There are many unconscious forces at work in every stage of a relationship that have the potential for undermining your best efforts to sustain love if you are not aware. Being fully aware is difficult and controlling the outcome is impossible. You improve your chances for success in making long-term choices if you can uncover the unconscious biological and emotional forces that may be influencing you. In this article we'll look at brain development as a biological force that might be at play when you are making relationship choices.

YOUR GRAY MATTER MATTERS

Adolescence and young adulthood appears to be a very busy time for that gray matter beneath your skull. Researchers are finding that our brains don't stop developing until our mid-20s. Understanding how your brain develops might motivate you to change how and when you make long-term relationship choices. When you're growing up there is a lot more going on than the hormonal changes that have traditionally been attributed to changes in teen behavior.

The first areas of the brain to mature control basic functions such as processing the senses and movement. Areas involved in spatial orientation and language follow. Areas with more advanced functions like integrating information from the senses, reasoning, and other "executive" functions mature last. An adult brain is capable of carrying out a lot of executive functions like planning, goal-directed behavior, judgment, and insight. These executive functions influence and manage the more emotional or reactive part of the brain, which is key to understanding behavior.

This pattern of development results in more spontaneous and less inhibited behavior in adolescents and young adults, creating a tendency to act impulsively without regard to consequences. The brain is changing rapidly and relationships matter a lot. Friends are often more important than family. What other people think of an adolescent is crucial to them. Considerations are being made about the kind of person with whom to enter a committed partnership. It is even possible to meet and decide to enter a committed partnership or marry. While as an adolescent or young adult you may appear to be mature and have advanced intellectual and reasoning ability, the link between your seat of judgment and problem-solving and the emotional center of your brain is the last connection to be fully established. This link is crucial to emotional learning and self-regulation.

And so an adolescent or young adult may not be as mature as they and others sometimes think they are. While they appear to be physically mature, their brain may in fact be still developing and important neural connections necessary for adulthood are not yet established. They may not appreciate consequences or weigh information the same way as adults do.

ROMANTIC LOVE AND RISKY BEHAVIOR

To appreciate consequences it is necessary to think through the potential outcomes of a choice. Since the reactive part of the brain develops first, and the responsible part of the brain last, an adolescent or young adult may not be developmentally mature enough to anticipate negative consequences of the choices being made. The way the information comes into the adolescent or young adult brain, how the information is organized, and then ultimately responded to may be very different from a mature adult's response.

What is only beginning to be understood is that human brain circuitry and development doesn't reach full maturity on average until the early to mid-twenties. Some brain researchers estimate that the brain matures at 20-21. Others estimate that it is closer to 25-26. These are the ages at which career and relationship decisions are being made that impact the rest of a person's life. And yet a person may not be fully equipped to manage their impulses and make good long-term choices until their brain reaches maturity-perhaps as late as 26 years old. The parts of the adolescent and young adult brain that controls social activity and is related to emotions and decision-making are still developing, making it difficult to process emotions, solve emotion-related tasks, and be discriminating in interpersonal communication.

Adolescents and young adults are often motivated by intense stimulation provided by exciting novel experiences. This results in vulnerability to risky behavior. Even so, it is possible to consciously control impulses, especially in an environment where self-control and responsible behavior is expected and reinforced.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IF YOU'RE OVER 25?

Researchers are only beginning to understand brain development. If you're over 25 and wondering why this is important for you to know, we'd like to point out how common it is for us to regress in our consciousness when we're excited about a new relationship. When experiencing emotional intensity the executive functioning part of our brain that controls our emotional reactions can go on vacation. We often become giddy adolescents again ignoring (or rationalizing) long-term consequences.

If you are one of many adults who struggle to have a successful intimate relationship, it is possible that you didn't learn the necessary skills while your brain was developing. We hope that by being aware of these unconscious forces at work in your relationships that you will be able to learn effective life and relationship skills to manage your youthful impulsiveness. In Conscious Dating we wish to understand and acknowledge the role of our brain development in our relationship choices and seek to balance our excitement in the moment with our long-term vision, goals, needs, and requirements.

Copyright (c) 2006 David Steele