I'm a closet (not anymore!) 80s fan and it's full of power rock, big hair ballads about someone finally finding "the love of a lifetime" and the like. For the record, I like 80s pop and new wave, not the Ratt or Winger kind of stuff!
All of us who came of age in the 80s saw all the love affairs like David Coverdale and Tawny Kitane fizzle out. Their songs endured; alas, not their love!
Studies have shown that sexual attraction starts to fade after the first year or so and is usually fairly weak by three years. And love itself is over in approximately ten years. I'm not sure how all this is decided. Is it divorce statistics? Questionnaires? Phone interviews?
But what is now known is that love can actually last a lifetime and scientists have the brain scans to prove it!
Researchers showed people photos of their partners and scanned their brains to monitor their reactions. The brains of couples together for two decades were compared to couples in the first bloom of love. They found that 10% of the long-term couples had the same reactions when shown the pictures, as the new couples.
Which means love can last a lifetime.
That's the positive news.
I know I'm being a bit glass-is-half-empty here but I think the less positive news is that 90% of the couples who were together long term has less of a good reaction to pictures of their loved ones! Say it ain't so!
Tell Us
How long have you been with your partner or spouse? Do you REALLY feel the same way now, as you did in the beginning? What has changed? What hasn't?
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Our "romantic" view of love in western cultures causes us to see love as a process that starts with the "big bang" where we see stars and feel butterflies in our bellies but when the excitement is gone, this love slowly dies. While eastern cultures see love as a process that starts from zero (in many societies the groom and bride meet for the first time at their wedding day) and it becomes a journey where love goes up in strength with the passing of years.
My husband and I have been together 19 years. We feel closer today than yesterday, and each day our love grows more mature. But we were friends for two years before we dated. There were no games to play, we knew too much about each other's "dark sides" while we were friends so there were not surprises. Our friendship turned into the realization that we wanted to raise kids together and be together.
Not every day has been perfect but we have renewed our vows periodically to remind ourselves the promise we made to each other. Today, he is terminally ill and I am his caregiver and wife, and the mother of two beautiful kids. As I hold him in my arms, fragile and unable to move, I realized how much love I have learned to experience around him. I no longer see his body, but his soul through those beautiful blue eyes and his child-like smile. This fascinating human being who is my husband is who I want to continue loving until "death do us part"
January 8, 2009 - 3:02amThis Comment