is patient”, so proceed
slowly and carefully.  If you suspect you are subject to a Spouse Acquirement Syndrome I
suggest you seek counseling with someone credentialed, trained and experienced in dealing with
love and relationship difficulties – not just individual issues.  Also work to learn all you can
about healthy, real love so you can differentiate it from this and the other forms of false love and
from false love syndromes.

False Forms of Love: Unresolved Conflict Attraction

Syndrome
“Lord has mercy I have done it again.  For the third time I’m in a relationship having the same
problems I had with my parents.  I vowed to never let that happen again but here I am once
more.  What in the world makes this keep happening to me.”  This type of lament and others like
it are all too common in the world of romantic love.  What keeps going wrong unfortunately is a
common form of false love which keeps getting in the way of people’s chances for developing a
healthy, real love relationship.  Those who don’t know about this form of false love may be
especially vulnerable to its influence.  Here it is called the Unresolved Conflict Attraction
Syndrome.

One of the most problematic forms of false love is Unresolved Conflict Attraction.  In this
syndrome a person is subconsciously attracted to having a false ‘fall in love’ experience with
people who will come to present the same problems they had with one or more parents, or
significant others, in their childhood.  This can happen in a wide variety of ways.  If they had a
highly critical mother they are likely to date or marry someone who will become highly critical,
just like her.  If they had an abusive father they may date or marry someone who is or becomes
abusive in the same way.  A woman who had a very love-stingy father may keep falling in love
with love-stingy men.  A man who had a suffocating mother may date or marry someone who in
time becomes emotionally suffocating.  Those who had cold and distant parents may be attracted
to cold, distant lovers or those who turn into ‘emotional icebergs’ later.  The children of raging
alcoholics may date or marry people who turn out to be raging alcoholics.  These specific
scenarios are endless in their variations but the underlying dynamic is the same.  You can be
mysteriously and strongly attracted to the people who will present you the unresolved love
problems of your youth.  Sadly for many people the never fixed, love destroying or love blocking
difficulties of childhood and adolescence reappear in adulthood.  The good news is knowing
about it can help protect you from it.

You may wonder, “Why does this happen”?  Here’s one way to explain or understand it.  Your
subconscious may make you want to get a copy of your problematic parent so that finally you
can win their love, get the love you never got, fix the unfixed love problem of childhood, and
resolve the unresolved love disappointments of youth.  Another understanding is that
subconsciously we are drawn to what we are familiar with at a deep subconscious level without
ever knowing it consciously.  Even if consciously we want nothing to do with repeating our
childhood disappointments, a computer-like program in our head pushes us toward repetition of
the familiar.  Apparently it is as if something inside us says, “Here is someone unloving just like
Mommy (or Daddy, or whoever) was, so maybe this time I can get her (or him) to love me if I
just try the right way and hard enough.  So, I am in love with this person, and I have to have
them for my own”.  Rarely does this work, but when it does work we then ‘fall out’ of false love
with them because that relationship has no more purpose or attraction power.

An additional view of this phenomenon suggests that subconsciously we teach our spouse or
lover to treat us in the less-loving ways we experienced in childhood or adolescence so we can
have a chance to win the love we didn’t get earlier in life.  We do that by responding most
strongly to our lover when they act the most like our most unloving parent.  That emotional
intensity, in a strange way, rewards our love mate’s actions, and rewarded actions increase even
when they are negative.  Theoretically people can be, and often are, subconsciously attracted to
those who embody the unresolved conflicts of their own earlier life.  Psycho-dynamically such
people may be compulsively driven to find and form relationships with those who can help them
re-experience the love deprivation, conflicts and difficulties which robbed them of the love they
unsuccessfully sought as children.  Consequently we unknowingly are attracted to those who can
give us our unresolved conflicts all over again.  Thus, in this syndrome ‘adult love attempts’
mirror ‘childhood love attempts’ and usually get no better results than occurred in childhood.

A question you might want to ask is, “Can this attempt to fix the past by repeating it ever really
work”?  The short answer is probably not.  There are several common outcomes of this
syndrome.  One is for a person just to keep going from one unsuccessful, conflicted lover or
marriage to another with lots of love related agony and with nothing ever getting fixed.  Another
result occurs when a person just gives up on love relationships entirely.  They then may live
love-malnourished the rest of their life.  A third outcome is when a person figures it out (often in
therapy), grows sufficient self love and resolves the internal conflict, freeing themselves to go on
to a healthy, real love that works.  Thus, if you think you may suffer from an unresolved conflict
attraction syndrome the best thing you probably can do is seek the help of a love-knowledgeable
therapist or counselor.  You also can explore romantic relationships with people you are more
consciously attracted to because of their obvious good characteristics, rather than operating from
your subconscious impulses and what seems like intuitive desires.  Be very wary of anything that
smacks of the ‘falling in love’ or obsessional, romantic fascination with near strangers
phenomenon.

Taking lots of time to get to know someone and letting the relationship grow slowly also may be
very important.  Just knowing that this syndrome exists has helped some people avoid it or its
repetition.

False Forms of Love: Limerence and Its Alluring Lies

With much dismay in his voice Ronald said, “Three years ago I was sure I was head over heels in
love with my wife, Helen.  About a year ago that all-encompassing feeling just seemed to
evaporate.  I don’t know what happened.  Something must be wrong with me.  We have tried to
rekindle our love but nothing we do works.  It is not anything Helen has done wrong.  She’s the
same.  There’s not anyone else.  This can’t be how love works, can it?”

The answer to Ronald questions is “no” this is not how healthy, real love works but it is typical
of a form of false love called limerence.  Limerence is thought to be one of the significant causes
of breakups and divorce.  In the beginning it often starts as a nearly imperceptible set of feelings
of mild attraction which can grow into enormous intensity making people think they are very
much in love.  Then two to four years later the limerence process winds down causing all the ‘in
love’ feelings to start fading out and closing down.  Sometimes this happens quite rapidly.  Once
in a great while limerence can precede the development of healthy, real couple-love if a couple
works at it, but usually not.  Sometimes the condition runs its course in less than the usual two to
four year long duration and sometimes lasts longer than that average.  Two people can become
limerent with each other simultaneously, sometimes it’s one person who is limerent and the other
truly in love, and sometimes just one person is limerent and the other has no reciprocal feelings. 
Limerence feels great in the early stages but if the couple (where one is in a limerent state and
one truly in love) marries and have a child the person truly in love eventually is likely to be
terribly heartbroken and their life possibly severely damaged, while the limerent person’s former
‘love’ feelings are just gone.  The limerent person is highly likely to become limerent again and
again, possibly leaving a string of heartbreaks behind, sometimes along with several negatively
effected children.

