Is it Love or is it just Lust?

Do you think you’re in love, or is it just lust? These two emotions are inseparable. Lust is responsible for hormones -- it's a natural way of bringing a man and woman together to mate. In fact, without lust, it's uncertain that perfect love between opposite sexes would have a chance to grow at all.

The concept of the sex connects the difference between the almost incompatible brain styles of the two sexes. Hence, lust can be seen as one end of a wide range, which may or may not end in romantic love.

Love is the most dominant of all human emotions -- inspiring, self-sacrificing and capable of creating emotional conditions that can make the man want to be a “better” partner. Men fight wars over lust, but they make homes and families for love.

Do Lust Lasts?

Lust is often mistaken for love.  In the dictionary you’ll find definitions that include "An intense longing, desire, or need," and  “Unrestrained sexual craving.”

Feelings of lust trigger a flood of testosterone, the sex hormone in men and women.  It stems from physical attraction and sexual chemistry, a powerful force that can induce strong sexual desire, diverting blood flow to the sexual organs.  Research at Maudsley Hospital in London reports that lust causes the brain to produce the same reaction as if on cocaine or speed.  “Lust really is like a drug, it leaves you wanting more,” Dr. John Marsden, director of the National Addiction Center, is quoted as saying.  But, lust can easily fade when the sex becomes predictable or the person’s character flaws come to the surface.

When Love Dives In

The dictionary defines love as “A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person.”  It also includes: “A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.”

Feelings of love induce a rush of dopamine, a feel-good chemical that increases pleasure and imprints memories.  Love also induces oxytocin, a ‘bonding’ substance that helps to build and maintain consistently successful relationships.  Physically, the emotional part of the brain is stimulated, making the heart beat faster and causing butterflies in the stomach.  A couple who can combine love with lust, the blending of emotional and physical chemistry can experience compatibility and live an enriched life together. 

In Love With Lust

For men, lust is a strong experience; the brain goes on hold and fiery surges of testosterone run the show. Lust, similar to love, is truly blind. This is why, particularly at the beginning of a relationship, it can be hard to tell whether you're in lust or love -- whether she may be "The One," or just a passing fancy who'll have your blood boiling for only a short while.

This is because men are effortlessly skilled of engaging in sex before they hearth emotional bonds with a woman -- and those raging hormones can easily disguise themselves as feelings of love.

The actual risk is that both lust and love can take from a man of his natural strength and defenses -- and then it's all too easy to hand his male power over to a woman for sex-ploitation .

Lust is particularly risky because it causes a man to think with his crotch and throw all reason and logic to the wind. When a man's in lust he doesn't care if he and his partner have anything in common. He's not interested in where she comes from or where she's going. His brain is only fixated on using his key to unlock the door to the secret cave. If his partner's only in lust, she'll use this against him, but if they're both falling in love, this sexuality is a bond.

When Lust Mistakenly Called Love

Not all of us are so happy together. The survey revealed that 29% of men and 19% of women plan to leave their partner. According to Linda Blair, a writer and psychologist, conduct a survey of some 3,000 individuals has found that one in 5 adults claim to be "in love with someone other than their partner". This "other" is usually a friend or coworker. "Even in a happy relationship," a spokesman for the polling firm told yesterday's Daily Mail, "it seems to be possible to have a wandering eye or even crave affection from another person."

So far, the human brain is geared up to imagine that which is not – "Would I be happier with her as my lover?" – and to make comparisons – "Would he be easier to live with than my current partner?" We're also more likely to imagine what life might be like with people we bump into in our everyday life – friends and colleagues – than with people we've never really met.

However the report goes on to claim that one in 25 people say they have been in love with someone else for more than 5 years and one in 50 say they have loved another for as long as they could remember. Furthermore, 29% of men and 19% of women say they plan to leave their partner.

