Why does love last three years

It is hard to believe that our feelings and the logic of relationships in a couple are genetically programmed. But the behavior characteristic of lovers has been developed over millions of years of evolution. “This is true,” says Sergey Savelyev, Doctor of Biological Sciences, author of the book The Origin of the Brain. “Our distant ancestors simply didn’t have time for romance: the main goal was to survive and continue their race.”

It was this need that forced people to pair up: alone, it is difficult to protect a child, get food for him and at the same time protect yourself and him from predators. But something else was needed to make the man and woman stick together.

“You can say that this is how love arose. Thanks to this feeling, two adults were able to admire each other, so much so that they wanted to live together and suffered when they parted, says French neuroscientist Lucy Vincent. “The chemical processes that took place in the brain seemed to blind them: they did not notice each other’s shortcomings, felt integrity and completeness, and were emotionally dependent on a partner.”

The strength of this feeling allowed the couple to stay together for the sake of the child’s survival, and after about three years, when he grew up and could do a lot on his own, it faded away. “Now one parent was enough to survive,” continues Sergey Savelyev. — Why stay together if the task of procreation is completed? From an evolutionary point of view, such a question is quite logical.

The power of hormones

“Like in ancient times, the love feeling of a modern person is controlled by his brain,” says Sergey Savelyev. “And all in order to help preserve the human genome: we must continue our species, and the brain forces us to behave in a way that will achieve this goal in the best possible way.”

Anthropology professor at Rutgers University in the United States, Helen Fisher, has spent 30 years researching the nature and chemistry of love. They showed that its various stages — romantic love and long-term attachment — are neurologically and biochemically different from each other.

But each is accompanied by an increase in hormonal levels. The feeling of falling in love is associated with androgens and estrogens, stable love relationships — with dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, the feeling of attachment — with oxytocin and vasopressin.

When the work of the brain returns to normal and it returns to its usual rhythm, hormones stop stimulating the emotional dependence of partners on each other. At this point, the hormone oxytocin begins to play a special role. He seems to help the couple overcome the emerging crisis moment in the relationship. Its blood level rises when two people caress each other, kiss, make love, and even when they talk peacefully over dinner.

Oxytocin stimulates the immune system, slows down the heartbeat, thanks to it our body relaxes. And we feel a deep sense of togetherness and affection. “Being in love makes us focus on one particular person, so we save time and energy,” says Helen Fisher. “And attachment motivates us to live with one partner long enough.”

Perhaps that is why those couples who maintain a warm, tender relationship, and three years after the first meeting, live together for a long time. Partners are aware that they are no longer emotionally dependent on each other, they do not need to be together every minute. And yet they are happy.

“Perhaps this is where true love begins,” suggests Jungian analyst Robert Johnson. “Partners strive to get to know, understand the other as an ordinary, real person, they begin to love him in this capacity and take care of him.”

Is it worth breaking up?

It is difficult for lovers to imagine that excitement, strong emotional dependence on each other will pass in about three years, and a crisis may arise in family relationships.

“It was like my eyes were opened,” says 26-year-old Lilya. — I realized that my husband does not suit me at all, we are different people. And he began to behave with me in a different way, began to teach, to make claims. I realized that I stopped liking him.”

“At the end of the phase of crazy love, when we do not receive “supporting” this feeling of brain signals, there comes a moment of awakening, comments Lucy Vincent. — Our satellite no longer seems irresistible to us, on the contrary, «unexpectedly» we find many shortcomings in it. There is a feeling that we have been deceived. And we think that maybe we just made the wrong choice.” Since the partner is experiencing approximately the same thing at this moment, there is a danger of a real break in relations.

Those of us who react too violently and quickly to the cooling of feelings and consider separation as the only possible reaction to what is happening are at risk of falling into a vicious circle. Starting new relationships and experiencing new crushes, they may never experience true love.

University of London Medical College scientists Andreas Bartles and Semir Zeki scanned the brains of students in love and found that love triggers mechanisms similar to those that produce euphoria from drugs.