With Ronald we went through a checklist of limerence symptoms:

1. Experiencing intrusive, interruptive, obsessive thinking about the supposed loved one mixed
with, but not limited to, romantic and passionate desire interfering with practical living, clear
appropriate thinking and functioning
2. Having acute longing for another’s reciprocal feelings of desire and focus of attention to the
point of disrupting sleep and effecting appetite
3. Having a strong emotional dependency on another’s reciprocating positive regard, sexual
desire and approval with frequent over-interpretation and mis-interpretation of another’s
perceived relationship related words and actions, and severe feelings of rejection and
agitation when experiencing anything undesired occurring in the relationship
4. The inability to be strongly interested in, attracted to, or love-involved with anyone but the
person one is limerently focused on resulting in neglectful treatment of children, family,
friends and sometimes self
5. Unreasonably strong fear of rejection, sometimes at a nearly incapacitating level in the early
stage of a limerent attachment, sometimes accompanied with uncharacteristic shyness,
awkwardness and fear of doing something which will ruin the developing limerent
relationship
6. Anxiety about losing another briefly, relieved with intense fantasy of romantic and sexual
union with that person
7. Intensification of romantic connecting desires and efforts when meeting adversity or
opposition to the relationship
8. Actively over-interpreting another’s perceived positive responses and characteristics with
strong down-playing of that same person’s more ordinary and negative actions, traits,
characteristics, words, etc.
9. Physical pain in the center of the chest, shallow breathing and physical nervousness with a
sense of dread when any small, medium or large insecurity or uncertainty about the
relationship occurs
10. When small, positive input from the person one is limerent about occurs an over-reaction of
ebullience, sense of buoyant ‘walking on air’ and exhilaration results during the early stages
of the relationship
11. A general lessening of acting responsibly or fairly to others, decreased carrying out of
obligations, duties, etc. and a decrease of attending to goal achievement with a distinct
decrease in functioning with necessary awareness of others beside the person of limerent
focus
12. A tendency to interpret the supposed loved one’s negative actions as somehow positive or
give them excuses, acceptance and even high approval, and an avoidance or denial of
perceiving their destructive and dysfunctional actions
13. High, unrealistic adoration at first, later fading and disappearing
14. Intensive pleasure when together, and intensive anxiety when separated or when the
supposed loved one is around possible competitors, later fading to indifference and even
annoyance
15. ‘Tunnel vision’ focusing on the supposed loved one and little else, plus blindness to all else
of importance, later turning into a blindness to the supposed loved one’s developmental
growth, changes and new ways of being themselves

Having at least seven of these symptoms is sufficient to qualify for being seen as probably in
limerence and not really in a true, healthy love state.  Ronald, as he evaluated himself, had 10 of
the 15 symptoms listed here.  It was then that he really went to work on learning and
understanding the characteristics of healthy, real love.  His wife Helen did the same  (see the
Definition of Love series listed at left).
People sometimes ask why does limerence exist?  The thinking goes something like this.  Mother
nature invented or evolved limerence so that two people will become strongly bonded together,
for two to four years, which is just enough time to get a child started in life.  Then their feelings
for each other will fade or turn off, so that they will end their relationship and go looking for
others to temporarily mate with and, therefore, mix the gene pool.  This is one of mother nature’s
ways of ensuring genetic variety and improvement of the species, along with contributing
ultimately to the survival of our species.  It is thought that most limerent people start to ‘fall out
of love’ when after two to four years they either don’t have a child or a child has been born and
is on the way to growing up.  Of course, this automatic shutdown of strong, positive feelings for
the supposed loved spouse or mate often brings about great emotional, relational, familial and
social disruption.  This is especially true in a society that has made little or no allowances for this
kind of relationship phenomenon.

“How does limerence work” is another question often asked.  The thinking about that goes more
or less like this.  Certain brain chemicals are stimulated when a suitable, potential baby-making
partner shows up in one’s environment.  These brain chemicals compel a primitive drive
mechanism which makes a person driven to temporarily but intensely ‘mate’ sexually,
emotionally and relationally with another.  It is not just sexual, in fact sex can play a very
secondary role in the limerent process.  Once started the cultural messages about ‘falling in love’
support the process.  Then two to four years later, on average, the brain chemicals automatically
start shutting off and fading out which causes feelings toward the supposed loved one to also
fade.  This false-love state then disappears and eventually the couple parts, or the limerent lover
goes secretly looking for a new romantic interest.  Sometimes the other partner looks elsewhere
first because they feel increasingly unloved.

What can be done about people being in limerence instead of doing lasting, real, spousal love? 
There is a group of people who say nothing can be done about this.  Another group says nothing
should be done about it, and they tend to like repeatedly having limerence experiences because,
at the start, they feel so good.  Hopefully they have learned not to marry and not to have children
with someone they have a limerent attachment to.  They seem just enjoy the euphoria, the
passion and the sexuality, and usually they end it quickly when the time comes for it to be over. 
Others say education is what must be done so people can make better, well-informed choices
about love and love relationships.  Others counter this by saying all this is far too much under the
control of mother nature for anyone to be able to do much about it, except help people when their
relationship has come apart.  There are those who say good, healthy breakups and divorce
counseling, post divorce counseling, and co-parent guidance counseling to handle the aftermath
is the best that can be hoped for.  There are those who have advocated time-limited marriage
laws.  A larger group suggests that people should live together for two to four years before
contemplating marriage, and that this should be considered by a lot more people.

There is a lot more you can learn about limerence.  This false form of love was discovered
during a very good research effort conducted by Dr. Dorothy Tennov.  She coined the term
limerence and wrote ‘the book’ on the subject which is called Love and Limerence, published
by Stein and Day.  I heartily recommend this book to those who want to know more.  There are,
of course, websites dealing with this topic and some therapists who are experienced in working
successfully with limerent effected clients.
Ronald and Helen went into very helpful individual and couple’s counseling which made for a
healthy divorce and post-divorce recovery.  They also learned how to avoid repeating their
limerence mistake and how to go toward growing healthy, real, spousal love.  Now six years
later both are in healthy, real love marriages and have children, and they are doing very well.

False Forms of Love: Shadow Side Attachments

Too often bad guys and gals seem to win in the love arena, and good girls and nice guys seem to
lose.  Why is that?  The considerate gentleman gets dropped for the brute.  The ‘girl next door’
type loses out to the girl with the bad reputation.  Sometimes the examples get a bit extreme. 
Ruth dropped out of her seminary’s Sacred Music and Choir Director degree program and ran off
with a guy in an outlaw, motorcycle gang.  Wallace abandoned his very sweet wife for a woman
with an obvious ‘slut pride’ tattoo.  Jen used to be her upscale, suburban neighborhood’s popular
‘princess perfect’.  Now she flashes her intimate piercings jewelry and only goes out with
misogynist, tough guys who play in bad boy bands.  After 20 years with his socially acceptable,
almost ‘trophy wife’ Marvin left her and now lives with a Goth girl whose main fashion
accessory is a whip.

Many shadow side relationships are not so extreme.  The wife of a popular and successful
husband leaves him for a seemingly ordinary, so-so guy.  The single guy turns down the popular,
ex- beauty queen and instead goes out with chubby, plain looking, social isolates.  The preacher
would be better off with the polished, socially adept woman who really wants him but he hooks
up with a nonconformist, political rebel whose abrasive ways are bound to cause trouble in his
church.  The examples of the shadow side romance phenomenon are nearly endless.

To explain all this let’s look at one of Dr. Carl Jung’s postulates.  He was the most famous pupil
of Dr. Sigmund Freud and he put forth the concept of the shadow side personality.  According to
Jung’s thinking our shadow side can be that part of our personality which is the opposite of our
more socially acceptable self and our more usual, overt way of presenting our self.  The shadow
side self can yearn to break free from having to be ‘good’, proper, constrained, and ‘fitting in’. 
In the depths of many people the shadow side secretly desires not to live up to anyone else’s
expectations, not to conform to standards or live by society’s rules.  The shadow side is repressed
but it wishes to break free of that repression, to go wild, to try everything forbidden and to live a
‘who cares what anybody thinks or says’ existence.  The freedom to have low standards of
conduct, run on impulse and not have to repress or suppress the usually unacceptable can be
powerfully attractive.  Sometimes the shadow side self breaks out and takes over.

