Love may also be cultivated in shared experiences. Couples intensely in love reported participating in novel, engaging, and challenging activities together. Some of the greatest moments of intimacy in a relationship come from the simple joys of cooking or exercising together, exchanging intellectual ideas over common readings, learning a new and challenging skill like skiing, sharing spirituality by attending church or meditating, and going on travel adventures. That togetherness may create a shared thread of life experience and memories.
What of happiness? Can a relationship lead to happiness? Certainly, it can. Yet the survey suggests that taking care of your own happiness may also be important. Personal happiness was associated with intensity of love, especially for women. In other words, one may think that tending to one’s own well-being through a night out with friends or time at the gym is selfish, but taking responsibility for one’s own happiness has the potential to drastically improve the quality of our relationship. Of course, being intensely in love may also be contributing to the happiness observed.
No matter what message Kia ads and marketing specialists may try to send you, long-term love is here to stay and has absolutely nothing to do with material goods. Surveys such as this one give us a far more accurate picture of how to maintain the flames of love. Sharing affection, thinking positively and with gratitude about our partner’s qualities, engaging in shared activities and being happy independently of the relationship may all be important features of an intensely loving relationship.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
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7 Comments
Add CommentFrom my own experience and what I have witnessed in others, (yes I know, the dreaded "my experience" fallacy,) it appears that after the honey moon is over there are several years of declining interest- and then eventually the love (and the passion to a lesser degree) begins to soar again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you can get past the awkward years- there could be good things in store for your romance!
"Yet the survey suggests that taking care of your own happiness may also be important. Personal happiness was associated with intensity of love, especially for women. In other words, one may think that tending to one’s own well-being through a night out with friends or time at the gym is selfish, but taking responsibility for one’s own happiness has the potential to drastically improve the quality of our relationship."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToo many people enter marriage thinking marriage is going to make them happy instead of focusing on what happiness they can bring to the marriage.
"It is often difficult to find happiness within ourselves. And it is not possible to find it elsewhere." - AU
My wife's Aunt Arla and her husband Dwight had been married for forty-some years when the onset of Parkinson's first became apparent in Arla. For the next fifteen years Dwight watched his lovely bride turn slowly, incrementally into a living statue before his eyes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill, he fed her and bathed her and brushed her hair and carried her up and down the stairs and read to her and cared for her in every way, long past the time when most folks turn those responsibilities over to assisted living or even hospice. He shared with his bride everything he had, everything he was.
True love involves the kind of giving that expects nothing in return.
Passion is shallow and easy and over all too quickly.
Love is hard work, deep and enduring. Love is way worth the trouble.
It is a cultural assumption to say that long term love and long term marriage are one and the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe divorce rate in India is around 1%, and most of their marriages are arranged.
In an opposite scenario, there have been (many) documented cases of long term love, without marriage, and sometimes even without living together on a day to day basis.
And last but not least, this article's definition of love as "...Sharing affection, thinking positively and with gratitude about our partner’s qualities, engaging in shared activities and being happy independently of the relationship..." really falls short of the goal of love. You can say that about any good friend, so we are not talking about romantic love.
Try harder.
Funny how you mention even after 10 years couples were still in love. I had a 9 yr. marriage and an 11 yr. marriage. The 9 yr. one was a lot better. My son is marrying an Indian girl whom I adore and your statistics about 1% divorce rate in India made my morning. Growing up my son saw about 90% of his friends' parents marriages end up in divorce also. I guess my boy is a hopeless romantic; not as if that's a bad thing. He's seen from the age of 8 what divorce does to people but I guess like myself, growing up seeing pretty much nothing but unhappy married couples, he has to experiment for himself. Too bad we tend not to learn from other peoples' mistakes. Now at 63,I live alone with my cat, but I have a great platonic relationship with my best female friend for whom I have the utmost respect and can't help but enjoy her company. I guess that's what getting older is all about; finally finding someone you can relate to. The naivete has long gone and the real maturity has sunk in. I raise a glass to those few who can make it to the END.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI liked the description of the Kia ad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think true love is a flame that needs fuel all the time kissing, hugging and cuddling are things that the more you do it the more you want it. I think this article is dead on. Any relationship that we friends, lovers and the love of our life we need to more than just say it you need to do it. When my dad says I love you and then hugs me it means so much more than just the words. When I look into my girlfriends eyes I see it because we cuddle all the time and we know we can never get enough of it. If you don't have touch as a part of your every day relationships you are missing out on a much deeper feeling.
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