Love lasts three years: myth or fact of life? Love only lasts three years: true or false.

• September 25, 2018
• Psychology of relationships
• Marina Pislegina

Why does love last 3 years? Psychology reveals to people the answer to this question. As a rule, when a wonderful feeling arises, people see only good things in each other, without even noticing some of their partner’s negative qualities. Love inspires people, they want to walk together hand in hand all their lives, raise children, thinking that this wonderful time will never pass. However, everything ends. And, if love-passion (when there are only sensual pleasures) passes, and nothing connects the partners anymore, then they separate. This immature feeling can exist for about three years. Read about all this in detail in this article.

Introduction

Why does love last 3 years? The psychology of relationships between a man and a woman is such that at the first stage of their acquaintance, they see only good things in each other. Many couples turn a blind eye to the shortcomings until they start living together. Here begins a turning point in the lives of many lovers who thought that their bright feeling of love would exist forever. However, divorce statistics show the opposite.

Moreover, when passion flares up between people, which many call love, partners do not notice anything around them, not even each other’s bad deeds. They see the world only in rosy colors, because they are together. This condition of people is caused by the occurrence of biochemical reactions in the body.

It’s just that when people fall in love, areas of the brain begin to release various substances: serotonin, adrenaline, hormone levels increase, and euphoria arises from just looking at a partner. Such a chemical reaction can last no more than three years. Then everything goes away.

What happens next

There is another facet that contributes to the rupture of feelings, which psychology points to. Why does love last 3 years? Because after this time, a significant divergence in the interests of the spouses may occur. For some couples, relationships are built on them. Partners can be close only when they have common interests and goals in their lives; they feel good together not only physically, but also mentally. Therefore, if immature love, which lasts no more than three years, does not move to a deeper level, then people simply separate.

Moreover, psychologists believe that the feelings of lovers are influenced by living together and solving financial issues related to running a common household. This is usually what happens. One year people just meet and get sensual pleasures without obligations, then they live together for a couple of years and realize that they no longer love each other. After all, the pink dream of endless happiness created in the imagination is simply a figment of their fantasies. This is why people end their relationships.

Going to another level

There are such concepts as mature and immature love. Many people are interested in the question of what exactly are their differences? Of course, we are not talking about the age of the partners here.

So, immature love does not last very long, about three years, for the simple reason that people, experiencing passion, are not ready for the fact that it will one day pass and they will have to resolve ordinary, family issues.

Lovers look at each other, spend a lot of time together, without thinking about anything, make love, dream of a family, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. But these are just thoughts and dreams that have nothing to do with reality.

How are immature relationships characterized according to psychology? Why does love last 3 years under such circumstances? The fact is that when she is immature, everything comes down to receiving sensual pleasures - passionate sex, quarrels and joyful truce, kisses, sweet speeches about endless happiness. This type of feeling is characterized by selfishness, and there is nothing serious here.

If passion and love between partners have ended, but they still feel good with each other, they live together, have children, organize their lives and enjoy common affairs, then this is already mature love. Many couples simply do not reach this level of relationship. It is possible that true love was not there.

Birth of children

Many happy couples dream not only of marriage, but also of procreation. So, crises in family life very often begin from the moment children are born. Why is this happening? It is possible that the father of the family himself was not completely ready for the birth of the child. Now, all the woman’s time is devoted only to the baby, and the man desires the same, warm, vibrant and passionate relationship. That is why, after the birth of a child, turning points occur in the life of a young couple, and a crisis of family life begins.

Many men begin to go out, seek sensual pleasures, and the wife is forced to sit all day long with the child and do housework. It is at this time that many married couples separate. Since the man is not ready for real, family life and raising a child.

In addition

The most interesting thing is that a child born at the beginning of a love relationship (in the first three years) retains the proper level of hormones that the parents experienced when he was conceived. Thus, in the first 3 years of the baby’s life, the couple’s passion is also present, but then it begins to gradually fade away. In addition, the woman at this moment loses sexual interest in her partner.

A small characteristic

Where does love go? According to most psychologists, this feeling goes away when lovers begin to solve their family problems, improve their home and invest money in the general budget. In the first years of marriage, many people often quarrel because they are grinding in their characters. After three years of life, that very turning point comes when the partners separate or go together hand in hand until old age.

Thus, when answering the question of where love goes, we can say that only passion goes. Therefore, if people have nothing in common other than this, they do not have common interests and goals, then they simply cannot live together. After all, their relationship was not real. Mature love is the care of partners for each other in sorrow and joy, until old age.

