When love enters our lives, it promises to fix everything. To make us less lonely, to help us find meaning, to make us grow. But it also makes us blind and addicted to the feeling of being one with another person. At least for a while. But what happens when the thrill is gone? Scientists unravel the mystery behind falling in and out of love.
Have you ever been in love? They say you should consider yourself happy if you have fallen in love more than once in your lifetime. It’s a startling experience, which literally can give you chills and shivers.
In the early stages of love, a few brain chemicals play a crucial role.
Dopamine, which triggers euphoria and feelings of bliss, testosterone, that gives us sex drive and the ‘hormone of attachment’, oxytocin.
When love strikes, you are walking on sunshine and you want everybody to see it. But you do not see your lover’s imperfections and flaws. Apparently, the critical area of the brain is less active when you’re in love.
After a lot of research, neuroscientists have concluded that love is indeed like being high on cocaine.
It’s hard to keep the love flame burning for too long, since being crazy in love is a temporary state. The brain can’t handle that much intensity so our love high slowly fades, turning into a more gentle romance, that researchers call companionate love. You may encounter it in the later stages of a relationship.
Three years are a turning point, a make-or-break moment.
Falling in love is easy, being in a committed relationship, not so much. When the ardent romance is gone, many of us become less attentive. We just stop paying attention to the way we look and skip those romantic dinners. Moreover, this is the time we start overlooking the positive in the relationship and highlight the negative.
Happy couples say I’m sorry a lot, studies show.
So if you make it to three years, know that your long-term relationship will need a lot of work to survive. Both of you must invest time and consideration, full support, gratitude and a whole lot of more positive things in order to stay together.
Share this if you agree that your relationship is worth trying to beat the odds!
