Why Does Love Hurt?

When we think about love, most of us imagine candlelit dinners, wine and roses.

Most of us see the connection between social and physical pain as a figurative one. We agree that “love hurts,” but we don’t think it hurts the way that, say, being kicked in the shin hurts. At the same time, life often presents a compelling argument that the two types of pain share a common source. Old couples frequently make the news because they can’t physically survive without one another.

the problem is technically known as “stress cardiomyopathy,” but the press likes to call it “broken heart syndrome,” and medical professionals don’t object to the nickname.

Behavioral science is catching up with the anecdotes, too. In the past few years, psychology researchers have found a good deal of literal truth embedded in the metaphorical phrases comparing love to pain. Neuroimaging studies have shown that brain regions involved in processing physical pain overlap considerably with those tied to social anguish. The connection is so strong that traditional bodily painkillers seem capable of relieving our emotional wounds. Love may actually hurt, like hurt hurt, after all.

Psychologists believe that physical pain has two separate components. There is the sensory component, which gives basic information about the damage, such as its intensity and location. There’s also an affective component, which is a more qualitative interpretation of the injury, such as how distressing it is.

Here are few basic factzs why we hurt when we are in love

Love hurts because when we truly love, we must do so honestly. No secrets, no avoidance, no kidding ourselves, no ulterior motives. When we truly love, what we discover about the other person inevitably demands that we confront our own beliefs and desires. Loving another person means, therefore, that both individuals will grow and change – and change, even when it’s for the best, is a painful process. Is it worth all this pain to love, really to love?
It is. To love is to live fully, to have a purpose that makes life worth living. Once again, it is Gibran who explains most eloquently what happens when you truly love another person:

“All these things shall love do unto you
that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.”

 Love also hurts when we discover something about the other person that will result in a loss to us. All parents must experience this when their adorable, dependent little baby becomes an adolescent, then a young adult. To allow them to fulfil their potential, parents must show their love by giving up the delicious sense of being needed, and encourage their child to do for themselves, because only that way can the child become fully independent. Love hurts because there are times when we have to let go of what we’ve loved most.

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