Young family

Many lovers try to rush to the registry office in order to legitimize their relationship and become a real unit of society. Their affection is built solely on fleeting feelings, which seem to have no limits. What happens next? After a solemn wedding, the most ordinary gray everyday life begins in the life of a young family, when they need to work to equip their home and life in it. If you don’t have your own home, you’ll have to live in rented apartments - it’s just romantic!

Here the erroneous opinion emerges that love and life are incompatible things. Although, in reality this is not the case. Many people get married, have children, work, and do well.

What is the secret of happiness for some married couples and divorce in others, where everything started so well? The latter were simply not prepared for the fact that love is not only walks under the moon and passionate intimacy, but also endless work on relationships, the responsibility of partners to each other. Therefore, many young families that were created on immature feelings cannot withstand the everyday problems that fall on them and fall apart. Other marriages last for many years.

Causes of quarrels and divorces

Why do they say that love lasts 3 years? Because, after this period of time, the spouses have more and more mutual claims against each other. In addition, many of them even get annoyed that their partner is just nearby. In the couple’s relationship there is no longer the romance that was at first, and the remaining feelings are gradually fading away. Most often, after three years of a relationship, many separate or simply live as neighbors and sleep in different beds.

Often such men and women come to a psychologist for an appointment, where they report that after three years, they have become very irritated by each other’s habits. In this case, many experts advise spouses to live separately. But as divorce statistics show, this does not always help. People are moving further apart from each other.

Main problem

After 3 years of family life, the couple begins to experience a crisis in their relationship. This is due to the fact that over the past period of time, people are very tired of each other and it is possible that they were never able to get along in character.

Despite the short period, many couples, after three years of living together, no longer have intimate relationships or have sex very rarely. This state of affairs does not suit most men. However, the representatives of the stronger half of humanity themselves do not know how to correct this situation. Especially if the wife works, is tired, and does not have enough time for sex. There can be no talk of any romance in the relationship here.

Most often, young families break up due to the betrayal of one of the spouses. Many men do not see anything wrong with this, especially if they have practically no intimate relationship with their wife. Women, learning about men's infidelities, immediately create scandals and file for divorce. It is almost impossible to maintain a relationship in such a situation.

How to survive a crisis

If you look at the statistics, the number of divorces is several times higher than the number of registered marriages. This only means that the spouses are not working to preserve their union.

In the first 3 years, a family faces a large number of different problems, ranging from material to psychological. Many people generally believe that after marriage, neither spouse can have their own personal space, although this is not at all true. A husband and wife cannot spend all the time after a hard day together, as they get tired of each other faster. Some men specifically look for work away from home so that there is peace and tranquility in the relationship.

Conclusion

If quarrels and scandals often arise between young spouses, then they need to turn to a specialist who understands all the intricacies of the psychology of family relationships. Crises most often occur in those couples who are created on immature love. In families where there is only passion and desire for intimacy, there will never be mutual understanding. However, this does not mean that the situation cannot be improved. Here everything depends on the desire of the spouses to save their family.

Scientists say: any love, even the most ardent at first, dies 3 years after the start of the relationship. Then comes mutual respect, habit, fear of being alone, but that feeling that makes men move mountains, and women look younger and prettier before our eyes, goes away forever or turns into friendship. Psychologists agree with this - who in their practice have encountered hundreds and thousands of similar “transformations” - and physiologists who have carefully studied the entire “chemistry” of love and explain it by ordinary hormonal surges.

Critical deadline

No matter how unromantic and bleak such a theory may seem, there is plenty of evidence for it. “For me and my friends, all relationships sooner or later became obsolete. If someone remains married, it is either out of habit, when people are passive, or out of calculation, for fear of losing living space or food, or under duress - when one is seriously afraid of losing, for example, the opportunity to see a child,” the reader shares her experience Verra.

“Everything is the same for me,” confirms a forum guest who wished to remain anonymous. — We got married in 2003. There was such crazy love that we couldn’t live a minute without each other... we were sure that we would be together for the rest of our lives, and we didn’t think about separation and divorce, looking at others... A son was born right away! After 3 years, everything changed, everything became different... Perhaps because we lived with our parents... As a result, we lived together for 6 years and divorced 5 months ago.”

The everyday difficulties that our anonymous reader writes about can really play an important role in the destruction of a marriage. As psychologists say, a family should always have its own, separate space, and if it has to be shared with parents, the older generation will inevitably interfere in the relationship and can seriously ruin it. Plus, relationships change with the advent of a child. Before this, the center of the world of a woman in love was her man, but now all her attention is devoted to a new man - and her husband may feel slighted.

