Believe it or not, we’ve reached an era where we are better at relationships in the sense that we also look at qualities and traits in a partner. A recent survey asking couples how they believed the quality of their romantic relationship would change due to the lockdown showed that 51% of the couples thought that their relationship will be better, 1% worst, and 49% predicted that it will be the same. Considering the optimism, inevitably the next question is, is love blind and deaf?
In the field of psychology, love can fall under the category of state. In other words, you have a set of feelings and emotions for a specific period of time, which puts you in a specific condition. What do I mean by this? A study showed that when people are romantically involved with someone, they may feel confident about the quality of their relationship; yet they are not accurate. This may be because they use emotional rather than logical arguments to predict whether they will break up or not, compared to someone who truly cares about you, like your mother, who is more concerned about your own good.
A fancy phrase that we use in psychology to illustrate that love can be tricky is the misattribution of arousal. Let me distill what I mean by it. When you are in a state of excitement, that can also be fear, you may assume that the stem of the excitement is someone else. In other words, associate that excitement with a person’s physical appearance and evaluate it as more attractive. Your judgment is compromised due to the condition you are in.
Nonetheless, when you get out of that condition, which usually lasts around four months, you start to evaluate the person you are with. Nowadays people have higher expectations from their partners, they want to become better people and be friends. Having in mind that the average age of getting married had gone up and the taboo surrounding divorce has been tarnished, there is more freedom to choose who you want to be committed to.
Even though we set a better criteria list, people lack in reading the signs and what signs to read about their partner, leading to doubt about their relationship. There are questions about how close you want to be with the other person, how selfish you should be with yourself, and how much support you should give and receive.
The most common assumption is “he/she must support me all the time.” Let me make it easier for you. Sacrifices must be mutual and minimal, giving a sense of equity and balance in the relationship. Sometimes people tend to fall into the trap of making sacrifices for the sake of commitment, but they lose their happiness and satisfaction along the way in that relationship. Circling back to having difficulty in reading the signs of our partner, we don’t get to notice everything that the other person is doing for us. As a result, we don’t respond to their actions and they’ve probably set an expectation based on what they have already done for us. Unfortunately, this combination produces a toxic mixture and other unwanted feelings.
If you were to ask me if love is blind and deaf, I’d most probably say that love can be blind and deaf. Being in love is a wonderful potion of feelings and emotions; however, if you want your relationship to last and be meaningful, be a little selfish, act for the benefit of the relationship, and also engage in the little things.