It is thought one of the most common ways the shadow side self emerges is through a particular
form of romantic attraction and attachment.  It seems to work something like this.  The
conformist, repressed, good girl meets someone who represents all her repressed desires and
characteristics, and it is ‘fascination at first sight’.  The ‘live by the rules’, always a nice guy
meets someone who helps him bring out his selfish, lust driven, secretly barbarian inner self, and
off he goes to a life of wild abandon.  Miss (seemingly) ‘prim and proper’ can only indulge her
masochistic side after finding just the right dominating and sufficiently sadistic lover.  Mr.
‘Upstanding Citizen’ can only let out his ‘down and dirty’, hidden self after he hooks up with a
blatantly naughty and nasty femme fatale.

Sometimes things work the other way around.  The ‘outlaw’ rebel becomes intensely attracted to
the ‘good to everybody’ nurse.  The outcast, loner prostitute falls for the popular and proper
priest.  The ‘bad boy’ converts himself into acting good so he can be with the ‘good girl’.  These
examples and similar others happen less often but they do happen.  Which ever way it emerges a
shadow side attraction offers a reversal of the usual, and an overt exploration of what was
previously covert and perhaps even was entirely out of conscious awareness.

Shadow side false love brings up many questions.  Do these relationships really work?  Do they
last?  Why do seemingly reasonable, balanced, OK people reject the ‘good ones’ for the bad?  Is
there the possibility of real, spouse type love in these relationships?  What’s the probability of
healthy love developing in a shadow side romance?

To help answer these questions let’s take a look at what a shadow side romance is thought to do
for a person.  When we get involved in a shadow side romance we give our self the chance to
travel into our own unexplored regions.  Shadow side, false love really may be about learning to
discover, to know and to love the rest of one’s self.  By way of the intimacies of romance and
lust we can tap into our own worst, weirdest and sometimes most wonderful traits, tendencies
and talents.  Shadow side, false love attachments are frequently filled with uninhibited actions,
some of which are great fun, and occasionally quite creative, as well as frequently awful.  They
also often are filled with episodes of spontaneous, emotional combustion and near total
abandonment of restraints.  Therefore, shadow side lovers feel more free to explore and
experiment with many more ways of being themselves than is true for the usual common and
correct couple.  Shadow side, false love is frequently exciting, adventurous and sometimes quite
dangerous.  When your shadow side lover manipulates you into addictions, crime, a cult, radical
politics, crazy religion, violence, etc. the results can be negatively life altering and even life
ending.

Shadow side romance also can be life changing in very positive ways.  Think about these
quotes:  “My bad boy lover got me into music and he’s ‘over and done’, but today music is how I
make my living, so I’m thankful for that escapade in my life”.  “I would never have known what
real, sexual pleasure was if I had not gone across the tracks and lived on the wild side for a
while.”  “She was both the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to me; and, thank
God, the good ended up out-weighing the bad, but oh what a trip it was.”  “I’ll always have a soft
spot in my heart for what you call my shadow side lovers.  They are part of what makes me who
I am today, so I’m glad for everything we did and, no, I don’t ever want to do any of it again!” 
“First, I was too good and my lovers were bland and blah.  Then I rebelled and was far too bad
and my lovers were beasts and bozos.  Then I chose a third way, not too good and not too bad,
and my lover now seems to be just right.  I see that it took all three to get where I am today, and
life feels good and right”.
Sometimes a person feels drawn to a shadow side lover only to spend a brief time ‘visiting’ in
that dark and difficult world.  Then they return to their regular life, often more worldly-wise,
stronger and more mature.  At other times a person is caught up in shadow side, false love and
takes up life-long residence in a sort of slavery to the opposite of what they knew or how they
behaved before.  When that happens they usually seem to go from one shadow side lover to the
next in an endless string.

The best outcomes usually occur when a person synthesizes their two opposing sides and creates
an integration of both, keeping the best and jettisoning the rest.  Then they find a lover or spouse
compatible with their new, integrated self.  The results of this kind of synthesis and integration
sometimes are spectacular.  Of particular help in achieving integrated synthesis is a form of
psychotherapy popular in Europe and South America called Psychosynthesis.  It uses specialized
techniques for bringing opposing parts of the self into healthy integration and it works well with
Dr. Carl Jung’s conceptualizations and form of psychotherapy.

Once in a while shadow side, false love gives rise to healthy, real, lasting love with a shadow
side lover but most think this is extremely rare.  More often shadow side, false love can be a
prerequisite to a later lover who is more compatible for growing a new lasting love.

One appeal of shadow side romance has to do with relaxing inhibitions.  Tiffany said, “It was
always easier to go naked and do crazy things when I was around Smittey because he was scum. 
I could act like a crazy bitch around him because I knew he was worse than me and if I lost him,
so what.  If he stayed around I could abuse him as much as I wanted.  It was great!  Then I got
tired of all that, and went into therapy and learned to love myself.  Then I had to find somebody
really fine because I learned I was worthy of real love.  I’m not so carefree as I was, but my life
is way better now.”

Shadow side, elicit affairs are thought to be one of the more common kinds of extramarital
involvements that married people sometimes get into.  It’s not uncommon for some marriage
counselors and relational therapists to hear things like, “I can’t understand why my wife picked
such a loser to have an affair with” or, “My husband’s choice in lovers is so low class.  I just
don’t get what he sees in those women” and “It’s so embarrassing to discover my lover wants
those trashy freaks more often than he wants me.”  The people who say these sort of things don’t
understand that dealing with difference and deviance, without having to live up to higher
standards, is the attraction.  The wayward mate can find out what their bad side is and get, if not
real love, acceptance and participation.  Living up to higher standards is not required and that is
such a freedom for many, especially heavily repressed individuals.  When love is done ‘in the
light’ the presence or absence of quality becomes important because it easily can be seen. 
Affairs ‘in the shadows’ can hide a lot and that is exactly what the shadow side lover sometimes
hopes to do, hide from the glaring quality issues and, therefore, be free to not care.

The shadow side dynamic is a false love because it is not lasting and it does not provide several
of the major functions of healthy, real love (see “A More Ample Definition of Love” entry). 
Nurturing love, protective love and healing love usually are not much a part of shadow side love
involvements and, therefore, shadow side attempts at love usually come to an end with a fair
amount of agony.  The good news is that quite often the agony is not very long lasting because
the love was false.

One of the benefits of exploring your own shadow side (often with the help of a knowledgeable,
love-oriented therapist) is you may come to acknowledge and integrate deep parts of yourself
and consequently may be able to avoid the entanglements and problems that can come from
having a shadow side, false love experience with another.

False Forms of Love: Thrill and Threat Bonding

Synopsis: Fire on the mountain doesn’t mean it’s love; the two big answers; if it’s good for our
species is it good for you?, thrilling but not threatening experiences; social thrills and threats;
what you can do to protect yourself from this false form of love; okay thrills and threats.

Fire on the Mountain

Tears slowly started to descend Jill’s suntanned cheeks as she told her story.  “I just don’t love
Brandon like I thought I did.  Our romance started in such a crazy way.  We met on a trail trying
to escape a forest fire when we were wilderness camping on different parts of a mountain in the
Rockies.  The fire came up suddenly and separated both of us from the people we had been
camping with.  If I hadn’t run into him I probably wouldn’t be alive today.  For a day and a night
we hiked and climbed to escape the fire and finally made it to safety above the tree line.  Two
days later we were rescued.  Through it all Brandon was my super-hero, knight in shining armor
and Prince Charming, all wrapped up in one, who had come to save me from the Fire Dragon.  I
couldn’t help falling madly in love with him.  I just knew we were meant to be together forever. 
Cuddling together for warmth that first night we just sort of magically melded into making love
over and over on that dangerous mountain.  It was so thrilling with the light from the blaze less
than a mile below us making our naked skin and everything around us have a magical glow to it. 
It wasn’t very long until we moved in together, and a year later our precious baby came along. 
We tried hard to make it work but now I know it can’t.  We are just too different.  I love nature
and he wants to conquer it.  I am a modern, progressive Democrat and he is a disgustingly
regressive Republican who would like to take us back to living like we did in the 1800’s.  About
the future I’m Star Wars and he is Road Warrior.  Worst of all, I am a liberal Protestant, equal
rights, feminist and he is a reactionary Catholic, secretly all about white male supremacy.  How
could we have gone so wrong”?

