Dr. Laura Blog

It’s not hard to get mixed up about what love is when you watch movie after movie where people meet each other, have sex, and 20 minutes later, fall in love. People wait for that hysterical feeling of bouncing up and down like popcorn heating up, but in reality, that’s just infatuation. Infatuation keeps you around in the beginning long enough to really get to know each other and determine if you can survive rough patches together.

Here are some of the most common myths about love:

1. Love is grand gestures. Love is not constant romance and flowers. It’s waking up with morning breath and still kissing. In real life, love is making little sacrifices for the person you love, and the romance is in the details.

2. Love is having butterflies. Butterflies are the nervous tension you feel when you’re nervous or insecure about a situation. If you still have butterflies, frankly there’s something wrong with the relationship. By now, you should feel comfortable and loved.   

3. Love is enough. When people say they’ve “grown apart”, it really means that they have both decided to be self-centered and stop acting sweet and giving. You have to make the connection happen. Love is a verb - it requires you to go out of your way to make the person you love happy. It’s about waking up in the morning and having your first conscious thought be, “How can I make this person happy they are alive and married to me?”