“When a man becomes a father, he goes through a crisis, as the woman switches her attention to the child,” confirms psychologist Anetta Orlova. “During this period, he feels abandoned and because of this he can become depressed and angry.

Who's to blame

However, even with apparent “communal” well-being in the family, not everything can go smoothly. “So that they love each other after 3-4 years... and don’t take out their irritation on their loved one, don’t start treating him carelessly (“where will he go... he’s always there”) - I haven’t seen this in never in my life,” Verra sadly states.

“Love can go away. For example, after 20 years of marriage. Love leaves gradually, drop by drop, when your spouse begins to be annoyed by your loved ones, your views, your habits,” confirms another, anonymous reader.

“And the absence of culture, intelligence, wisdom and, on the contrary, the presence of envy, greed, selfishness helps love to leave,” another unnamed forum member discusses the reasons for the short-term nature of relationships. - After all, the listed absences give rise to the listed presences... When communication is replaced by TV, travel by shopping, creativity by survival at work, when there is nothing to strive for except the next portion of the imposed consumption of something edible, wearable, watchable, etc., then love - as the highest act of complex spiritual co-creation, as the realization of one’s psychological and intellectual tolerance - dies...”

So what happens, any family that intends to exist longer than 3 years, and even wants to have offspring, is doomed in advance to quarrels and separation? Do all those couples who live in perfect harmony for decades not love each other, but only tolerate each other? Based on experience, it is difficult to agree with this...

Barrel of honey

To begin with, patience is also an extremely important element of any family relationship; But love, many believe, is not needed in every family at all.

“The family should be based on healthy calculation. And if it’s based on love, then love from everyday life will die, and the family will collapse (if there was nothing at the heart of this family other than sexual cravings and puppyish delight for each other),” writes an anonymous user.

Of course, not every relationship can be explained only by “puppy delight” and “sexual craving,” but love, passion and family life are indeed different concepts, although not mutually exclusive. “Sexual desire, even lust, arises from visual perception and remains only at this level and passes immediately upon receiving this object. This is not love, but hormones, physical desire,” says another Anonymous. “A happy, long life together is one thing, another is the duration of such a feeling as Love. In the first - joys, calculations, convenience, affection... In the second - Love. HER life is short...,” says another unnamed Visitor.

“I have been living with my husband in a legal marriage for (or anyone else) 21 years. Maybe someone will say that this is not love, but a habit or something like that. And the child has already grown up, and the husband is not an oligarch... but we are all together! And note, there is no self-interest,” one of the readers shares her story. So does this mean there is still happiness in the family? And love, contrary to science, does not fit into the framework of simply “chemistry” and psychology?

The further the better

“Heightened sexual emotions last 3-4 years, when emotions overcome the brains. Then you are already satiated with emotions - and love moves into another stage, stronger, you love with your brains.”

Most of the “optimistic” visitors to our forum agree on this opinion. And, I must say, some of the scientists agree with them. American psychologists, for example, said last year that 2.5-3 years is a critical period for any relationship. After it, in fact, the passion ends, and when the hormones “subside”, people can take a closer look, think and understand: do they really need this particular life partner. If the answer is positive, then on an intimate, everyday, and emotional level everything will be fine. “And sexual relationships will remain vibrant and stormy (and definitely daily!),” confirms one of our users. If, apart from sexual attraction, there was nothing at the heart of the family, such a union is doomed to failure.

Be happy

And finally, a few secrets of a happy life together that our readers shared:

“The ability to compromise and understanding, care and attention, you can’t be selfish in love, I think that’s the main thing.”

“A woman must protect not only the hearth, but also the family. The man, in turn, must protect the woman.”

“In every period, at every age, love develops and is always different. You love not only for a stormy night, but also for simple things, like the ability to make things, the ability to make surprises, for the desire for life, for sports, for the ability to hear music, for the ability to be family.”

“Do not humiliate another, do not rummage through bags and pockets, do not check the salary slip. Buy fashionable clothes for your husband and even cooler ones for yourself. Don’t ban your classmates, it’s all over already!”

“My recipe for family happiness is to never, under any circumstances, allow yourself to insult the person who is next to you! You can criticize his actions, habits, swear, but do not call him names or insult him! Not “you’re an idiot and a fool,” but “you did a strange thing” or “I didn’t like your behavior.” In this case, any quarrels will pass without a trace, without hidden resentment and bitter aftertaste - and this is what squeezes out love and respect drop by drop.”

