The latest findings in neuroscience place love and healthy relationships at the center of what optimizes our health, physically and emotionally, and the quality of our lives in general.

Perhaps no experience in the course of our lifetime, whether conscious or subconscious, consumes more energy, or produces more intense emotions, and up and down extremes in thinking or behaving, than the drive to secure the heart of that special person we seek, and to make a difference in some way – to matter and bring value to the relationship.

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that the way we express love and care for one another, from the time we are infants and throughout our lives, directly affects the health and physical structure of our brains and nervous systems.

"Becoming" by Jennifer Main jennifermaingallery.com

A toxic relationship is one that is out of balance, in many ways, a reflection of its impact on the inner world of each partner. It is kept off balance, paradoxically, by the attempts each partner makes – in triggering moments – to increase their own sense of safety in relation to the other.

In Part 1, we explored five toxic interaction patterns in which partners inadvertently collude with one another, getting stuck in scripted roles that mutually trigger one another’s protective-responses.

In this post, we look at the neuroscience beneath these toxic protective-response strategies, as emotional command circuits in ready position to activate, and how these scripted patterns destabilize partner’s inner sense of emotional safety in the relationship, setting them up to fail in their attempt to realize personal and relational fulfillment.

Current advances in neuroscience allow us to identify patterns of activation and function of the brain and body’s central nervous system in ways that were only theoretical for psychological thinkers of the 20th century.

Love that turns toxic is neither healthy nor genuine, though the intentions of each partner are often well-meaning.

A couple relationship can be described as toxic when, due to intense emotional reactivity and defensive interaction patterns, it no longer promotes, and instead harms the individual mental, emotional, and physical, well-being and growth of each partner. The relationship is increasingly off balance, a factor that is affected by, and directly affects the individual inner sense of balance, health and safety of each partner.

In contrast, genuine love is an empathic connection that recognizes the authentic other and self as separate and unique beings, even encouraging the individuality of each as essential to the formation of healthy intimacy in a relationship.

Neurological findings in the last decades show that we are wired for certain early protective behaviors in life, and that these become habitual responses automatically activated throughout life, often without conscious awareness. Intense emotional experiences in childhood can alter the structure of the brain and have enduring effects in adulthood.

Everyone has ideas about love; for human beings, it is a lifelong preoccupation. The love relationship is unique in that, across cultures, nothing drives otherwise normal human beings to do crazy things than the quest for a love bond in a couple relationship.

What is genuine love, however?

It has many attributes. One experience of love is, as Mark Twain describes, “the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” Recent findings in neuroscience would agree with Mr. Twain’s statement. Romantic attraction appears to release the same levels, if not higher, of dopamine and oxytocin into the bloodstream as drugs.

Genuine love, however, is all encompassing. It mirrors the attributes of human nature at its best.

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence,” says psychological theorist Eric Fromm. It’s something that “stretches your heart and makes you big inside,” notes poet and author Margaret Walker.

An even more far reaching view says that,

“Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale… Love loves; this is its nature.” ~ HOWARD THURMAN

Attributes of a genuine love are ones that reflect our human nature. We are relationship beings, hardwired with inborn strivings, for empathic connection.

The eroticization of male dominance and female passivity in couple relations is a game in which there are no winners, an unhealthy trap that blocks what makes human relationships human —  an empathic connection — a wired drive to mutually know and to understand one another, in our relationships, that is rooted in our compassionate nature, yet also a learned skill, which requires us to remain open and vulnerable to grow the courage we need for its realization.

The dehumanizing nature of these cultural stories, as value systems, remains hidden in our world today, upheld and masked by mass media and pornography industries, that sell notions of eroticized dominance to men, and a milder version of romanticized dominance to women. These cultural values normalize addictive patterns of relating in couple relationships, with interlocking dynamics of narcissism and codependency, and cause a lot of emotional suffering for both sexes, with far reaching effects on family and other social contexts.

For this and other reasons, looking more closely at the impact of these cultural stories opens up possibilities for men and women to see one another anew, and, rather than compete, to honor the intrinsic dignity and value of each in relation to the other, first and foremost, as human beings, with an amazing potential to work cooperatively to build societies that support the formation of healthy relationships and enrich human life.

Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (dreamstime.com)

Human beings are fascinated by stories. It’s part of our nature, as much as breathing, and our brain learns best through the telling of stories.

Simply put, we are born storytellers. We fashion a story about ourselves from the time we are born, if not earlier.

Our story contains an array of verbal, visual, and other felt sensory elements, in addition to a storyline that can endure a lifetime.

This storyline forms an inner dialogue of thoughts, a stream of consciousness, or ‘self-talk,’ that explains and interprets our life, self and situations – to others and to our own mind . We have an average of fifty to seventy thousand thoughts a day, most of which are repetitive in nature, and not conscious thinking, but rather under the control of the part of the mind that runs all the systems of the body that we don’t have to think about, often known as the ‘subconscious,’ ‘unconscious’ or ‘non-conscious’ mind.

Paradoxically, we are the creators of these running commentaries, and at the same time, the stories we fashion turn around to shape us and our lives in profound ways. 

A union between a man and a woman is special, a relationship like no other.

Its initial stages have been compared, in studies, to the most potent of addictive drugs, dumping a mixture of hormones in the bloodstream that can drive otherwise ‘normal’ people to do crazy things.

The anniversary of your relationship, with each passing year, deserves a beautiful celebration. Of course, there are the traditional flowers, dinner, candlelight, reciting or renewing your wedding vows, or exciting getaways.

To connect to the heart of what brings meaning, consider adding one or more of the following five ways to celebrate, alongside your favorites:

1. Bring to mind the first steps … 

… of your life together. Life consists of a series of milestones. There are fresh starts around every corner. Ponder the firsts. The first meeting. When you first ‘knew’ your partner was ‘the one.’ Putting together a home. Becoming parents. Replay these memories.