The Telegraph (UK) reports on recently published research about the ‘puppy love’ phase of a romantic relationship. The investigators behind this study suggest that the ‘euphoria’ experienced by young people may lead to difficulty in the future for finding happiness with another partner.
Dr Brynin, the principal research officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, said a passionate first relationship can make those that follow seem unfulfilling. “Remarkably, it seems that the secret to long-term happiness in a relationship is to skip a first relationship,” he said. “In an ideal world, you would wake up already in your second relationship.
“If you had a very passionate first relationship and allow that feeling to become your benchmark for a relationship dynamic, then it becomes inevitable that future, more adult partnerships will seem boring and a disappointment.” He makes the claim in Changing Relationships, a book collecting new research papers by other leading sociologists, which he has edited. Adults who take a calm, steady approach to finding love and do not try to replicate teenage excitement tend to be happier in later life, Dr Brynin found.
Brynin says:
“The problems start if you try not only to get everything you need for an adult relationship, but also strive for the heights of excitement and intensity you had in your first experience of love. The solution is clear: if you can protect yourself from intense passion in your first relationship, you will be happier in your later relationships.”
But Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University (New Jersey) disagrees…
Prof Fisher said that seeking to maintain the initial intensity of a youthful affair can help relationships to endure. She said that couples happily married for more than 20 years had shown similar brain activity to people who had been in relationships for less than six months.
“I found incontrovertible, physiological evidence that romantic love can last,” she said. “It appears that romantic love exists not only to initiate pair-bonding but to maintain and enhance long-term relationships.”
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