What is the duration of passion in couples?

Love is a universal concept that refers to the affinity between beings. In addition, 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, familiar, 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 often said that the passion in the 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, unique and non-transferable that its components will be as variable as people living in the world.

Here we will leave the field 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?

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Physiological passion

The interesting study "Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction?", Published in the Frontiers of Psychology magazine in 2016, postulates that passion in the couple relationship is a natural addiction, presumably inherited from reproductive mechanisms in others mammals. This theory is not misdirected: through neurological studies, the reward system has been shown to be connected to the feeling of love.

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

In addition to the physiological bases, it should be noted that couples show, at an objective level, behaviors and processes that outside of the relationship are considered addictive (even registering physical immunosuppression after rejection). It has been shown that lovers in a passionate phase can develop cravings to see their partner when she is not there, since the interaction with it leads to a state of euphoria / intoxication (rush) comparable to many potentially addictive.

The problem with the dopaminergic reward circuit in addictions is that it is not eternal: every time it is more of the external stimulus is necessary to promote the release of dopamine, which translates into a endurance. Therefore, no feeling of euphoria lasts forever and every time "more is needed."

Philosophical passion

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

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

1. Eros (passion and infatuation)

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 seek constantly the most carnal relief, for well-being ends as soon as the encounter ends sexual. In other words, Eros represents the most immediate fantasy and desire in a relationship..

2. Philia (love-friendship)

Philia is the love of friendship, which can be based on consanguinity (family) or it can be a construct chosen by the individual. Philia It is based on knowing the other person, being interested 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. For this reason, it is often said that fieryness, irrepressible sexual desire and eminently physical attraction disappear in 1 to 3 years after the beginning of the relationship. As more of the couple is discovered, fascination gives way to understanding, which in turn is accompanied by intimacy.

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3. Agape (watch over the other)

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

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

So how long does passion last in a couple?

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

Passion can fluctuate in 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 their conception. On the other hand, if a partner is not compatible emotionally, physical attraction can only go so far. Passion without friendship and empathy does not go far, just as a lack of sexual desire can also be a source of rupture.

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 that we have at the beginning of the relationship, but it is the psychological constructs that are the most attractive when it comes to understanding their permanence.