Even unrealized fantasy romantic love doesn't mean just loving someone; it means we are “in love” and that somehow being connected to this other human being will forever eliminate our life's sorrows. Our unconscious belief is that our lover or spouse will always provide us with this feeling of intensity and safety.

When we are not “in love,” we spend much of our time with a deep sense of loneliness and frustration over our inability to make genuinely loving and committed relationships. Usually we blame others for “not being right one” or for failing us in some essential way. It takes a surprise jolt or some therapy to acknowledge that perhaps we are ones who have to change. It is our own attitudes and expectations we place on other people and on relationships that need fixing.

He was young and arrogant and intent on marrying an heiress. Long black hair flying behind her, she walked into his life. He thought he was superior to her. She didn’t notice, as she wasn’t least bit interested in him. Two years later, madly in love, they married. For twenty years, they fought, loved, fought through night, made-up and loved. They produced two wonderful children. He went on to be successful. He kept his pain subdued with scotch. She threw out bottles. He found new ones. They almost split, but he went to AA. And, so their marriage went.