Is this how relationships should be?

[ShannonMI]

You obvliously haven't read my post in the beginning where I pointed out studies that proved retaining of the honeymoon phase. I don't have the study in front of me neither do I have time to search for it at the moment. But, you can google it.

Who conducted the study? I would be love to read it. Maybe instead of arguing your point over and over, you can spend the time finding it. You can copy and paste it here so we can all read it.

[IndiReloaded]

My intention is not to argue, but it's an unavoidable consiquence of proving my point.

Your intention isn't to argue but you are achieving appearing to be an idiot. Congratulations.

A couple's experience of love is in constant flux over the years. In fact, it wouldn't be a healthy relationship otherwise. I've been with my husband for 20 years, we love each other deeply, but the honeymoon hormonal rush is long gone. Its not meant to last, in fact. If you knew anything about biology you would know this. I call BS on whatever studies you claim exist. Noone has shown this in any respectable literature I am aware of and, of most posters here I am definitely in a position to know if it did.

[ShannonMI]

Your intention isn't to argue but you are achieving appearing to be an idiot. Congratulations.

A couple's experience of love is in constant flux over the years. In fact, it wouldn't be a healthy relationship otherwise. I've been with my husband for 20 years, we love each other deeply, but the honeymoon hormonal rush is long gone. Its not meant to last, in fact. If you knew anything about biology you would know this. I call BS on whatever studies you claim exist. Noone has shown this in any respectable literature I am aware of and, of most posters here I am definitely in a position to know if it did.

Thank you for that!

[IndiReloaded]

NP. I enjoy shattering the young posters Cinderella Complexes.

As for your original post, I think there are people who never grow out of needing the intense hormone rush that comes with a new relationship. Its addicting to them, I think. Sadly, these individuals also never learn of the deeper shades that mature love brings. They just keep flitting from partner to partner, repeating the same mistakes and never growing beyond this superficial experience.

[ShannonMI]

NP. I enjoy shattering the young posters Cinderella Complexes.

As for your original post, I think there are people who never grow out of needing the intense hormone rush that comes with a new relationship. Its addicting to them, I think. Sadly, these individuals also never learn of the deeper shades that mature love brings. They just keep flitting from partner to partner, repeating the same mistakes and never growing beyond this superficial experience.

That makes perfect sense. My ex may be one of those people. That's pretty sad. Or maybe after trying a bunch of times he'll realize what I tried to tell him about relationships and how they change. Who knows.

[nov13]

Indireloaded, you haven't shattered anything, but your chances to appear somewhat intelligent, and you make me laugh.

[IndiReloaded]

Wow. Tell me nov13, if you make a retarded post on the internet and noone cares, are you still an idiot?

[IndiReloaded]

Try not to blow a brain gasket coming up with a response, nov13. We know you are a young twerp. We don't expect much.

@ Shannon - I'll check back later.

- Indi

[ShannonMI]

Indireloaded, you haven't shattered anything, but your chances to appear somewhat intelligent, and you make me laugh.

Have you found that honeymoon phase study yet? Please stop posting here and go find it. We all want to read it. Copy and paste it here. Instead of insulting everyone with your baseless BS, use that energy to find it and post it here. We're waiting!!!!!

[ecojeanne]

now this is more like it, crash and burn!

[IndiReloaded]

I don't care if the naysayers don't belive what we are discussing is possible. They'll get what they belive.
I'm here to present my point so that people who want that kind of love will not be led to think that it's unachievable, and know that it is possible.

This^ = loser.

Do you also believe that teapots orbit Jupiter? I hear that getting proof for that is also difficult, which is why reasonable scientists laugh at these losers.

Let me guess: you've recently read that awful book The Secret and you've decided to dedicate your life to that wisdom.

Fool girl. I have what you are actually looking for and you are too stupid to ask anything about it.

[nov13]

Shannonmi, I will find those studies, and post it.

Indireloaded, you are a medical "miracle" - you can function without a brain...LOL.

All in good fun.

[ecojeanne]

^^i'll bet what you wrote before you edited it was way more fun to read

[nov13]

Here are two articles. Don't know if I can post links here:
(lol @ ecojeanne comment)
***
Scientists: True love can last a lifetime

(CNN) -- Love's first blush fading? Lost that loving feeling? Love is not all around?

Scientists have used brain scans to study how long love lasts between couples.

Sick of cliches?

Take heart, scientists have discovered that people can have a love that lasts a lifetime.