Two Answers

Jill deserved an answer and with some work and study she got two.  She discovered the fact that
when people experience threats and/or thrills with each other their brains produce a host of
chemical reactions.  These chemical reactions are strongly conducive to causing people to feel
emotionally attached or bonded.  Often they feel both romantically and sexually attracted to each
other whenever they are experiencing thrilling or threatening circumstances.  One of these
chemical hormones that can flood the brain is oxytocin which can powerfully enhance people
feeling strongly connected and bonded together, especially in times of excitement.  Another
chemical hormone is adrenaline which gives people energy and can help everything a person is
experiencing seem more vivid, intense and important.  In thrilling and threatening experiences all
this occurs automatically regardless of compatibility, evidence of healthy or real or lasting love,
or almost anything else.  These feelings of attachment or bonding lead many to falsely think they
have suddenly fallen deeply in true love with their rescuer, or the victim they are rescuing, or the
person with whom they are co-experiencing some exciting, dire or dangerous circumstance.  The
problem is when life gets normal again brain chemistry goes back to normal and living in regular
reality takes over.  It is then that the issues of day-to-day living and factors related to healthy,
real, lasting love come into focus.  Subsequently false love feelings change and diminish.  Sure,
once in a while healthy, real love grows in an ‘adventure started’ relationships but usually it does
not, as Jill discovered.
Jill also discovered the second set of reasons for her falling so deeply into this form of false
love.  All her life she had been delighted by romantic, rescuer, love stories full of threats and
thrills.  In early childhood fantasies she was the ‘damsel in distress’ rescued from the ‘evil
wizard’ by the ‘hero Prince’.  Later she was Lois Lane rescued by Superman.  Still later she was
the erotic, slave girl liberated from the sadistic sultan’s harem by a handsome Naval officer.  As
a young adult her favorite sexual fantasy involved her being a debauched harlot, trapped in a life
of sin and submission to an evil vampire count but then saved by a heroic, libidinous master
warlock.  Jill saw that in romantic and erotic stories from her past she had, in a sense, been
subconsciously programmed into vulnerability to the ‘thrill and threat’ romantic scenario.  Now
Jill saw it was going to be her job to re-program herself for adult, real love.

If It’s Good for the Species Is it Good for You?

Some think many forms of false love have their roots in our brain chemistry, and that out of such
chemistry grew much of our misleading love lore and our destructive romantic mythology.  This
chemistry probably was a good species survival mechanism.  It makes ‘species survival sense’
for the victim and the rescuer, or two people going through and surviving a dangerous experience
together, to bond and, therefore, better help each other through the difficult experience.  It also
makes survival sense for them to make a baby before the next disaster wipes out one or both of
them.  But after a child is born the couple may discover they don’t have lasting love, and then
break up, and later form new relationships which helps mix the gene pool and genetically make
things better for future generations, or so the theory goes.

Thrilling but Not Threatening

Sharing thrilling but not necessarily really dangerous experiences can produce very similar
results.  Paul found his first wife while on a very thrilling, singles white-water rafting trip.  He
met his second wife while skydiving, and now has a third wife he met at a mundane, church
function and she looks much more promising as a real love-mate. You might want to take notice
of how ‘thrilling experience’ is hinted at in romantic terminology like “swept me off my feet”,
“head over heels in love”, and the ever present “falling” in love.  Unfortunately all of these may
have more to do with short-lived, false love forms than lasting, real love.
Social Thrills and Threats

Thrill and threat bonding experiences can happen socially as well as physically.  People have
been known to feel they are romantically bonded together when they have gone through highly
threatening legal occurrences, thrilling sexual adventures, fought in potentially dangerous and
exciting political situations, and worked together in high action campaigns for economic and
social change.  The challenge is to explore whether the bonding feelings generated are short
term, false love or more long term, healthy, real love.

What Can One Do?

What can one do about not getting fooled and trapped by a thrill and/or threat false love, bonding
experience?  The first thing is to understand this phenomenon.  The second is to abide by St.
Paul’s pronouncement that love (the healthy, real kind) is patient.  Take your time after the thrill
and/or threat experience and get to know each other in regular, living situations.  It’s OK to
experience and enjoy, if you can, the strong feelings of adventures and other thrilling, and even
threatening experiences, but wait until normalcy returns before making any commitments.  One
also can raise into consciousness and examine one’s subconscious programming.  Have the love
stories of your culture and upbringing subconsciously programmed you to be vulnerable to this
false love syndrome which can occur when exciting, thrilling and threatening situations occur? 
If so, start working on what healthy, real, lasting love looks like and how you can create,
promote and adapt yourself to that which actually works.

OK Thrills and Threats

It is to be noted that not all shared, thrilling and exciting events in a relationship give evidence of
false love occurring.  Healthy, real, romantic love often is repeatedly thrilling in many ways. 
Couples who plan and carry out thrilling adventures together just may be making their very real
love more interesting.  Thrilling and even threatening experiences, of course, can occur in long-
term as well as short-term relationships.  I know a physician couple who for their 25th year
together sailed a schooner around the world.  Then there’s the CPA and teacher couple who in
their third decade together joined the Peace Corps and went to an isolated, poor, African village
to help.  A long-term rancher couple I am familiar with now lead adventure tours in the
Amazon.  You just have to watch out for the false love type of ‘thrill and/or threat’ attachment
bonding.

False Forms of Love: Meta Lust

With considerable, energetic puzzlement Lynette said of her new lover, “I just want to eat him
up.  I want to be with him every minute.  I want to hear his every word.  It isn’t just sex, though
that’s great and I like it every time we do it which is a lot, but it’s so much more than that.   It’s
like I want to absorb him or soak up his being and everything about him.  It’s not like I want to
lose myself in him because when I’m with him I’m intensely me, even more me.  I just want him
in me every way I can get him there, sexually, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually –
everything.  The trouble is I felt this way once before and it was wonderful, but it did not last.  
So this time, is this going to last or is it going to fade out like it did before?  Can this be real and
lasting love, or is it something else?

Joel, a member of Lynette’s personal growth and development group, replied, “Well, Lynette, I
suggest you enjoy it while you can because in my experience the answer is yes, it is going to go
away someday”.  Harriet remarked, “I agree because I’ve been through almost exactly what you
just described and it did not last for me either.  What I don’t understand is why does it follow
that pattern when it seems so good?  First, you think you’re deeply in love, or at least in deep
lust, and then one day it’s all starting to fade and disappear.  It doesn’t seem right that it should
work that way.  What is that all about”?