Now I don't know about you, but I find those latter statistics both surprising and incredibly intimidating. It's so sad to think that at least one in five of us feels that our current situation is so unsatisfying that we're planning to leave it, and that we've believed for some time that there's someone better "out there". However, instead of adding to the general disappointment that's outwardly lush, I'd like to put these findings into some sort of context.

It's generally accepted in psychological circles that more people in the western world today are feeling unhappy and dissatisfied, particularly with regard to their relationships. We know, for example, that divorce rates are fostering, especially among the over-60s, and that many younger people – particularly men in their 30s – report disturbingly high rates of loneliness and unhappiness. What could lie behind this unhappiness?

There are, I believe, 3 reasons why unhappiness is so common today. The first – and possibly the most critical – is our misunderstanding about what it means to be "IN LOVE". When asked, I suspect most people would describe being in love as feeling strongly attracted to someone else, as considering another person to be tremendously desirable. When people are in love, we imagine that they're always preoccupied with thoughts of their beloved, and that they want nothing more than to be with that person.

Actually, however, these feelings don't describe love at all. They describe LUST! Lust is an early physical attraction to another person. It's overwhelmingly powerful and it's driven by pheromones – although we're not usually aware of that. When we're madly attracted to someone else, it's because we sense (instinctively) that they'd make an excellent genomic match, someone who would allow us to produce the strongest and healthiest offspring. Lust is all about the survival of our DNA. It's not about long-term compatibility, about "happily ever after".

Love, on the other hand, isn't an abrupt feeling. It grows over time. Love is more affiliated to a friendship than to a coupling. To paraphrase the psychiatrist M Scott Peck, love is the desire to cover you – at whatever personal cost – for the purpose of nurturing the growth and helping the dreams of another individual. Love is effortful; it involves personal sacrifice, and it grows slowly. Love is not about "ME" – what I can have? – It’s about "YOU"—what can I do to make your life richer? When we separate "LOVE" from "LUST" in this way, it's less distressing to note that one in 5 people desire someone other than their partner. They're simply confusing lust with love.

Fair enough, you might say. But what about the fact that the respondents claim to have had these feelings for many years? Didn't I just say that lustful feelings don't last long? They don't if put to the test. But people imagine that lustful feelings can by themselves hold a relationship together forever. And this brings us to the second reason why so many people are feeling unhappy in today's society. We find it difficult to distinguish between what we have and what we imagine we could have. That's not surprising. We're constantly bombarded with images of "PERFECT" bodies, and stories of "IDYLLIC" relationships which, as soon as they're no longer idyllic, can easily be traded in for another idyllic relationship. These images and stories, together with the advertising mantra that "you deserve better", has led many to believe that "better" is outside of us, somewhere, if only we can find it.

Finally, the third reason why so many of us are feeling unhappy is that we're constantly reminded of the myriad options from which we can supposedly choose. We're repeatedly told that "there's a whole world out there, just waiting for you", and that if your current relationship isn't working, you simply need to leave it, because there will be plenty of others to choose from. Instead of making us feel rich, this suggestion of endless choice leaves us feeling ambiguous when we finally do choose a partner. Instead of setting to work to bring that relationship alive, we may start to wonder if we really have chosen the "RIGHT" one. Maybe we should search a bit more, for a bit longer? The doubt stops us from truly committing.

These 3 reasons may help explain the depressing findings of this survey. But I can't help but wonder why so many people continue to live their lives feeling so unsatisfied, when there's an alternative, a way to feel more content. A better way to live, I believe, is to stop searching outside of the self for someone who can "MAKE" you happy. Happiness, satisfaction, contentment – call it what you will – isn't something you'll find "out there". Instead, it's something that you'll create when you decide to work with what you already have.

Of course, there will be situations in which you will have tried everything you can think of, and you've done so repeatedly, and still things aren't working out. But in the vast majority of cases, a change of attitude is all that would be necessary to alleviate the great weight of unhappiness so many of us feel. The key to happiness has nothing to do with what you do or don't have. It's all about what you decide to do with what is already yours.