Love is Blind

Love is blind, the decisions we make

Perhaps you are someone who has made reckless decisions in the name of love. Perhaps you walked out on a long marriage having fallen for someone out of the blue. You wouldn’t have imagined it could happen, and then it did.

In cases like these, love seems to let in a force that can turn a life upside down, a force that can devastate a marriage and a family. Sometimes it appears to work out, perhaps the original marriage was flawed and restrictive. Other times it is the beginning of a bad story, and sets in motion destructive forces that people are left working desperately to repair and recover from.

When it comes to love the predictable and more rational sides of ourselves tend to get put to one side. You are more likely to be caught up in your more spontaneous and wilful impulses. It doesn’t matter how logical you are, it seems that if Cupid’s arrow strikes, the most reliable and organised person can behave in a reckless and impulsive way. In ways that go against the perceived sense of their character.

We can drop long standing friends on the sudden irrational impulses of love.
We go from being predictable to impulsive in the blink of an eye.

And it is because of that, because of the shutting of our eyes, that it is said that ‘love is blind’.

Be warned, it can happen to anyone, it could happen to you.

Love is blind – the origins

The phrase ‘love is blind’ dates back through classical literature, through Shakespeare, Chaucer and to Greek Mythology before them.

JESSICA

Here, catch this casket. It is worth the pains.
I am glad ’tis night, you do not look on me,
For I am much ashamed of my exchange.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit…
The Merchant of Venice: Act 2, Scene 6,

In 2004 the BBC commented on a university study that found that love is blind; that when we are in love the critical, thinking part of us is shut down.

When we say love is blind we are referring to the way that love tends to stop us behaving like the rational people we know ourselves to be.

There is also another derogatory use of the phrase; when it is used to imply that someone has fallen for someone that other people don’t think much of.

Because love is blind it takes us out of our comfort zones into unpredictable places where we can lose the sense of who we are and behave in ways that would at other times surprise us. It is when we are in the intoxicated state of love that we might do something we later come to regret, get drawn into an affair, betray a partner or a friend.

Love is blind – the impact on our adult relationships

When it comes to matters of love we are sometimes drawn to make rash choices of partners, to pick people that are otherwise completely inconsistent with the people we generally socialise with.

It is because love is blind that people will overlook danger signals in potential partners and put themselves at risk.

In the Godfather, while hiding out in Sicily, Michael Corleone is struck by ‘the thunderbolt’ of love when he catches sight of Apollonia. Up till then he has been carefully concealing his whereabouts. Now he risks everything to meet with her.

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When we speak of love being blind, we mean that when we are drawn to love we relate to other people with different parts of ourselves. We become more spontaneous, and more impulsive.

Some people might say that love draws us into a way of relating to others that is based on very primitive parts of ourselves. But this view fails to appreciate the power and impact of love. It might be said that our ways of loving are based on our early experiences of attachment.

Your early attachments

If you fail to grasp the power of these early patterns of attachment you can find yourself going round and round the same kinds of destructive and dead end relationships. This can be a very destructive way to live.

Just as we turned our back upon the ways in which our parents may have let us down, so we tend to find ourselves blind when it comes to choices of love.

Question: Is it possible for you to find a way to address these blind sides of yourself?

Answer: Being blind it is not something that can be seen, certainly not before the event. You might need a helpful mirror.

Opening our eyes to the way love is blind

This is why it is important that people take the time to understand the ways in which they can be blind when it comes to love. It is difficult to see these sides of yourself on your own, this is the kind of work that needs to happen through confidential conversations. Psychotherapy and counselling conversations provide a confidential place to reflect on the kinds of love choices you make.

How can Counselling Buckinghamshire help?

At Counselling Buckinghamshire we have a depth of experience of working with people who are trying to see themselves and the choices they are drawn to make in more detail. We work with people who are trying to come to terms with things that have happened to them in a state of lovestruck blindness.

Contact now for a free telephone consultation to discuss how our approach may be relevant to you.