Someone asked me to write about whether or not I wish I’d acted less from my brain and more from my heart in relationships.

Au contraire, my friends. I fervently wish I’d used more brain and less of everything else.When I look at the big picture, I’m not sure there was any difference between “thinking with my heart” and not thinking at all.

Men are accused of being in thrall  to lust, but women are no less irrational when chemistry takes over. Women’s behavior may be more subtle (or not), but sexual attraction — old-fashioned lust — remains the root of many of our most horrible choices. I suspect women are somewhat more inclined to marry their mistakes which doesn’t improve anything and usually sets the stage for lots of drama in the future. Maybe that is changing, but cultural conditioning goes deep. It’s a lot harder to escape your conditioning than you imagine. Just when you think you’re free, you discover you’re doing exactly what you swore you’d never do.

Through a combination of a lust, loneliness and more than a little hubris, I achieved a hormonally induced prefrontal lobotomy. Staying determinedly stupid,  I wound up married to the wrongest possible person in a country where women can’t initiate divorce. Good show Marilyn!

It took years and a lot of blood under the bridge to get my life back. It was ugly, expensive and painful — and completely avoidable. I made a moronic decision against all advice. Even many years later, I have trouble believing I did that.

Some people need to loosen up. Others need to tighten up. I’ve been on both sides at different times in my life … and my conclusion? There is a very good reason our heads are at the top of our bodies. The brain is supposed to be the boss.

You’re going to get in a lot less trouble with your brain at the helm. If your head is saying “Whoa, pal … don’t do that!” you really should listen.

Related articles

• Love in the Time of Neuroscience (forbes.com)
• Is it love at first sight? Or just lust? (foxnews.com)
• Conversation between Heart & Brain (manythingsb4u.wordpress.com)

Categories: Life, Marriage, Writing

Tags: Advice, cultural conditioning, desire, Heart, Hormone, hormones, Lobotomy, Lust, People, Recreation, relationship, relationships, Sexual attraction, thinking, Thought