“The main thing for maintaining love is to respect each other, to make sure that your other half always feels good and comfortable with you. This relationship must be mutual."

In 1997, Frederic Beigbeder’s novel “Love Lives for Three Years” was published in France. It is based on the well-known theory that people’s romantic feelings for each other disappear at the moment when the effect of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is also involved in the reward system, weakens. And although by the end of the book the main character begins to doubt how viable this hypothesis is, the thesis “Love lasts three years” has stuck surprisingly firmly in the mass consciousness.

There is nothing wrong with trying to explain the nature of human relationships from the point of view of neuropsychology or behavioral biology: leading scientists around the world are doing this. But in everyday life, the formula proposed by Beigbeder is often used to find the simplest and most convenient explanation for separation, to justify unworthy behavior, or to never meet anyone at all, so as not to take unnecessary risks. In reality, love and affection are formed and maintained through more complex mechanisms.

Falling in love and passing on genes

First, let’s figure out where those three years came from and why, when talking about lovers, the expression “chemistry arose between them” is often heard. Scientists are well aware of what substances are produced by the body when a person begins an affair. We are talking about androgens and estrogens, which are responsible for libido, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, which support a stable feeling of pleasure from communicating with a particular man or with a particular woman, as well as vasopressin and oxytocin, which form attachment.

The intensity of their action may indeed vary under the influence of various factors, including the duration of the relationship. But if Begbeder’s hero was sure that in a few years two people simply get tired of each other, then science relies on a different pattern. By giving us a cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters, nature is hinting: it expects us to produce offspring. According to Darwin's theory, the main task of a biological species is not just not to die from hunger or the teeth of a predator, but to pass on genes to subsequent generations.

It takes an average of 17-18 months for a couple to conceive, carry and give birth to a baby. Add to this lactational amenorrhea - a six-month period of breastfeeding when the likelihood of becoming pregnant again is very low. Plus about another year, during which the child is so dependent that for his survival it is better to have both parents nearby. And the mother, in turn, is especially vulnerable and needs the protection and support of her husband or partner. The cycle of the birth of a new person and his adaptation to an environment filled with viruses and other dangers is more or less stable. And it fits perfectly within three years.

But from the moment when the ancestor of modern man took the path of increasing the brain, we have evolved not only physiologically, but also culturally. Nowadays, couples do not always strive to immediately get married and have offspring. They have a variety of contraceptives at their disposal. Some don't plan to have children at all. So it is not surprising that the mechanisms originally provided by nature for preserving partnerships for the purpose of procreation now do not work in all cases.

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Brain and love

Ideas about the finitude of love are often based on the fact that sex with the same person gradually becomes boring, sooner or later one of the partners takes sides and the relationship falls apart as a result. According to a survey by VTsIOM, infidelity ranks second among the most common causes of divorce in Russia. But does this mean that love rests only on physical attraction?

Not at all necessary. Scientists from Canada's Concordia University, together with colleagues from Switzerland and the United States, conducted a study that revealed that sexual desire and feelings of love activate, although related to each other, still different areas of the brain. Participants in the experiments were asked to look at erotic images and photographs of people who were dear to them. The readings were recorded using a computed tomograph.

It turned out that desire activates an area of ​​the striatum (one of the brain structures), which is also involved in the reaction to things that bring pure pleasure: not only sex, but also, for example, tasty food. The response to the feeling of love is observed in the zone that is usually associated with the functioning of the reward system and the formation of dependencies. And since addiction can persist in a person for a long time, it is logical to assume that the same applies to love.

Experiments by scientists from the State University of New York at Stony Brook yielded even more revealing results. Study participants were divided into two groups. The first included people who had only recently become a couple with their new lovers. The second group included people who had been married for 10 to 29 years and claimed that they still loved their husband or wife as much as they did at the very beginning of the relationship. It turned out that both of them, when viewing photographs of their partner, showed similar activity in the ventral tegmental area, a part of the midbrain that is involved in reward and pleasure systems. That is, love that lasts for decades really exists.

And the work of “chemistry” does not stop after the first stage of the relationship ends. For example, if you continue to have sex regularly and have orgasms, your levels of oxytocin increase, which maintains your mutual affection and trust. This occurs in both women and men.

