I know it's a cliché, but one that's worth exploring when it comes to relationships. It's almost springtime and love is in the air. There is nothing like a new romantic relationship to get those endorphins firing. They evolved to provide a chemical hook to help us bond with a new love interest by making us feel good about them.
While intoxicated by love the feelings can make one feel alive, like life is worth living. Along with their upside, endorphins can also blind you from seeing aspects of your partner that would otherwise make you think twice about him or her. But while you’re under their spell, feeling invincible, you quickly paint all red flags green. While under the influence, one feels bulletproof. When the high wears off, one feels shot through.
It’s not like the signs are not there it’s just that endorphins are so powerful they can make it impossible for us to see what lies in plain sight and trigger us to rationalize and justify the most outrageous nonsense when we do see inconsistencies.
Take Martha, for example. She loves bad boys. Men with tough guy attitudes and behaviors. Bullies. She never considers that the behavior they direct toward others will come back on her at some point in the future, when she falls out of favor. Intoxicated by love she's rendered helpless. Or take Ted who finds nothing wrong with having dalliances with women who are in relationships with others--until his partner leaves him for someone else.
Back in the day, when I was dating, I had a “road rage rule.” Whenever I saw it, I would politely decline any future outings because if someone I was going out with was driving around threatening other people, I believed, and still do, that when they got upset with me, everything I had witnessed them do to others was headed my way. I can't witness wrongdoing, say nothing, and believe I'm not an accomplice.
I hate to be a buzz-kill, but karma comes up so often, both privately and professionally, I felt compelled to write something about it. Here's the rule: if you witness your significant other doing anything to someone else that you think is foul, don’t think you’re special, immune, or protected. Remember, what goes around comes around.