How Long Does Love Last?
It seems to be a duty of every psychologist to answer this question in their own way. You will hear various answers, and the thing is that every one of them has a right to live because they were based on individual experience. For some, love will last a year and a half, for others – three, but no matter what party you belong to, we all should agree that love is the most majestic of all our feelings. Today we will try to find out how long love really lives.
Love or sympathy?
Most likely, when talking about the transience of love, psychologists refer to its windy younger sister – sympathy. It has all the passions of the first years of a relationship between a man and a woman – plans, hopes, dreams, fantasies. In general, large energy of feelings and sensations is accumulated by two people experiencing this kind of attraction. Statistics say that in this state we really live for a maximum of three years, after which, the blindfold is off, and we begin to see the loved ones as they really are. That is the reason why women looking for marriage on the site meetwife.com should not hurry and make hasty decisions. So as not to get disappointed if the «love» fades over in a few years.
Put off your pink glasses
A person who loves often looks at their partner and the world through the prism of positive that lacks objectivity. Therefore, the surrounding people have the impression that a person in love is blind and deaf since they do not see the shortcomings of their chosen one. However, do not rush to blame them for this. In fact, falling in love truly “sedates” certain areas of the brain that are responsible for rationality and critical thinking. And what happens when we stop seeing idealizing a loved one? Finally, we just open our eyes: the person that we have cherished and appreciated so much has also some weak sides, their own imperfections, and features we are totally not ready to put up with. And what seemed like sweet and acceptable weaknesses yesterday is starting to get annoying today. And you need to either tell the person about what stresses you over or accept their shortcomings and deal with them carefully, pretending that everything suits you. The first path leads to nowhere since it is practically impossible to remake another person, the second requires enormous acting skills and huge energy resources. And if the relationship breaks down, it is not because the person was bad but because you do not have the wisdom to get along with their specific sides. Also, check this article on things to do when not attracted to your boyfriend or husband anymore.
It will last as long as you make efforts
When love passes, one realizes that living together is first and foremost work. Daily, hourly, and minutely. By the way, psychologists give another figure – seventeen months – the time during which we are under the influence of love. Seventeen months are needed for most people to understand their choice and make a final decision. It is also the period after what people who have broken up or left for another family having been previously married turn back to their partners. As for the mature and respectful, it begins – or does not begin – after passion has passed. It is calmer, without crazy arguments and emotions, but also a stronger feeling that can last a lifetime.
Your connection may or may not grow into love
Not every relationship is to end in marriage. And you should perceive this as a fact and understand that every love relationship is a valuable experience. Therefore, we can say that there is no love without sympathy, but sympathy without love is not worth so much – this is the first and indispensable stage of it. When passion is gone, people say quite often, “Oh, the love is over!” But was it so? There was a passion that did not withstand serious problems and did not grow into something bigger and quite natural. If people are ready to endure difficulties and give the one who is close to them another chance, then most likely, they are really in love. But it is not love-passion, but love-wisdom and love-patience. All of us are astonished by the elderly couples walking down the street holding hands, looking at each other with tenderness. Yes, probably, in their lives there were serious problems: quarrels, emotional betrayal or physical cheatings, but they were able to live together to old years and save the most important thing – love.
Love is madness
The fact that nature has programmed us for only two or three years of love, once again speaks of its wisdom, because complex biochemical processes that occur in the brain are responsible for the for this bright feeling. They practically burn the person inside. A condition in which we cannot live without a loved one because we have “one breath for two” is abnormal for our body. It is very nice, but like any pleasure, it should not last long, otherwise, our psyche would undergo serious lasting stress. Love is similar to the addictions like narcotic or alcoholic: a person yearns for no apparent reason, experiences fever, the heart beats faster and sleep disturbance occur. If the period of love lasted more than three years, we would all be patients of psychiatric clinics. What would be the result of the stress lasting ten or fifteen years? The love affair lasts just enough to make us feel happy, but not burned down to ashes.
Love can lead to depression
This is a completely scientifically determined fact. When a person has a crush on someone, their body produces an increased amount of dopamine, the hormone responsible for our ability to get satisfaction and feel tremendous happiness. By the way, a similar reaction is observed when taking narcotic drugs, gambling and being involved in other types of addiction. First, a person feels a dramatic increase in this hormone, but the problem is that when the amount of substance decreases over time, the person may get depressed. Thus, it turns out that a broken heart syndrome is a very real diagnosis, not a fiction. The condition and symptoms are so reminiscent of a heart attack that in some cases, even a qualified doctor can confuse them. Moreover, it manifests itself in pain in the chest area, complicated by breathing and uneven heart rate. Excessively impressionable individuals, whose love story was unhappy, are usually exposed to this syndrome.
Antidepressants can kill love
There is such a thing as a frustration of attraction. It means that a person who was abandoned begins to experience even stronger feelings for their ex-partner than when they were in the relationship. By the way, this phenomenon explains the fact why the separation is difficult for people who have been left by their partners. However, antidepressants can kill love since these substances increase the level of serotonin, the hormone of happiness. When it accumulates in too big amount, it numbs the emotions and feelings that a person experiences towards someone, being in love with them. Thus, obsessive thoughts about a loved one will be no longer fed by anything, and a key “ingredient” of love will lose its power.