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Neurophysiology and semantics

When we hear about people who have been happily married for a long time, the assertion that they simply love each other is often not enough to explain the stability of their relationship. Other reasons immediately come to mind: cohesion around children, common household, joint business, friendship and habit, in the end. Science says that loving one person for a long time is quite possible.

But there is one important circumstance. Trying to estimate how long love can last, we are faced primarily with a problem not of a psychological or physiological nature, but of a semantic nature. Sexual desire or readiness to conceive a child are understandable and universal categories. To the question “What is love?” everyone will answer differently.

Therefore, it is hardly worth talking about the unambiguous results of research in this area. Only one thing is clear: compared to primitive society, we have stepped far forward. The way we build our lives and what feelings we experience, with whom we fall in love and with whom we marry, is subject to a huge number of different, often contradictory factors - not just the desire to procreate.

So to claim that modern love lasts as many years as it formally takes to conceive, give birth and care for a child is at least naive. The firm belief that love will invariably end in disaster - and not just sometime, but at a specific time - has never brought happiness to anyone.

The result of such forgetting is divorce and separation, mental wounds and suffering. In order to somehow reduce the destructive power of the mentioned thesis, I wrote this note.

“I’m flying, I’m in heaven!...”

But in social psychology it is called more precisely - love-passion. This is a specific psychological state that is accompanied by arousal (not only in the sexual sense) aimed at a specific person. In addition to excitement, there is also an obsessive desire to be with this person and serious worries in the event of separation (even temporary).

According to the description, by the way, it is very similar to the behavior of an alcoholic - he shakes with the desire to drink, overcomes all obstacles on the way to the coveted bottle and suffers greatly if he does not manage to drink.

At the psychological level, love-passion is experienced as bliss - a person flutters, flies, complete euphoria, everything is beautiful and smells like violets. True, there are psychologists who view all this as a disease, but this is still only a point of view, albeit a well-founded one.

The main thing is not this. The main thing is the duration of love-passion.

Everything ends someday

The ability to adapt is our great evolutionary advantage.

True, in the case of love-passion, it backfires on us. It lasts for an average of three years (those same three years!), and then a terrible time comes.

Of course, everything was fine, both were shaking with passion, everything was painted in rainbow tones, it was as if wings were growing behind our backs... But here we are already quarreling, rolling out mutual claims and telling our friends what a monster our partner “really” turned out to be "

Once again, it seems to us that our partner was pretending, but in reality he was different. This is a mistake. Most likely, the love-passion just ended.

At such a moment, a person is faced with unexpected news - it turns out that relationships are quite difficult, although rewarding work. But I don’t want to work! When there was love-passion, there was no need to work, everything turned on its own, without any effort.

The simplest thing in such a situation is to blame your partner for everything and get a divorce. It is curious that in all countries where divorce is possible, the highest frequency, according to research by the American scientist Randy Fisher, occurs in the fourth year of marriage (I quote: “during and around the fourth year”). At least that was the case as of 1994.

Everything fits together. We met for a year, were married for two years, suffered for a year with the discrepancy between dreams and reality - and broke up. Disappointment, you know, is a terrible joke.

But there is something that people really can do - they can get sober.

Yes, just sober up. Don’t fill your head with fairy tales about beautiful love, which arises by itself and develops by itself. It’s not like that - relationships are always work, difficult, but rewarding.
Here are some interesting data from India (from 1982). Indian scientists Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh studied 50 married couples. It turned out that spouses who married “for love” no longer love each other so much after five years. Their love has cooled.

But the spouses who were married in an arranged marriage began to love each other more. And - as a result - they are very happy with their marriage.

Why is this so? Because they had no illusions and subsequent disappointments. They knew right away that it would be difficult - and they calmly accepted the difficulties of marriage. Therefore, it was easier for them to overcome them.

In social psychology, in addition to love-passion, love-friendship is also distinguished. If passion love is about excitement, then friendship love is about tender affection.

It is precisely on love and friendship that all happy marriages are based. Yes, love-passion is pleasant and attractive. But it ends, it inevitably ends.

And if you don’t want to get a divorce, you can switch to love-friendship. She does not exclude lust and passion, she will only be less exalted and more demanding of the efforts of her partners.

How to get to it? It's simple (though not easy). There is no need to focus on what has stopped working in the relationship. Start noticing what continues to work. Maintain this, make an effort, show attention to your partner - that's all.

Yes, it requires a lot of work, yes, love-passion is not accompanied by such efforts, yes, that’s right. But love and friendship can last until death. But love-passion cannot.

The choice, as you understand, is individual.

That's all I have, thanks for your attention.