Love

Clive Brown: “We share our lives with each other.” 

 

February 14th marks Valentine’s Day, an unavoidable, worldwide celebration that anyone and everyone takes part in. From a young age, I’ve always known about valentines: making cards in school, buying flowers with my Dad and seeing posters about special offers on supermarket notice boards. As I got slightly older, I started to see it on social media, too: people taking themselves out on dates, tutorials on how to make paper rings and how to determine the best type of flower for a certain type of bouquet. I wanted to realise, just as everyone else had, why this day in the middle of February had such a great significance. Why does everybody want to be a part of this? 

 

I have heard numerous times that loving someone can easily enhance your mental and physical well-being, so I wanted to see if this was true. I can confirm that it is. 

Over many years, a multitude of studies have shown that a reassuring relationship with another individual can improve confidence, self-respect and can even lower rates of anxiety. How is this possible? Loving someone is a part of you : when you feel this remarkable connection with someone, you release a brain chemical called “Dopamine.” Dopamine gives you that recognisable feeling of what is labelled “being in love” ; butterflies in your stomach, epiphanies where you anxiously anticipate about someone for days, that feeling of being high. “Stanford Medicine” did a study on how being in love can relieve pain, and the results concluded that effects of being in love match the effects of a painkiller when pain is present. Love is important not only for our mental health, but for our physical health too : researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that when exposed to flu viruses, the people who exhibit positive emotions are less likely to get sick.  

 

I quickly realised that these facts sounded too scientific, so I interviewed Trish and Clive Brown, who got married in April 2011 (almost twelve years!) to see what being married is actually like. I found that, despite what we hear, stories of falling in love and getting married aren't always fairy tale endings. Regardless of how couples come together and learn how to collaborate, all relationships often face a path encountering the same difficulties.  An article uploaded to “verywellmind.com” reports that there are stages of relationships by months : the euphoric stage, the early attachment stage, the crisis stage, and the deep attachment stage. These stages allow a person to explore and follow the life and daily habits of their partner, while accepting and forgiving, but also tackling change in each other. Living starts to vary after this. Clive Brown states

“Living without my partner meant that I had more freedom…that freedom is different in the sense that I can’t go out now and do what I want to do without thinking about my partner first.” Trish quickly added on with

“We do things together in comparison to doing things on your own.” He continued, 

“We’re happier because…we share our lives with each other. We experience life together and family life together, and we have a son that we share. We achieve things as a family.”

 

Trish Brown solidified herself as the apple of Clive’s eye when he stated : “We motivate each other. We have goals that we work towards…but also individual goals. If I want to achieve something, she will encourage me to get to where I need to get to, and vice versa. We support each other that way.”

 

In 2022, Statistics Korea announced that one hundred and ninety three thousand Koreans got married in 2021, which is nine point eight percent lower than in 2020. What makes people not want to get married? Clive went on to say, “We may not agree on everything, we may not want to do what the other person wants to do.”

 

To conclude, love is a development point in many people’s lives, and for more than one reason. I finally understand why this special day is surrounded by so much joy - it is the pure and exuberant energy contributed from all different reasons for love that makes it so inclusive and enjoyable. Clive and Trish finish off with “We are there for each other - we have ups and downs whether it’s with work or outside of work, we can talk to each other. Talk about how we’re feeling and what steps we can take to get through it.” 

 

https://2date4love.com/love-statistics/

 

https://www.korea.kr/news/policyBriefingView.do?newsId=156499769

 

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-four-stages-of-relationships-4163472

 

https://hyperweb.ca/10-statistics-about-love-and-relationships-that-will-drive-you-wild/

 

https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/features/health-benefits#:~:text=We've%20seen%20that%20loving,to%20cold%20or%20flu%20viruses.

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35757667/