“Moreover, “love attachment” is formed according to the same algorithm as drug addiction,” says psychophysiologist Alexander Chernorizov. — A person again and again strives to reproduce forms of behavior that have already led to a feeling of pleasure, in a broad sense — to success. And this is a biologically justified algorithm.”

“Lovers are always in high spirits, they can’t sleep, they don’t want to eat,” says psychologist Ekaterina Vashukova. “Euphoria-producing chemicals can also be addictive.” Starting new novels, some of us strive with all our might to return to this intoxicating state.

But such people quickly develop tolerance for «love drugs», which is why their romances are so short-lived. Physical attraction, not supported by feelings, also leads to the production of «euphoric» substances, but for a much shorter period and in smaller quantities.

More than chemistry

“The brain and the chemical processes taking place in it certainly affect our behavior, but love is never fully programmed,” says Alexander Chernorizov. — Of course, we also depend on the «hormonal component» of love attraction — this is the ancient driving force of our survival.

But hormone chemistry alone is not enough to explain the success or failure of a relationship. The power of hormones is great, but so is the power of personal, social experience. In real life, these factors act together, and it cannot be argued that any of them takes over.

When Helen Fisher was asked how she feels about love after receiving the results of her research, she replied: “I studied the mechanism of love, but this did not diminish her charm in the least in my eyes. You continue to enjoy the dessert, even if you are given a detailed description of its composition, right?

Knowing that the information written in the genes affects our feelings and behavior, that at some point hormones affect us, does not detract from the happiness that we experience next to our loved one. And our desire to maintain and continue relations with him. On the contrary, now we have the opportunity to think differently: the dependence is over — there is time to think about the development of our relations.

«Don’t get hung up on relationships»

Why is it dangerous to pre-set an expiration date on a relationship? What is the attraction of such an approach? And how to overcome the crisis of three years? We talked about this with a psychotherapist, doctor of psychological sciences, author of the book “Psychology of Personality and Human Essence” Alexander Orlov.

Psychologies: «Love only lasts three years» — why is this setting so in demand?

Alexander Orlov: A wedding as a one-time event, fidelity as an indisputable value — such is the centuries-old position of Christian society. The modern world uses other ideas, in particular — that love lasts three years. This is a very market setting. She not only allows her to leave her partner after three years, she simply obliges to do it! We are already participating in a pipeline of constant change. Under the pressure of society, we change cars, housing, clothes for more fashionable and prestigious ones. And we’ve been doing this more and more lately. Now our relations are also involved in this movement. Everyday life can push to the decision to part with a partner: in any relationship there are periods of falling in love, routine, difficulties, conflicts. And at some point it may seem that love has passed. Society offers ways not to solve, but to distract from these problems.

The problems are only exacerbated, which eventually leads to a break. And to the search for new partners and relationships in which all the same difficulties arise. This situation creates a situation of adultery, mutual betrayal, makes it the norm of life. It is very difficult to believe in the psychological well-being of a person who again and again experiences a wonderful period of falling in love, but has not yet learned how to build relationships, resolve the difficulties that arise. So his life will not be complete.

Perhaps the idea that love is doomed in advance is attractive and romantic for some of us?

To believe in this idea is to kill your love. If, having barely started dating, people think about how they will part, their relationship is, as it were, shrouded in a mourning veil. Such a context takes away some of the attention from love itself, and it really quickly fades away. Basically, it’s always a win-win situation.

How can family relationships be changed when they seem to be over?

When the period of falling in love passes and the scenes of a showdown begin to repeat like a broken record, you need to make an effort and break out of this circle in order to change your own life. Only then does the prospect of new relationships appear, new meetings within the former family, in which live not a housewife and a breadwinner or, say, a matron and a henpecked man, but two full partners, each of whom has his own life.

They are not limited to family relationships, they live dynamically, they change, but at the same time they interact. There are also problems in such a marriage. But they become an incentive for change, development of each of the partners, and not a reason for monotonous conflicts that lead to the thought: “Enough, as much as possible, we must disperse!”

The development of each of the partners and their joint development as a couple helps them understand and feel that love does not die after three years — it continues to live, taking on new forms.