Using brain scans, researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have discovered a small number of couples respond with as much passion after 20 years together as most people only do during the early throes of romance, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported.

The researchers scanned the brains of couples together for 20 years and compared them with results from new lovers, the Sunday Times said.

About 10 percent of the mature couples had the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as those just starting out.

Previous research has suggested that the first stages of romantic love fade within 15 months and after 10 years it has gone completely, the newspaper said.

"The findings go against the traditional view of romance -- that it drops off sharply in the first decade -- but we are sure it's real," said Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook, told the Sunday Times.

***
The Neuropsychology of Long Lasting Love: Can Brain Scans Tell Us Something Useful About Staying in Love?


The Wall Street Journal today has an article called Keeping Love Alive, which documents some fascinating research looking at why a small minority of long term couples seem to maintain intense passionate loving connections.

First the grim background to these findings. Keeping love alive is no mean feat, as the research on long term relationships suggests that for most couples love is a fading affair.

From the article:

“Each year, according to surveys, the average couple loses a little spark. One sociological study of marital satisfaction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Penn State University kept track of more than 2,000 married people over 17 years. Average marital happiness fell sharply in the first 10 years, then entered a slow decline.”

This is not such good news for all of us in long term relationships. What do we have to look forward to? A sharp decline in happiness for the first ten years, and then a slow erosion of whatever remaining happiness is left, until either we run out of love or time, whichever comes first? Ugggh!

But then to the rescue comes Arthur Aron, who is a social psychologist at Stony Brook University. He’s looked at those unusual couples who claim that their love is just an intense years later. It’s a strategy of research which is called examining the outliers, those people who fall outside the averages.

Aron and his students are studying these couples in an interesting way. They are taking pictures of their brain function, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They have a person lie inside an MRI machine, and look at pictures of their spouse, while measuring the activity in their brain.

What have they found? It turns out that when these passionate couples look at or think about their spouses, a part of their brain called the ventral tegnmental area lights up. This is a section of the brain that is rich in the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is connected to our ability to feel pleasure and joy. The results have been duplicated in China, suggesting this is not just a western cultural phenomenon.

So what does this all mean? It’s not of much help in the challenges that I face as a marriage therapist, in helping couples repair damaged love. One of the interesting details reported in the article was that these passionate long term “in love” couples show one behavior in common. They are constantly affectionate, kissing, hugging, and holding hands. They display many PDA’s (public displays of affection).

Now that there is a brain measure of this intense love, what is more important is to study how people get there. Are these couples just more intensely in love to begin with? Perhaps it is like cognitive function, where those who start off smarter and more educated deteriorate more slowly in old age. Maybe these passionate couples simply start with more love, and show erosion, but they have such an excess that it doesn’t matter.

We might be able to answer some of these questions with a long term longitudinal study of new couples that followed them over 10 years or longer.

Is it a selection process, where better mate selection leads to better long term outcomes? Or are there behavioral differences, a set of behaviors and attitudes that preserves love? These are the key issues in answering the question of how do we go about Keeping Love Alive.

What I find deeply fascinating is that in spite of the fact that most people value love as one of the most important things in their lives, we actually know very little about what predicts success, and even less about how to help people love better. Brain scans may tell us more about the process of love and attraction, but unless we develop a “love beam” that changes the activity of the key brain regions, it won’t help us fall in love and stay in love.

…Excuse me, I’ve got to go kiss my sweetie!

The Psychology Lounge/TPL Productions

[nerdy_guy]

I strongly disagree with nerdy_guy about compairing a relationship to a new toy. A relationship is nothing like a toy. That's precisely why many people's relationships resemble a toy and do not last. A relationship is nothing to toy with (pardon the pun).

I never suggested that relationships are to be played with. The thought of my example is that you don't easily throw away something once you get used to it, just because you're over that "giddy" phase.

So what does this all mean? It’s not of much help in the challenges that I face as a marriage therapist, in helping couples repair damaged love. One of the interesting details reported in the article was that these passionate long term “in love” couples show one behavior in common. They are constantly affectionate, kissing, hugging, and holding hands. They display many PDA’s (public displays of affection).

A lot of old time couples still do this, that doesn't mean they retain all those giddiness and butterflies. Intense love doesn't mean you should always have butterflies in your stomach. If that so the case, then why do couples who aren't "all giddy" cry when one of them dies?

You are such a poor analyst. You rely too much on others scientific research but to fail to come up with anything based on critical thinking of your own.