Some of the thinking about what Lynette and the other members of her group were talking about
goes like this.  First, the dynamics are part of a false love syndrome or pattern that can be called
“Meta Lust”.  Here, “meta” basically means big, all-inclusive and encompassing.  Lust means a
strongly driven desire.  Together meta+lust means a big, encompassing, driving desire to
experience almost all aspects of another person.  It’s sort of like having an enormous crush on
someone.  It is far bigger, more complete, profound and total than simple sexual or romantic
desire.  Fervent sexuality and intimate romance are usually intensely included although,
curiously, not always.  Meta Lust occurs when a person desires to have constant and repeated,
huge doses of experiencing another person in just about every way possible.  Meta Lust can
occur mutually or in just one of two people in a relationship.  This intense desire seems to start
disappearing when a person finally gets enough of that other person for their own satisfaction or
perhaps for their growth and development.

Every once in awhile in some people’s lives there comes along a person that gives you what
seems like everything you could possibly want for your own intense, pleasurable, stimulating,
personal growth and life fulfillment.  It is thought that perhaps your subconscious has a natural
hunger to experience that other person for the benefit of your own evolution because, at least for
a while, there is a great but temporary, extreme compatibility occurring.  A person in Meta Lust
becomes extremely enjoyably fascinated, intrigued and totally absorbed in experiencing the other
person.  It is a little bit like some people do when they are utterly engrossed in a hobby, deeply
absorbed in a fascinating book, a very intriguing mystery or captivating music.  Meta Lust for a
time seems to fill all your needs, satisfy all your lusts, and bring out your own inner,
undiscovered self at many levels.

For some people having a Meta Lust experience is somewhat like going to live in another culture
and being enmeshed in the ways of another very different but highly enjoyable lifestyle.  For a
time it can be very rewarding, enriching and it may revolutionize your life approach.  Frequently
persons who have experienced Meta Lust are thought to be able to shake off their usual, but less
useful, ways of being themselves and give birth to ‘outside the box’, new selves.  Some have
described that after a Meta Lust experience they have become far more creative, more self-
confident and more able to live thoroughly alive.
In working to understand Meta Lust please don’t be put off by the word ‘lust’.  In some circles
‘lust’ has gotten an overly negative connotation.  Think ‘lust for life’, ‘lust for adventure’, ‘lust
for knowledge’ and ‘lust for enlightenment’.  Lust like all other feeling states has its beneficial
purpose.  For instance, lust is very good at helping us do things big and with strong intensity. 
Meta Lust sometimes greatly enriches because it can bring a person some of life’s biggest and
most intense experiences, most impactful learning and most memorable events.  Like all forms of
lust it also can bring some big ouches.

Some people coming out of a Meta Lust experience seem to end the relationship more OK than
commonly occurs when ending many other types of romantic involvements.  Sometimes two
people enter and exit a Meta Lust experience together and then become good, possibly lifelong
friends.  Apparently, at least a small number of post Meta Lust people seem to look back on their
Meta Lust experiences with fond nostalgia and satisfaction.  This certainly is not everyone’s
experience.  Especially hurt and disappointed are those people who counted on their Meta Lust
experience to be a lasting love.

The ancient Romans seem to have known about Meta Lust, except they apparently named it
‘Lustus Profundus’, although this term may also refer to some other false love states.  Since
ancient Roman times, down through the ages, there appears to have been repeated descriptions of
Meta Lust.  Many people seem to have understood that it was not real, lasting love and gave it
various other names.  Descriptive words like “enamored”, “enthralled”, “enraptured” and
perhaps even “twitterpatted” may have been used to indicate people in a Meta Lust state.

For a time what seems to have been Meta Lust was thought to have meant that a person was
being temporarily influenced by a lusty sprite, and at other times inhabited by a particularly
enticing demon.  It also was considered to be symptomatic of being bewitched by some witch’s
or warlock’s romance spell, and in time, or with another witch’s help, you could eventually exit
from a Meta Lust, bewitched state.  Religious exorcism also offered hope for escape from being
bewitched and, therefore, freed for true love.

Why does Meta Lust exist?  Meta Lust is suspected of having evolved as a sort of efficient,
rapid-fire way to personally and interpersonally learn a lot from a consonant and concordant
other person, while developing intimate, personal strengths and preparing for more lasting,
serious relationships in the future.  Meta Lust might be one of evolution’s ways to help get a
child started, and then turn off and end the relationship, so that the participants can go on to mix
the gene pool more thoroughly via new relationships.  Thus, Meta Lust might have a fair amount
of survival value for our species.

Are there problems with Meta Lust?  Well, of course, there are problems with every type of false
love and actually with all types of interpersonal relating.  When people confuse Meta Lust for
real, lasting love and get married, or conceive a child all sorts of problems may arise.  When the
happy, good feelings of Meta Lust go away, or the lover or spouse of Meta Lust departs, the left
lover or spouse may suffer strong depression, disappointment and despair may result. 
Sometimes one person is in a state of Meta Lust with the other in a state of real love.  The
aftermath of that may be seriously difficult in a number of ways.  Those people in Meta Lust
who rush into marriage and pregnancy, and then come out of Meta Lust usually divorce
wondering what in the world went wrong.  Thus, the children of Meta Lust couples are likely to
experience either their parents staying together only out of guilt and obligation, or they may
experience  separated parents – who hopefully work at good co-parenting.  Sometimes that turns
out quite well, but sometimes not.

What is to be done about the false love called Meta Lust?  Perhaps first, just to know about it. 
Of course, if you suspect you’re in a state of Meta Lust abide by Paul’s teaching that “love is
patient”, and don’t quickly make any life-changing moves like getting married, and avoid
pregnancy, plus be very careful about sexually transmitted diseases.  Don’t work at fooling
yourself into believing that Meta Lust will turn into healthy, real, lasting love; that possibly
could happen but most of the evidence seems to suggest it probably won’t.  Enjoy it and learn
everything you can from it, while not taking it too seriously.  Generally going slowly in a
relationship situation is most likely to be helpful in avoiding the possible destructive pitfalls of
Meta Lust; and the other types of false love (see all the entries for types of False Love in the Site
Index under ‘F’ ).  Naturally if you’re getting into anxiety and depression, or any other set of
strong, unhappy emotions some counseling, hopefully with a love knowledgeable counselor or
therapist, is advisable.
If I’m in a Meta Lust experience what are my chances for it turning out well?  Like so many
things in life some people have a relatively exciting, mostly good experience with a Meta Lust
relationship, at least at first.  Others have a terrible time, often not long after the relationship
begins.  Highly healthfully self loving people handle it better than those poor at healthy self-love
– as would be expected.  Likewise, those people who are otherwise well-nourished with love
from many people and from many directions seem to get through the experience a whole lot
better than the love-starved and love-malnourished.  For some, Meta Lust seems to be a ‘crash
and burn’ experience, and for others a wonderful life adventure but almost always with some
severe bumps.  Those who are really good at interpreting the guidance messages of their
emotions, and those who understand the difference between healthy, real love and false forms of
love do best   (check out the entry “A Dozen Things Love Is and a Dozen Things Love Is
Not”).

Meta Lust may be more likely to occur between underlings and superiors like bosses and their
assistants, mentors and protégées, ministers and a close congregant, health providers and patients
or interns, and in general between the higher ranked with the lower ranked.  Meta Lust is thought
often to start with a lower ranked person highly admiring and becoming enamored of a higher
ranked person.  Frequently it seems the relationship itself begins after the lower ranked person
bravely instigates some personal, more intimate connecting action with the higher ranked
person.  Then if the person in the superior position responds positively a more full-blown Meta
Lust relationship may soon spring into life.  Of course, if either one of these people are currently
in committed relationships or marriages, or the ethics of their profession prohibit such a
relationship, all the many problems of a deceitful affair may soon destructively afflict everyone
involved.

