Fish Love vs. Real Love: Why Most Relationships Fail-Sunscreen Love Audiobook

What does it truly mean to love someone? Most of us think we know, yet our relationships often falter because we're operating from completely different definitions. Distinguishing genuine love from mere infatuation could be the most important relationship skill you'll ever develop.

Love, at its essence, means wanting to give without expectation of return. Infatuation, however, is that intoxicating chemical reaction that clouds judgment and makes us pursue someone primarily for our own satisfaction. Think about those post-divorce moments when people wonder, "What was I thinking when I married this person?" The answer is simple—they weren't thinking clearly because they were infatuated.

True love develops when we invest ourselves emotionally—sharing our vulnerability, time, and attention. This explains why emotionally unavailable people struggle with relationships and why material gifts often compensate for emotional distance. 

Before investing your heart, take time to heal from past wounds and define what love means to both you and your potential partner. The willingness to be vulnerable—to truly open your heart—may be uncomfortable, but it's the foundation of any meaningful relationship. Are you ready to move beyond infatuation and experience genuine love?

Chapters

• 0:00 Defining Love vs Infatuation
• 1:00 The Feeling of Being in Love
• 2:00 Fish Love: A Warning
• 3:00 Real Love and Emotional Availability
• 4:00 Healing Before Loving

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

the feeling of being in love and the definition of love. Before diving into a romantic relationship, it's essential to establish a common definition of what love means. This is crucial because your understanding of love may differ significantly from that of the person you're dating or married to. Defining your terms before getting serious can help you avoid many potential misunderstandings and headaches down the line. At the very least, you should reach a common understanding on what love means to both of you, even if it differs from this book. Clarifying your definition of love is vital, as it is frequently confused with infatuation. While infatuation can evolve into genuine love, identifying when this transition occurs, or if it will happen at all, can be challenging and can lead to a relationship filled with disappointment. How many couples do you know have said after their divorce what was I thinking when I married this person? Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. The answer to this question is that they were not thinking because they were infatuated. I like to expand our understanding of love by exploring not only its definition, but also what it feels like to be in love. The definition and the feeling of love are two separate components. The feeling of being in love means wanting to give to someone without any expectation of receiving anything in return. In contrast, infatuation is often a fleeting moment of desire driven by an attraction to something you want. It's essentially a chemical reaction in the brain that can cloud your judgment and hinder logical decision making. Many marriages happen because of infatuation rather than true love. People are infatuated with those they are attracted to, but they love those they are infatuated with and invest in. When we genuinely love someone, our instinct is to want to give to them. This is evident in our relationships with our children. We provide for them without expecting anything back, except grandchildren. The feeling of love is when you want to give to someone without expecting anything in return.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Rabbi Abraham Tversky, a well-known psychologist, warns about a concept called fish love. Fish love means you've found someone who could provide with all of your physical and emotional needs. For example, if you love to eat fish, it's because it tastes good, not because you love fish. We don't really love fish because if we did, we wouldn't fillet it and eat it for dinner. Instead, we would put it on our nightstand in a bowl of water, read it fish stories at night and take it to the park for fish play dates. Now that's crazy. Because we don't love fish. We love the pleasure and taste that the fish brings us.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Fish love means each partner is looking out for themselves, for what they can get out of the relationship. The other person becomes just a vehicle for their gratification. On the other hand, real love is what you have when your relationship is not about getting but about giving, because when we give to someone and I don't mean just baubles from Tiffany we are investing ourselves in them. Giving of our heart, emotions, vulnerability, time and attention is really investing a bit of ourselves. We are giving them an opening into our feelings, desires and emotions, because the ultimate gift you can give to someone is to be emotionally available for them Ultimately, since we love ourselves more than anyone else, if we give something of ourselves to someone else, we ultimately love them as well.

Speaker 1: 3:20

This is why, when relationships are just based on giving up gifts, they are probably compensating for the lack of emotional availability that they are providing to each other. There are many women driving their BMWs to the country club given to them by their husbands, who eventually became their ex-husbands. This is why people who struggle to be emotionally available have a much harder time with relationships. This is what real love is based on. If we carry emotional scars from previous relationships, such as a heart-wrenching breakup or the impact from living with dysfunctional families, we may find ourselves internally wounded, requiring time to heal before we are capable of a healthy relationship. Since the feeling of love requires giving to others without wanting anything in return, you must be willing to give of yourself, which requires vulnerability. If you can't be willing to open your heart to someone else, then you'll have a hard time giving of yourself to others.