What is the duration of passion in couples?

How does passion vary throughout the development of a couple's love relationship?

Love is a universal concept that refers to the affinity between beings. Moreover, in most cultures it is considered a feeling related to affection and attachment, the result of a series of behaviors, emotions and experiences between two or more people. Love can be romantic, familial, friendly, platonic and even directed to a divine entity (devotion). This set of emotions and feelings can take many forms in space and time, but it is always associated with virtue and affection between humans.

In the media, it is usually said that passion in a couple lasts from 8 months to 3 years, with variable intervals depending on the source consulted. Statistical studies can elucidate, through questions and questionnaires, how different people perceive love, but not everything is so simple. The concept of "love" is so ethereal, individual and non-transferable that its components will be as variable as the number of people living in the world.

Here we will leave the realm of figures. With a physiological and philosophical view, let's try to give you the answer to the eternal question of the newly in love: what is the duration of passion in couples?

Physiological passion

The interesting study "Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction?", published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology in 2016, postulates that passion in a couple's relationship is a natural addiction, presumably inherited from reproductive mechanisms in other mammals. This theory is not misguided: neurological studies have shown that the reward system is connected to the feeling of love, it has been shown that the reward system is connected to the feeling of love..

However, the reward system may have much more negative connotations. When a human being consumes a drug (such as heroin) there is an inordinate neuronal stimulation in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and ventral tegmental area (VTA), which causes a characteristic release of dopamine, making us feel euphoric and "on a cloud". It is estimated that an injection of heroin increases the release of dopamine up to 200 times more compared to a normal situation.

In addition to the physiological basis, it is worth noting that couples show, on an objective level, behaviors and processes that are considered addictive outside the relationship (even immunosuppression is recorded). (including physical immunosuppression after rejection). It has been shown that lovers in the passion phase can develop cravings to see their partner when he/she is not there, as the interaction with him/her leads to a state of euphoria/intoxication (rush) comparable to many potentially addictive activities.

The problem with the dopaminergic reward circuit in addictions is that it does not last forever: more and more of the external stimulus is needed to trigger the release of dopamine, which results in resistance. Therefore, no feeling of euphoria lasts forever and more and more is "needed".

Philosophical passion

It is more than likely that love has arisen as a product of environmental pressure or evolutionary inheritance, since all our behaviors and feelings are explained, at least in part, by the perceptions and systems already cemented by the ancestors of the human species. In any case, we cannot forget that we are as much "mind" as "body", and for this reason, passion cannot be explained only in the physical realm..

Based on this premise, the most famous philosophical models have divided love into 3 different phases or components. We will tell you about them briefly.

1. Eros (passion and falling in love)

Eros represents desire, pure and tireless passion, sex, suggestion, "courtship" and all that goes with it. Since the sexual need is relatively easy to satisfy, newly found lovers constantly seek the most carnal relief, for well-being ends as soon as the sexual encounter is over. In other words, Eros represents the most immediate fantasy and desire in a couple's relationship..

2. Philia (love-friendship)

Philia is the love of friendship, which can be based on consanguinity (familial) or be a construct chosen by the individual. Philia is based on knowing the other person, interest in their qualities and what they have to say, respect, dialogue, sympathy and, above all, reciprocity..

The general conception of love indicates that passion as we know it is more present in Eros and less in Philia. Therefore, it is often said that the fieriness, the irrepressible sexual desire and the eminently physical attraction disappear within 1 to 3 years after the beginning of the relationship. As more is discovered about the couple, fascination gives way to understanding, which in turn is accompanied by intimacy.

Agape (looking out for each other) 3.

Agape is probably what can be considered as the last phase of falling in love (or another of its essential components). This term refers to selfless love, giving everything for the other, desiring their good and the concept of "what's yours is mine.".

In the couple, Agape is the component that allows the construction of a family nucleus together, the overcoming of problems and the search for the happiness of the loved one. This construct is almost never the trigger for the formation of the couple, as it emerges with time and consistency.

So how long does passion last in a couple?

Deterministic views of couples (and the human mind itself) make us want to compartmentalize everything. It would give us much less headaches to say: "passion lasts from 1 to 3 years, because the neuronal reactions after this time interval change and, therefore, the human being feels less gratification when seeing his or her partner". The reader gets a figure from the reading, but we would be missing the truth, or at least the philosophical part of it.

Passion may fluctuate over time, but Eros, Philia and Agape can be conceived in the same time interval of the relationship, regardless of the time that has passed after its conception. On the other hand, if a couple is not compatible on an emotional level, physical attraction can only go so far. Passion without friendship and empathy does not go far, just as lack of sexual desire can also be a reason for breakup.

With all these physiological and philosophical terms, I wanted to make it clear that passion and love are much more complex concepts than it might seem at first. The physiology of falling in love explains the addictive behaviors we have at the beginning of the relationship, but it is the psychological constructs that are the most attractive when it comes to understanding its permanence.