Can Meta Lust experiences turn into healthy, real, lasting love?  Yes, this does seem to happen to
some people.  Healthy, real love can begin to grow between two people who get started in this,
and many other forms of relating, but in regard to Meta Lust it seems to be a fairly rare
experience.  This, along with many other questions about false forms of love have yet to be well
addressed by research psychology.

Meta Lust experiences seem to have a large variety of mixed outcomes.  Among the more liberal
minded, nontraditional, loving people Meta Lust relationships sometimes transition into a real,
ongoing kind of friendship love, encompassing each other’s mates and other family and friends. 
In the modern Western world the more rigidly traditional are suspected of having a harder time
with Meta Lust relationships.  That possibly is because they have no special standard,
identifiable, labeled category or role by which they can think about this sort of transitory
relationship.  For them there may be only two acceptable categories, singleness and marriage. 
For some, all other categories are nonexistent, illicit or wrong.  Being friends or having any other
involvement with former ‘lovers’ or ‘lust mates’ is either unthinkable or unacceptable.  Really
destructive outcomes apparently occur when one or both people in a Meta Lust relationship keep
trying to force the relationship into a traditional, pair bonded form like engagement or marriage. 
This may fight the natural way Meta Lust relationships evolve, end or transition.  In cultures and
subcultures where there are more accepted romantic relationship categories, than just single or
married, those in Meta Lust may have an easier time of it.

Now, a reminder is in order.  Research into many of the false love forms is in its speculative
stage.  Thus, we are dependent on less than fully verified field observations, clinical conjecture,
philosophical inquiry and analysis, and the best guesses of the people who think about these sorts
of things.  A great deal of good, solid scientific research is yet to be done in this area, so all we
have to rely on is the thinking of the hopefully experienced, intelligent and wise who try to
understand these phenomena of the heart.  That, of course, is what we mostly have done for the
eons before science became the way to know things.  The good news is that this sort of thinking
about Meta Lust and other forms of false love is proving rather useful at the practical application
level for those who apply it.  In time science will most likely learn a great deal more about all
this, will give us new and better comprehension and might reveal new, higher level mysteries
needing further research.  Until then we can work with what we have.

If you think you might be in a Meta Lust relationship hopefully you will enjoy it, and grow from
it but not depend on it over much.  If a Meta Lust relationship starts giving you one type of
trouble or another, or troubles anyone else for that matter, I suggest you seek out a good, love-
knowledgeable counselor or therapist and grow from it that way.

False Forms of Love: The Devastating IFD Syndrome

Strong, tall, handsome Trent came into my office with tears streaming down his rugged cheeks. 
In a groaning, deep tone voice he almost whispered, “I have lost my reason to live.  I lost her –
my one, true love.  She was so perfect and I drove her off.  I tried and tried and I can’t get her
back.  How am I going to go on?  She won’t have anything more to do with me.  My life is
ruined.  It hurts so bad”.  Then he spilled out the story of their relationship.
It was a familiar tale.  Like so many before him Trent had become a victim of one of the big,
romantic love killers, the sometimes even fatal IFD Syndrome.  Trent had met and come quickly
to think of Tricia as ‘perfect’ in every way.  Things went quite well for them until one day she
cut short her long, flowing, gorgeous, locks which had been just right as Trent had seen her
lovely hair.  Ever so carefully Trent told Tricia how her hair had looked ideal long and flowing. 
He gently insisted she grow it back and never cut it again, plus he sort of pontificated that this
was how females should look.  Soon after Tricia started wearing rather short skirts with low
necklines.

With some frustration Trent told Tricia it was no longer appropriate for her to wear her clothes
like that since they were now in a committed relationship with one another and that type of look
was just for attracting men.  Soon thereafter Tricia’s skirts became even shorter and her
necklines lower, plus she became rather flirtatious with other men at various gatherings.  As
Trent saw it her femininity also was marred by her increasingly risqué talk.  Trent decided he
must correct her ways and get her back to acting like she did when he met her.  He tried reason,
guilt trips, cajoling, anger and everything else he could think of to get her to conform to the ideal
girl he had perceived her to be at the beginning of their relationship.  The more he tried and
failed the more frustrated he got.  Then Trent and Tricia began to fight about all sorts of stupid,
little things.  That went on for quite a while and kept getting worse.  The end came one day when
Trent, in a state of extreme frustration, risked saying “You’re just not the girl I fell in love with
and if you don’t go back to being her we are done!”.  Trisha replied, “I am the same girl I always
was and if you really loved the real me you would love me as I experiment with new, innocent
stuff, go through ordinary changes and find little ways to be more me.  I haven’t done anything
I’m ashamed of and you don’t have a right to censor me.  The core, real me is the same.  I don’t
think you ever saw the core me and I don’t think you love the real me either.  You’re just in love
with your image of me, so, yes, we are done”.  And done they were, leaving Trent defeated,
demoralized, dejected and nearly suicidally depressed, trapped in the devastating “D” phase of a
strong IFD false love syndrome.

Way back in 1946 a rather then famous linguistic psychologist, Dr. Wendell Johnson, published
a book describing the IFD Syndrome and telling of how it negatively effects almost everyone
sooner or later.  He called it a “disease” that is particularly common and devastating among
university students, sending many into breakdowns and mental hospitals.  Unfortunately mental-
health professionals mostly do not read linguistic psychology publications and so this
phenomenon went largely unnoticed in the therapeutic community, although it was fairly well
received in social psychology and for a time by the lay public.  An experimental psychologist
introduced the IFD Syndrome to me when I was in my residency at a psychiatric hospital and we
did an in-house study concerning IFD and suicide.  Our results showed that a significant 28% of
our most seriously suicide attempting, young, adult patients made their serious suicide attempts
in the “D” phase of an IFD Syndrome.  It appeared Dr. Johnson was right about the commonness
and severity of this form of false love.  This pattern also showed up in other age ranges to a
significant but somewhat lesser degree.

The IFD false love syndrome is thought to work like this.  First, in your childhood and youth you
subconsciously begin to get ideas of what your ideal love mate will be like.  This grows into an
idealized image of what ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms’ ‘Just Right For You’ will look, sound, act and be like. 
Then one day you meet someone who seems to be rather like that idealized, just right, one and
only love mate for you.  Your subconscious then projects your idealized image onto that person,
blinding you from seeing who’s really there.  Just as you do not see the screen at the movies you
only see what’s projected onto it, so too you only see your idealized, projected image and not the
real person who is there.  The letter “I” in the IFD syndrome stands for “idealized image” or just
“idealization”.

In time you begin to get glimpses of who is really there and you don’t like it because it’s
different than your ideal image.  This can be said always to occur because people are dynamic,
changing, growing, altering, maturing, etc. and because people are more complex than idealized
images.  So even if a person stays pretty much the same for a time the person doing the
projecting will start to see more than was seen at first and that will be unexpected, disconcerting
and frustrating.  Of course for a time the person you project your idealized image onto may
artificially act in accord with what you desire as a way to relate to you.  Eventually new and
differing aspects of the ‘real person’ will emerge into your awareness and that will be more
troubling to you.  Another way to think about this is that since no two things can be exactly alike
your idealized image and a real person cannot be the same, and with time that will be discovered
and become disturbing.

What comes next is growing frustration.  As you try to get your lover back up on your
‘idealization pedestal’ and try to get them to ‘act right’ they keep stepping down off your
pedestal and being themselves.  After all, pedestals are very narrow, dull places on which to live
even if, at first, they seem flattering and safe.  People who live on a pedestal come to feel
unloved because in truth they are not loved but only idealized.  Healthy, real love accepts
change, supports growth and understands the need for maturation and variety.

