The Four Phases Of Romance

“There are four distinct phases of romance.  Although not everyone can expect to experience them exactly the same way, all four naturally emerge once your feelings for someone else go beyond friendship to passionate attachment. The four phases are Attraction, Infatuation, Courtship, and Intimacy.

Attraction begins when one person picks out, through means usually unknown and unconscious, another person to be smitten by.  Infatuation, in which the beloved becomes all-desirable and all-enveloping, soon follows.  In the depths of infatuation, the lovers’ fantasy life can become both wild and extreme.  If there are no insurmountable barriers, the phase of courtship will arrive next.  The beloved is wooed to create the same attraction the lover so overwhelmingly feels.

If the courtship is successful, intimacy follows.  The underlying sexual excitement that plays such a strong part in romance, and that at first is restrained by the outlet of fantasy, is now allowed fulfillment.

Through intimacy, the union of two people begins to be played out in the real world rather than within an isolated psyche.  Reality dawns as the lovers’ rosy images get tested against a real person.  For better or worse, there is an unmasking of fantasy, and the way is cleared for the next stage of love’s journey, relationship.

These four phases of romance occur in a natural, linear sequence, but at the same time they come full circle.  For a time lover and beloved are exempted from everyday reality; extraordinary states of emotion and attraction place them on a privileged plane.  Once fantasy is unmasked, either the lovers will find themselves fallen back to earth or they will have learned from their experience and will be ready to integrate it into love’s further growth.

Although it happens spontaneously, falling in love isn’t accidental — there are no accidents in the spiritual life, only patterns we haven’t yet recognized.  All love is based on the search for spirit. 

This is the first major insight to be found in romantic love — it really isn’t about two people who have fallen madly for each other; it is about two people seeing spirit in each other.

Falling in love drives you to passionate merging with your beloved, but the deeper passion is for the Self, the source of all love.”

The Path To Love, Deepak Chopra, p. 63-65.