How To Awaken A Dormant Love?

A dormant love is like a bird in a cage.  It exists, it lives, but it is not possible to hear its song, its beats, although it never stops opening its wings to fly freely. It is a situation experienced by many couples in love. There is a deep affection, they both know it, but it does not manifest and does not fill their lives with magic.

This feeling can be confusing. Sometimes you think you don’t love that person anymore, even if you feel affection for them. Faced with the risk of losing it, however, it is understood that love is only dormant. Nonetheless, it is doubted. Will it be worth continuing to maintain an emotionless relationship? Will it be love or just habit?

After a few years, almost all couples ask themselves these questions. And so did a group of researchers from Florida State University (United States). From this, they developed a study to understand whether relationships flourished after a specific change. The answer was positive.

From falling in love to dormant love

We know that the early stages of a relationship are always the most exciting. In the initial stage, which we call falling in love, the world looks different.  Yes: you feel the butterflies in the stomach. Beyond that, it seems that everything makes sense and not just any one, but full and real. As if the piece of a puzzle had been found. It is as if this, in turn, reveals an exhilarating and wonderful figure.

When we are in love, we discover the taste of eternity.  It is such an extraordinary feeling that we never resign ourselves to the idea of ​​giving it up. However, as much as we wish it, that initial magic gradually wears off. Butterflies flap their wings more slowly and we discover that the infinite, despite everything, has limits. If love were a dish with food, we could say that we have destroyed the aesthetics with which they presented it to us, partly the reason why we had chosen it, and we begin to eat it.

At this point, disillusionment occurs: it is not uncommon to find shades that we do not like. The illusion is gradually abandoned to return to reality, which is always a bit disappointing. If the bond that unites the couple is strong, this moment comes and then gives way to other more relaxed, less exciting, but also more intense phases.

However, the passage of time also brings with it a certain amount of nostalgia for what was lost, for how we felt then. It is precisely nostalgia that leads us to ask ourselves if there is still love, if it has transformed or vanished.

The partner is not rejected, but the initial enthusiasm is no longer felt.  There is no desire to break the bond, but a feeling of listlessness towards the same. We also realize that what we used to do for each other with pleasure or effortlessly now involves a certain sacrifice.           

Scholars from the University of Florida have dedicated themselves to this phase of the couple’s relationship and have managed to find the secret that would reactivate it. Let’s see it together.

Thus a dormant love awakens

Scholars have found that in the presence of dormant love, we all automatically associate certain images and ideas with our partner.  These come to mind without the person in question being aware of them. For example, a woman sees her partner and immediately thinks of slippers or a man looks at his partner and immediately thinks of a pile of jars for preserves.

Scholars have wondered what would happen if couple members changed these automatic associations. Taking this hypothesis into account, the experiment focused on bringing each person to associate new, all positive images with their partner. That a woman, instead of slippers, saw a little dog. And that a man, instead of jars, saw a wonderful animal.

Psychologists have resorted to the operant conditioning method, which consists in rewarding the person every time he associates the image of his partner with a positive idea. Otherwise, of course, no reward is received or a negative stimulus is obtained. 144 volunteer couples participated in the experiment. To reach more objective conclusions, some were presented with positive images and others with neutral images.

The experiment proved that the scholars were right in their hypothesis about dormant love. Indeed, those receiving positive association conditioning felt that their relationship was revitalized. On the other hand, those who received conditioning with neutral images (a fork, for example) did not show major changes. This shows that love is also a process subject to the brain picture and that it is very sensitive to associations.

Thus, by recovering and enhancing the images of the couple through positive stimuli, love resurrects. Perhaps this is why, in couples where there is a mature admiration, love hardly begins to snore and needs to be awakened.   

Image courtesy of Astrid Torres