In Love
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| In Love |
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What is it? A case of mutual infatuation, that is, two people are infatuated with each other. Psychologists often call this a "passionate relationship" or a "passionate romance". We use the terms interchangeably below.
Duration: Psychologists have determined that the "in love" condition lasts on average about two years. After that the intensity of emotions fade. The "on average" term means that for some it lasts longer, for some shorter. It does not last the course of a marriage-unless the marriage is cut short by premature death.
How important is it? From a commercial point of view, it is extremely important. It drives the multi-billion dollar movie, romance novel and music industries. From a personal point of view, not nearly as important. We frankly acknowledge that it is one of the most enjoyable relational experiences that people ever share. But our topic here is NOT how do you have a hot romance, but rather, how do you have a successful relationship (viz. Marriage) that grows in love for a life time? There are millions of successful marriages that did not start out romantically. True, most of these happened in prior generations in which parents played a much larger role in the choice of marriage partner. There are also millions of successful marriages that DID start out with the "in love" condition.
Researchers have not explored how important an initial in love condition is to successful marriage. This is because there are so few marriages today that did not start out as "in love," that there is 1) a dearth of qualified subjects, and 2) no one thus far has been interested enough to put forth the time and effort to explore the question in a scientific manner.
In sum then, it appears that a successful marriage does not require a passionate beginning but there is no research to back up the statement. It is also true that there are many successful marriages that do start with the passion, but the odds are against you. Remember the initial statistics: 50% of marriages end in divorce and 80% (including the 50%) are unhappy. Since most of those marriages had a passionate beginning we can say with confidence the initial passion does not predict marital success.
Pitfalls of the "in love" condition: The major challenge of being in love is that it blinds and distorts. When people make decisions about marriage when in love, they are almost certain to be overlooking critically important issues and twisting others. In The Compatibility Code we use a chart to compare the "in love" condition with "real love". We make another chart below but this time showing characteristics of the in love condition and explaining the potential lethal consequences.
