There is a magical moment that happens when two people “click”. As a couple’s therapist I often ask my clients to reflect on this moment and the collection of moments that follow. “What was it like when you first started dating? What attracted you to one another?” The answers to these questions provide special insight into what it was that each person was seeking when they got together and what they may be seeking to heal through this relationship.

Sometimes falling in love with someone is a recreation of a relationship we’ve grown up knowing well and helps us to fall into a roll we are familiar playing. I observe these relationships as attempts to heal an attachment wound. The roles you take on may be the hero, the victim, the pleaser, the fixer, the avoider, the doer, or the caretaker. Whether you’re the giver or receiver in your duo, your love story usually starts with the same chemical reaction in the body.

The first ingredient is the hormone oxytocin. This communicates to the body that you’re ready to make the rest of the potion because this person is attractive to you. The next hormone in the love potion is dopamine, an intense and strong hormone that creates a euphoric state in the body, and helps your body add the hormone norepinephrine to the mix. This side effect from the love potion can be observed when you start to feel giddy and excited. Serotonin is the last ingredient, and this hormone acts as a preservative for the love potion, allowing your feel-good feelings to last most of the day during the first stages of a relationship.

When your body creates this love potion you may go weeks or months feeling in love. But it’s also likely that you’re distracted from real issues that arise in any new relationship, and when that love potion expires you may be seeking ways to feel the effects again. The end of the “honeymoon phase” in relationships is an indication that the real connections are starting to form. This is when a person becomes truly vulnerable, as they are no longer hiding behind the potion of hormones and are being seen by their partner. This stage of the relationship can feel scary, but I think it’s important to understand that the love potion doesn’t go away, the ingredients change.

What couples now use to create their love potion is compassion, patience, empathy, and intimacy. Instead of a biological reaction we often refer to as “love at first sight”, true love is formed from intentional practice of adding the ingredients needed to sustain the relationship. We require both potions to make a relationship. The first helps us to know there is an attraction, excitement, and fun. All things needed in a healthy relationship. The second helps us to build the foundation that will support the relationship through life’s challenges. When grief, anxiety, and loss find us, we will require the compassion and patience from our partner. The beauty in the body is that it will recreate both potions, over and over, throughout the relationship because they work together to strengthen the connection between two people.