STILL IN LOVE WIT MY EX PLUS
STILL IN LOVE WIT MY EX FREE

He puffed up with the compliment, that familiar sparkle gleaming in his eyes. My first thought: He bulked up! I felt like a doll enveloped in his 6-foot-1 frame. When Ben walked into the bar, I stood up, navigated my way toward him and gave him a big hug, standing on my tiptoes to reach his neck.

And it seems humans may follow a similar pattern. Those preferences become soft-wired into your reward system, just like an addiction.Įven creatures prone to promiscuity, like rats, are often primed to revisit their first pleasure-inducing partner, according to a 2015 study co-authored by Pfaus.

STILL IN LOVE WIT MY EX PLUS

That, plus the effects from your brain’s natural opiates and dopamine, and your romantic partner’s traits - strong jaw, piercing blue eyes, musky scent - leave a sort of neural fingerprint. “Oxytocin unleashes a network of brain activity that amplifies visual cues, odors and sounds,” explains Larry Young, a psychiatry professor at Emory University in Atlanta. The brain’s natural opiates help encode the experience, and oxytocin acts as the glue that helps forge those feelings of closeness. It goes something like this: According to a 2010 study published in The Journal of Neurophysiology, feelings of romantic love trigger the brain’s dopamine system, which drives us to repeat pleasurable experiences. “The person you have your first orgasm with, especially if that person cuddles with you afterward, lays down a template for what you find attractive,” says Jim Pfaus, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Concordia University in Montreal. Such preferential encoding in the brain is one reason why stories of people reconnecting with a high school or college flame are commonplace. If that person was your first, best or most intimate, the mark is even more indelible. Hormones like vasopressin and oxytocin are key in helping create a sense of closeness in relationships and play a starring role in both scenarios. In the process, he ingrained himself into my psyche.Įxperts say the neurological attachment that happens between young lovers is not unlike the attachment a baby forms with its mother. Together, we formed our identities and defined what love meant. He was the first to make me dinner, teach me to surf in ice-cold waters and unlock the seemingly impenetrable fortress of my body. Like peanut butter and jelly, we complemented each other. I was an ambitious type A who played it safe.

STILL IN LOVE WIT MY EX FREE

He was an irrepressible free spirit, a dreamer, a romantic. We had a sweet, albeit star-crossed romance. I met Ben (not his real name) when we were both 26.

So down the rabbit hole I went to find out what happens in our brains when we reunite with an old love. Nevertheless, I struggled to understand why, even though it’s certainly not the case for everyone - especially those who have had toxic relationships - I felt so comfortable sitting across the table from someone who pulled the rug out from under me. “So, if you laid down a powerful pattern that this person was your life partner, your brain can retain traces of that circuitry, even after you’ve bonded with someone new.” “The brain develops pathways based on learned patterns,” says love expert Helen Fisher, a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. What’s the harm?Īpparently my urge to reconnect with an ex makes sense. But when work took me to his hometown of Santa Barbara, I reached out and asked if he’d like to meet. Over the years, we corresponded intermittently, but not about anything deep - and never to revisit our history. I never told him a mutual friend confirmed my suspicions. He sent texts, letters, roses, and initiated countless hang-up calls. YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING,” he screamed through the screen. He fired back with a litany of messages, which began with profanity and culminated in pleas. After a heated kiss, I drove to my apartment 95 miles away.ĭays later, I learned he’d been cheating on me, and I ended our six-year relationship - the best of my life up to that point - with a two-line email. We had just returned from a trip to Napa to scout wedding venues. Instead, I found myself flashing back to the last time I saw him. There was no sign of him, so I ordered a chardonnay and two small plates, and tried to focus on the novel I brought with me, ironically titled What She Knew. The booze, music and candlelight felt like a callback to our first kiss 15 years before, almost to the day. When I arrived at the wine bar, there was only one open table - dimly lit and intimate.

Still in love wit my ex