For a time in the “F” phase things progress in a troubled way.  As you observe more
discrepancies between your static, idealized image and the dynamic reality of the person you are
with, often you compulsively and sometimes even desperately attempt to get your lover to
regress to what you first saw them to be.  Frequently that person resists overtly or covertly, and
you become ever more frustrated, often angry and perhaps even violent.  [It is important to note
that the one you think you love must exist as their real self to be healthy, because if they are
forced or submit to other than who they really are they often may deteriorate into depression or
some other illness.]  But, as you see it, any change is “for the worse” not change for the better.  
Usually the relationship becomes increasingly conflicted, difficult and full of more frustration,
along with fewer and fewer demonstrations of love.  Unloved people subconsciously, if not
consciously, go looking for love and this can lead to cheating and all the frustrations that go with
that.  Escape into some form of destructive, self abuse or addiction also may occur to either
person if the “F” phase of an IFD Syndrome is prolonged.  The “F” in the IFD stands for
“Frustration” and the fight for and against getting the idealized lover to return to the projected
ideal.

After living in the “F” stage of an IFD Syndrome finally, by one means or another, the
relationship fails completely.  Then the person who did the idealizing (Trent, in the example
above) enters the “D” phase of the syndrome.  This happens when the idealizer realizes they’re
not going to get their ideal lover, that person is lost, unattainable, and the ideal they had fixated
on is likely never to be realized.  If that happens to you in a love relationship you enter a phase of
feeling devastated, demoralized, dejected, defeated and all too often temporarily, clinically
depressed, even sometimes to the point of being suicidal for a time.  The “D” in the IFD
Syndrome stands for those “D” words in the sentence above: demoralized, depressed, etc..  The
clinical depression can happen because love situations effect the neurochemical processes of
your brain, sometimes quite positively and sometimes quite negatively.

By the way, know that IFD dynamics can occur with lots of different human endeavors.  Some
people idealize their parents, or their children, or their spiritual leader, or religion, or political
philosophy, or their country, etc..  The results of strong idealization are inevitably the same. 
After idealizing someone or something the one doing the idealizing becomes frustrated when he
or she sees that which they idealized is falling short or differing from the ideal.  Then the
idealizer becomes demoralized when he or she realizes ideals exist only in the mind and not in
reality, and the ideal, therefore, is unobtainable and impossible.  However, love and romance-
related idealizations often are the worst type to experience when they enter the “D” phase.

Trent, who was quite bright, was helped enormously by learning of the IFD dynamics and how
they worked.  He also was helped quite a lot by spending time in a therapy group where others
told him of having gone through the IFD Syndrome and come out just fine, often in a
surprisingly shorter time than predicted by their mental health professional.  Some mild, mood
stabilizing medications which blocked Trent from sinking too low in his depression also had
short-term usefulness.  A word of caution here.  Those who have suffered from IFD Syndromes
sometimes are thought to have been confused with much more long-lasting mental illness
conditions and, thereby, may have been over-medicated and otherwise improperly treated.
For those who get seriously depressed in an IFD pattern just staying alive for 6 to 12 weeks
seems to get them over a hump.  That’s because by then for most people the brain adjusts and
produces healthier brain chemistry that helps the sufferer to better process the whole relationship
dynamic they have been through.  Most unfortunately a number of people in the “D” phase of an
IFD pattern are thought to have successfully committed suicide before that amount of time has
passed and they could feel better and see clearer.  So, if you think someone is in a serious “D”
phase of an IFD Syndrome try to get them to a good therapist who can help them through this
sometimes dangerous phase and on to healthier love relating.  It also is important to know that
some people get stuck in repeating the IFD Syndrome with a whole string of lovers.  Others get
married in the “I” or “F” phase and then divorce in the “D” phase.  Some do this over and over.

The good news is most people who go through an IFD Syndrome come out of it and go looking
for new and better understandings of how healthy, real love works.  They have a good chance of
developing the real thing.  Again, a good love-knowledgeable counselor or therapist can help
make that outcome happen a lot more likely, more quickly and much more completely.

Trent recovered fully and went on to a healthy, real love that worked well.  Later he got to know
Trisha again in a much different situation.  His final comment about her in a counseling session
was, “Trisha is OK but frankly I don’t know what I saw in her that I was so passionate about. 
She seems nice but she’s not someone I’d want to spend a lot of time with”.  His closure
statement is representative of most of the final IFD Syndrome outcomes.
Fatal Attraction Syndrome – A False Form of Love
Synopsis: This mini love lesson first explorers a real life example of this false form of love’s
deadly attack possibility; then answers what is a fatal attraction; and what is a fatal attraction
syndrome; how does a fatal attraction syndrome work; what about sexuality in fatal attraction
syndromes; does loving a person with this syndrome make a difference; is there a difference
between men and women with this syndrome; and what can be done.

A Deadly Attack

Dark was just falling and she slowly pulled her car deep into the shadows of the overhanging
trees, across the street from her lover’s house.  She looked into a large bay window where his
dining table was set for the evening meal.  Her furor grew as she watched her lover and his wife
and their three children laugh and cheerfully sit down to enjoy a time of family love together. 
She kept thinking “kill the mother, kill children and he will have to turn to me.”

When she saw her lover reach over and kiss his wife on the cheek she put the car in forward
gear.  His wife kissed him back and he obviously enjoyed it.  Her foot stamped down on the
accelerator and she took aim with the car.  Then at full power and with insane rage she raced full
speed at the bay window. Her last thought was “Even if I kill all of us, I will have him with me in
eternity”.  This is what she later related sitting in a women’s prison convicted of attempted
murder.

Due to very good house construction no one died but all sustained serious injuries , one child
crippled for life.  More than a year of family, individual and couple’s counseling brought the
family through the ordeal that followed.  Expert testimony presented the perpetrator of this
tragedy as suffering from the most dangerous of all ‘false forms of love’, that of the Fatal
Attraction Syndrome.  That diagnosis, however, did not qualify her for an ‘innocent by reason of
insanity verdict’ as her lawyer’s psychiatrists recommended.

This is but one of a number of traumatic and tragic fatal attraction cases I have dealt with in my
work with the families of murdered victims, and as an expert witness.  Let me say that I also
have worked with a number of people trying to escape from being the victim of a fatal attraction
syndrome and with those suffering this affliction, and with that perspective I can tell you – it is
not easy work.

What Is A Fatal Attraction?

A fatal attraction is simply defined as an attraction that can and sometimes does lead to death.
Think ‘moth to candle flame’.
The fatality may be of the one who is attracted, as in the case of the moth.  The targets of the
attraction also are in danger of dying via murder when the full, fatal attraction syndrome is at
work.  Sometimes both die, as all too often happens in a murder-suicide termination of a fatal
attraction relationship.  Whoever stands in the way of a person suffering a fatal attraction
syndrome, and various innocent bystanders, also can be in serious danger of being the victims of
fatal attraction syndrome dynamics.  In other words, no one dealing with a person in a severe
fatal attraction syndrome dynamic should consider themselves safe.

What Is a Fatal Attraction Syndrome?

A fatal attraction syndrome is a fairly complicated, false love phenomenon involving a very
destructive, obsessive and compulsive pattern of relational behavior.  It begins when a person
first finds themselves, sometimes suddenly, very strongly psychosexually attracted to another
person.

Quite commonly there grows up a delusional, fantasy conviction that the target of their attraction
is, or certainly will become equally attracted to them.  The person afflicted with this syndrome
then becomes increasingly, sometimes rapidly obsessed with seeking a possessive, controlling,
intimate, exclusive, love-getting relationship with the targeted person.

