Do you feel that the love for your significant other is not what it used to be? Maybe you are worried about it? Worry often results from ignorance, because the feeling for the partner evolves, matures … Learn the stages of creating a mature relationship.

The romantic image of love being a union of two halves that have found themselves in the world and are one, is very unreal. We owe it largely to Plato, the founder of the idealistic trend in philosophy. Unfortunately, modern knowledge about the human psyche strongly undermines him. In fact, the love of two people changes a lot, it evolves, and this "true love" has many faces … Research shows that the most common of these are five.

Stage 1: butterflies in the stomach

How does love start? It can appear suddenly to someone we see for the first time in our lives. It also happens that we know someone for a long time and suddenly we feel that something has changed, that it is not just an acquaintance, but love. How do we know this? “It was like a magnet. Our first date. Total intoxication, the world sparkled. Conversations without time and the moment when we grabbed hands. Butterflies in the stomach, sucking in the stomach, lack of appetite, anxiety, slightly sweaty palms… ”This is passion. It is from her that most often love begins. Often times, people are also surprised by what is happening to them. They observe themselves, feel their heart palpitations and other changes in their bodies, notice that they constantly think about the other person, that they want to be there, that suddenly that someone becomes important to them, and then they discover: "I fell in love …".

Stage 2: fire weakens but does not go out

Passion dominates at the beginning of love and quickly reaches a very high level. It forces you to look for contact with another person, even if it was only an imaginary contact - through fantasizing, remembering or dreaming about someone. There is a desire for physical closeness, looking into each other's eyes for a long time, etc. And all these behaviors intensify the passion even more. It is obvious, however, that passion cannot grow forever. It's like fire - the stronger it is, the faster it burns out. And a couple of people experience it relatively quickly, usually after two years of relationship.

In addition, this process is almost completely immune to preventive measures - the passion is very strong at first, and then it subsides.There is little that can be consciously done to prevent it. People who equate "true love" with passion go through a severe crisis, discovering that their passion is waning, that "it's not what it used to be."

This often causes a relationship to break up and you are looking for a new partner with whom you can experience intense passion again. Such a vicious cycle may repeat itself many times.

Stage 3: a feeling of closeness is born

However, if everything is going well, passion is slowly joined by the second, most important pillar of a deep relationship - intimacy. People get to know each other, begin to confide in each other, share their deep, private experiences, thanks to which they get to know each other better. They not only desire each other anymore, but also like each other more and more. And when you understand the other person, feel good with them, confide in them, look for their support, but also want to support them, life's difficulties seem to be smaller. Then people discover that they fit together, that they already have something more than lust in common - they are both lovers and friends.

"Our relationship is full of warmth and affection, we can count on each other, I feel that my partner understands me best. With him, I can really be myself. We understand each other without words … "

Stage 4: happiness for two

Research shows that it is intimacy (and not, for example, passion) that brings people the most happiness. On top of that, and on the optimistic side, intimacy depends in part on our conscious efforts - whether we choose to open up, confide, show our true face, and whether we want to listen, understand and respect our partner. If both sides strive for it, respect the differences that exist between them, and are able to respond to the partner's openness, the relationship enters a wonderful, happy phase that usually lasts longer than the first phase. And then another transformation begins: there is commitment - partners invest more and more in the relationship (time, money, resolutions, decisions, etc.). A loose relationship slowly turns into a permanent one. A symptom of increasing commitment is getting married, bringing a common child into the world, buying a flat together, joint credit, creating compromises, also sacrificing alternative opportunities for your relationship, forgiving your partner, adjusting to him, etc.

Involvement is something like the ballast on a yacht that goes across the ocean. The ballast is a burden and it takes effort to carry it, but also - when storms and heels appear - the boat can return to the upright and continue on, avoiding the reefs.

Stage 5: mature love

Relationship in which there is andpassion, friendship and commitment, psychologists call love complete. Unfortunately, nothing stands still, and changeability is perhaps the most unchanging feature of life, so this stage of love slowly turns into something new.

Because inevitably (due to biological and psychological reasons) the passion decreases (all couples, even homosexuals, are waiting for that), commitment and friendship remain. The stage in which the partners are primarily connected with friendship and commitment, and there is less and less passion, is called friendly love. This is the longest-lasting phase of love, still giving you happiness. In fact, it can last until death, provided, however, that the partners take care of it: they are constantly interested in each other, help, respect, but also argue and do not avoid conflicts (however, you need the ability to solve them).

In the first stages of love, you don't really need to do anything for the relationship to last and bring you happiness. Everything happens by itself. Now, as time goes on, love has to be cared for. As? Here's the surprise - not by changing your partner or influencing him, but rather by changing yourself so that you can get along with us, and by giving the other person pleasure and breaking the marriage routine. As therapists say: we are either developing or collapsing. When a couple creates new values ​​(or new values ​​are brought in by life - children, company, new fascinations, hobbies, grandchildren, etc.), the relationship continues, develops, and the satisfaction remains high. Without it, the last phase appears: the end of love.

Not everyone succeeds

When both passion (there is no cure for it) and closeness (for that there are many cures) disappear, only commitment remains and that is what being together is based on. Yes, just "duration", because in such a relationship there is neither satisfaction, nor fascination, nor contentment.

When there is only commitment, duty and the feeling that we "need" to be together, the unpleasantness begins to outweigh the benefits of living together.

The research shows (horror of horrors!) That most of the couples with ten years of experience are empty relationships, i.e. those in which the partners assess the balance of life together negatively - the relationship with a partner brings them more pain than pleasure. Such misfortune, however, can be avoided. It is even quite easy: you need to do more good things for your partner than bad things, listen to them, open up and confide in them, be able to enjoy the happiness of the other person, and break the routine. If we neglect it, love goes out, just as a fire goes out, into which no one adds logs anymore. And then the relationship breaks up: sometimes withwith a bang, and sometimes it dies quietly.

This will be useful to you

People who fit together like two halves of a sliced ​​apple, this is Plato's idea - he is already two and a half thousand years old and still appeals to the human imagination. This is how Plato infected the entire Western world with his vision of love. The Androgynons (mythological "double" creatures, consisting of a male and a female or two members of the same sex) had 4 arms, 4 legs, and 2 heads. Convinced of their strength, they attacked the gods. Angry Zeus cut them in two for his punishment. Since then, the halves scattered around the world miss each other and are looking to unite.

Quote from the "Feast" of Plato: "And if a man accidentally finds his other half, then suddenly a strange spell falls on them, strangely one becomes nice, close, loved, so that even for a short time they do not want to separate from each other, and some people spend their entire lives like that with them and they would not even be able to say what one wants from the other. Because probably no one will suppose that it is only shared delights that make it so strange for them to be together. So someone would say: They want to merge into one thing as closely as possible so that they do not separate themselves during the day or the night. Love is the name of this drive and striving to complete yourself, to wholeness. "

We owe in part to Plato our illusions about love: that "out there" there is a person who fits us perfectly, and love "explodes" on its own, as soon as that person meets, this love appears suddenly, a little like an enlightenment, immediately in all its glory and fullness, and then (if it is "true") lasts forever … Faith in such idealistic love can be harmful, because we stop striving for it.

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Psychology