Research into brains of couples experiencing romantic love in young relationships (0-12 months) says that early stage of affection and love is similar to obsession, very much like OCD. Science now accepts that love is indeed a state of mind (http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/pdf/NeuralBasisOfLove.pdf)
Brain scans of couples, which are happily in love for more than 20 years are looking ... very similar to the ones who are freshly in love (http://www.helenfisher.com/downloads/articles/Acevedo-et-alLong-term.pdf)
Statistics and common wisdom says romantic phase of a relationship lasts up to an year. Or does it not?
There are awful lot of couples in miserable relationships which drag for years. Couples sometimes literally hate each other, can't stand each other, and yet it seems they can not live without each other. Or are they? Who are those couples? Have we discovered which characteristics are specific to such relationships? Are they together for other reasons - kids, social status, the weight of their past, money? Or is it in their brains? Something stronger keeping them together?
Then who are the couples which survive, sustain, and preserve the feeling or the state of love trough the years (science now proves love can last for tens of years) and 20 years later have the brains of new-lovers?
When love dies in the brain, do couples separate?
What the brains of the couples' in "miserable" state look like - the ones claiming they are in love, and the ones claiming their are just together for "other reasons"?
My practical question is - do we know what do do in order to keep us in love-state, in love-emotion, so that we stay at such state like .. forever? And at the same time - keeping us happy, satisfied, and feeling complete. Can we devise some simple rules for housekeeping a relationship based on our scientific knowledge and awareness of preserving the love while avoiding the misery?
I think I have those rules now! It just needs two to prove. And time! Anyone ;)?
Simple questions, aren't they?
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