There are two kinds of relationships; lust-driven and emotion-driven.
Early on in a relationship, people often make the mistake that a simple chemical reaction between each other can be the basis for a romantic, meaningful, life-long companionate relationship. Lust-driven relationships usually fail as a result of clashing core values and one trying to change the other. Lacking the pillars of a successful relationship, basic needs are not met. They are the circle inside of a square.
How Love & Lust Impacts our Brains
The chemical reaction that people describe as “the spark”, “that feeling”, “fireworks” and literally, “chemistry” are a result of one chemical activating in the brain–dopamine.
Directly associated with the experience of love, dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter made in the brain and used to send messages between nerve cells. It is sometimes called a chemical messenger. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure, and find focus and interest. It is related to the experience of attraction, love, and desire.
Dopamine can oftentimes be related to the phrase, “rose-colored glasses,” the pink fluffy cloud, or the honeymoon phase early in a relationship. Dopamine can create some amazing feelings by itself. However, doing all of the work on its own, it can become tiring, dissolving in a week, a few months, or a year. The recipients of this amazing chemical reaction are left with a vision that is not so rosy, clouds that are not so fluffy and pink. A moon but no honey mead to go with it. The spark has fizzled out. Without aligned core values in place or other important neurochemicals, the relationship fails.
The Emotionally-Driven Relationship Type
Emotionally-driven relationships are based on aligned core values, two to three pillars of a successful relationship (intellectual, emotional, recreational, spiritual, and sexual intimacies), and the law of attraction. These companionate relationships all have something in common: dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin. These chemicals are deeply connected to attachment and bonding, the latter two being key hormones for both maternal and romantic relationships.
The participants in a lust-driven relationship may not have anything to talk about and wonder why they are with the other person at all. Dopamine is the creator of lust-driven relationships and without its friends, oxytocin, and vasopressin, along for the ride these lust-driven relationships don’t have the substance to endure the rise and fall all relationships have. They just can’t weather the storm.
What Type of Relationship Did Johnny and Amber Have?
Analysis of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s relationship leads this science-informed matchmaker to determine that a lust-driven relationship was pursued to the enth degree. Time passed and the dopamine wore thin. These two opposites turned on one another and began destroying not only their relationship but their self-worth. There was talk of infidelity, a major player in the downfall of lust-driven relationships as needs are not being met for either person. Opposing core values may play a major role as well. When one person self-medicates with drugs and alcohol on a regular basis, seven days a week throughout their lifetime this is behavior that cannot be changed by the other person. They didn’t create it, they didn’t cause it and they can’t change it. Most people aren’t that self-aware, so they will continue to try and understand and or change the other person unsuccessfully.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were committed legally to one another through marriage and that is something they were fighting for however the odds were against them. When the dopamine ran dry, the rose-colored glasses were off and their authentic selves were revealed. The rungs of the superficial ladder that the relationship was based on, physicality and their common career choice, acting, crumbled like a cracker.
The Lesson
Emotionally-driven relationships in which people have taken the time to identify core values, and intimacies that create a basis for friendship, respect, and love, can weather the rise and falls that all relationships experience. These types of relationships have stamina. So long as the superficial ladder is folded and put away, there is even more space for love to grow.