Increasingly little or nothing else matters but the growing, consuming drive to have the targeted
person become and be constantly available, and when that person is present for them to be fully
focused on satisfying the desires of the one suffering this affliction.

This consuming drive eventually obliterates healthful, normal, interpersonal functioning though
sometimes a semblance of outward normality superficially can be maintained.  In one fashion or
another the behavior becomes more and more abnormal and extreme, and the emotional needs of
the person experiencing the syndrome become increasingly impossible to satisfy.  When that
happens truly crazy thinking mixed with horrible to experience emotions dominate and all too
frequently lead to deadly behavior.

This syndrome is a form of False Love because it is not motivated by a desire and drive for the
well being of the loved one, as is healthy, real love.  Instead, it is motivated only by a desire to
get love.  People afflicted by this syndrome easily move toward harming the supposed loved one
while real love is healthfully protective of the loved one. (See “The Definition of Love” at this
site)

How Does A Fatal Attraction Syndrome Work?

No one knows for sure how fatal attraction syndrome works because doing research on it, as you
might imagine, is quite difficult.  Psycho-dynamically the thinking goes something like this.  A
person encounters someone who sub-consciously reminds them very strongly of the mother they
had when they were an infant, or father they had as a young child.

This sets off an infantile need to obtain the targeted person’s caring attention, focused nurturance
and other behaviors indicative of love.  This grows into a regressive drive to have all needs
satisfied by this one other person, which of course is impossible.  Thus, this insatiable drive
becomes infuriatingly frustrated, which in turn triggers infantile rage.  Sometimes in
uncontrolled fits of anger, and sometimes in diabolical well-planned and carried out actions
destruction results.

Another theory is that there is a neuro-physiological or neuro-chemical maladaptive occurrence

in the brain which is triggered into malfunctioning when psychosexual attraction mechanisms are
activated.  It is hypothesized that this brain process may be a primitive mechanism going slowly
out of existence but once was helpful in acquiring and retaining mating partners.

Since it so commonly is unsuccessful and so frequently results in the death of those who cannot
escape it and in the death or incarceration of those who perpetrate this syndrome, it is speculated
by some that it could be a way to wipe out the weak.  Thus, it would represent a ‘survival of the
fittest’, evolution mechanism favoring those who go about love in a more loving, adult way.

Still others think that if ‘obsessive/compulsive disorder’ brain chemistry and ‘mate attraction’
brain chemistry mix with each other they may make a monstrous neuro-chemical mess in a
person’s brain causing this syndrome.  This especially is likely if there is the added complication
of severe ‘parent/child attachment insecurity’ in the background of the afflicted person.  All
these explanations are hypothetical, educated guesses; no one knows for sure.

What About Sexuality in a Fatal Attraction Syndrome?

Sexuality usually plays a big role in this syndrome, but not always.  Quite frequently the sexual
desires of the one experiencing the syndrome are part of the ‘need package’ they want satisfied
by the person they have fixated on.  It frequently seems that the sex desires of the afflicted grow
more peculiar, then bizarre and extreme, and finally dangerous.  When the sex desires get to a
level where they cannot be satiated, violent sexuality may result.  This is where death sometimes
occurs.

Does Loving a Person with This Syndrome Make a Difference?

So far the evidence available would suggest that in the long run, even with lots of healthy, real
love being showered on the fixated person, it probably won’t have a sufficient, curative effect.  
Certainly there may be cases where love has made a sufficient difference, and that probably
especially is true in the early stages of this difficulty.

Some people who suffer from this syndrome become stalkers and in other ways keep invading
the privacy and personal lives of their targets.  They never get close enough to be loved but in the
process they can cause lots of fear and misery in their target.  The love of family and friends may
help somewhat.  Also putting stalkers, privacy invaders, etc. (especially the scary, threatening
ones) in prison long enough that they may mature, seems to help some.

With other people the syndrome seems to start after a relationship has been going for awhile, and
they indeed could be loved by the one who becomes their obsessional target.  Once the syndrome
takes hold, the love given to the obsessed person becomes ‘never good enough’, ‘big enough’ or
‘right enough’, or so it seems.

I consulted on a case that involved what seemed like a quite romantic and erotic relationship, that
was doing well for more than a year.  However, when she wanted a little more time to herself he
became compulsively domineering, insisting that her career be put aside along with her family
and her friends, and that he be the only person in her life.

This led to a violent breakup.  He then followed her, bugged her house and all sorts of similar
invasive things.  Physically violent fights erupted in public.  Restraining orders, and injunctions,
arrests and other legal and police actions only seemed to make it worse.  It ended when he
smashed down her front door with an ax, and then smashed through the bathroom in which she
was hiding, and at the last possible second she brought out the gun the police had advised her to
carry, and when he still raised the ax and advanced on her she shot him through the heart, killing
him instantly.

Is There a Difference between Men and Women with This Syndrome?

No, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference.  Both men and women are susceptible to
becoming dominated by fatal attraction syndrome.  Some people think that females who had
more difficulty being loved by their fathers and males by their mothers experience this
syndrome, but no one knows that I’m aware of.  One group that some people think is less
susceptible to being afflicted by this syndrome are those who seem to be fairly strongly
bisexual.  Another resistant group is made up of both the men and women who become strongly,
healthfully self-loving.

What can be done?

For those men and women who suspect they may be in the destructive throes of this syndrome,
seek therapy with a psychotherapist who is experienced and works deeply and powerfully.  If
medicines are prescribed, take them.  If hospitalization is recommended, go.  This is a serious
condition that all too often only gets worse without help.

For the friends and family of people they think might be caught up in a Fatal Attraction
Syndrome get them to therapy.  If they are violently acting out already, get the police involved. 
Then love them a lot, and if requested to go to family therapy to help also.

For those who are targeted, if you are being stalked or if you are experiencing other invasions
like your computer being hacked or phone being tapped, seek the aid of police and possibly an
attorney, then go to counseling for yourself.  Also take lots of safety precautions like double
locking doors and windows and obtaining a good burglar alarm.  As much as possible be with
people who can protect you.

If things are going from bad to worse, in spite of those safety actions, I’m sorry to advise doing
what so many end up having to do to save their lives.  That is disappear.  Many people only have
survived this severe syndrome by moving to another city, out-of-state or even out of the country.
A fatal attraction syndrome can involve incredibly powerful obsessions and compulsions, and in
an especially bright person can be extremely difficult to escape.  I’m aware of a case in which he
searched for her for three years and found her in another nation, forced her to put on scuba
equipment, took her down deep in a lake, tied her to a sunken log, cut off her air supply, tied
himself to a log and cut his own throat, so they died together in the only peaceful place he had
ever known.

I’m also aware of a woman who after eight years found her targeted person and managed to
secretly poison him, though he did survive and she’s in prison now, still writing him passionate
letters.  The extremes to which fatal attraction syndrome afflicted people sometimes go can be
both intensely frightening and quite astonishing.

For everyone else, watch out for people who are overtly domineering, perfectionistic and
controlling, covertly needy and insecure, obsessional, compulsive, idealistic about romance, have
few or no true close friends, are sometimes violent and have outbreaks of rage, who are actively
substance addicted, false love addicted, are easily jealous, can’t hear criticism or negatives about
themselves, and who were likely either ignored a lot or suffocatingly parented.

Again, arming yourself with real, love knowledge in order to identify false love behaviors and
syndromes is self-loving protection and could save your life.  Good luck and beware.