To begin, I think this summary of Dr. Ted Huston's research on relationships is excellent. He had the opportunity to monitor relationships from their beginnings to 14 years in the future. His findings are really fascinating. Here are just a few of his observations:
- Women who sense future problems while they are courting generally find out after they are married that their concern was well-founded.
- Couples who are particularly lovey-dovey as newlyweds are likely to divorce.
- Whether a marriage will be happy or whether it is headed for the divorce court can be foretold from how things go during its first two years.
- Men with traits stereotyped as “feminine” make better husbands.
- The extent of differences in tastes and ideas among couples does not predict divorce.
- Some couples bury their concerns over such differences; others brood over them. Those who brood are more likely to divorce.
- Anxiety, moodiness, and emotional swings in the wife or the husband do not preordain divorce, but they are related to unhappiness in marriage.
- The birth of a child transforms couples’ lifestyles, but it does not change the feelings husbands or wives have about each other.
- Wives’ [relationship] maintenance behavior is significantly associated with husbands’ satisfaction when spouses are newlyweds.
- Wives engage in more maintenance behaviors than husbands.
- Spouses’ maintenance behavior declines over the first two years of marriage.
To gain a better understanding of observations like these, I wanted to share some findings on the role of hormone activity and how they effect human relationships. My previous article on the Hormonal Male shares insights on testosterone and its effect on behavior. In this piece, I will look at the chemicals that contribute the feeling of being in love and long-term bonding and commitment.
Dopamine - The Motivational Powerhouse
You may have heard about dopamine with its one role as the nuerotransmitter responsible for feelings of pleasure and reward. Indeed, dopamine levels are elevated in the brain in the presence of a perceived reward, whether this is food, sex, drugs, or rock and roll. Both dopamine and norepinephrine play critical roles in the functioning of the brain, prefrontal cortex, and, thus, cognition. So, keep these chemicals in mind for your own research.
Due to its role in motivational activity such as pleasure and reward, dopamine is associated with addiction. It is our craving for dopamine release that drives us to repeat activities that cause its release. This is why drugs like cocaine are so addictive and make people feel like they are on top of the world - they cause massive amounts of dopamine release.
It may be no surprise then that elevated dopamine levels are found in the courtship phase of a relationship. Ever wonder why a new relationship can feel so good and one can "fall hard," becoming obsessed with their partner or crush? We are talking about the same systems that are involved in drug addiction. "Love" is very much a drug. However, what type of love are we really talking about?
Our craving for the release of romance is very powerful. I think everyone can gain more wisdom in love and romance by understanding that the beginning of a relationship is likely to be driven by addictive tendencies and drug-seeking motivation. There is nothing wrong about this observation, it is obviously a natural outcome, but we should distinguish this "hard-falling," head-over-heels situation from the long-term bonding and friendship that occurs in love that involves outcomes like marriage and raising children together.
Mistaking the Dopamine Heavy Beginning for the Long Term Experience
Humans have an excessive present-bias and when it comes to the resource intensive process of dating, we tend to have very little experience in knowing how best to conduct relationships in the face of the raging hormones that occur in falling for another person.
Think about it, you only get a limited number of chances to fall in love in your lifetime. People generally only marry a handful of times, if that, in their lifetime. There just are not many instances to use to gain wisdom and experience. Its much easier to follow our heart, or our gut, or is it our intuition, or it just feels right/wrong....we often let the chemicals lead, and rationalize it in many ways.
Dr. Huston's finding that couples who are particularly lovey-dovey as newlyweds are more likely to divorce is striking in how it relates to how people approach the beginning of relationships. My suggestion is that people get addicted to the love drug phase and then are let down when the hits of dopamine wane with time.
Like with many forms of stimulation, the brain will adapt to it over time and whatever quantity of something that triggered a dopamine release in the past will trigger a smaller release in the future. This includes the rush you get being around your significant other. Within a few months to a few years, you will naturally no longer feel the same drug-like satisfaction from your partner as you once did.
Couples may really struggle with these natural changes if they think the rush of a new relationship is meant to last into the future. Many people who claim they are no longer in love later in a relationship may simply be interpreting the absence of a dopamine response to the partner as a deterioration of the quality of the relationship. They may say "I'm just not feeling it anymore" or "I don't think I love you anymore." I'm sure many a break up has occured under rationalizations of the loss of intense, dopamine-drive attraction.
The problem of "lovey-doveyness" in the early part of a relationship is not anything to do with being crazy love birds. That is a chemically motivated outcome. The problem is this may set up inexperienced partners for failure in the future as they adjust their expectations to this unsustainable, fiery and romantic beginning. The dopamine hits they receive will disappear, if they identify these rushes with love itself, then love magically disappears too.
This is why many people may be addicted to romance, having many short term relationships but always managing to have them fail within a few months or years. Their dissatisfaction is real, but they may mistake the dissatisfaction of losing the love drug, with dissatisfaction for their partner and relationship as a whole.
Moreover, in addiction, we overlook the flaws and problems of the other person because they just make us feel so good at first. This may cause us to sacrifice mature considerations of compatibility and differing views of relationships. Within a few months or years, the dopamine glasses fall off and we can finally see our partners for who they really are as a whole person, including their flaws and differing long-term desires.
The Long Term Experience and Oxytocin
IF one could divide the complex development of romantic relationships into two phases, the oxytocin and bonding phase would be what occurs in the relationship after the dopamine driven phase recedes.
Oxytocin is shown to increase cooperative and bonding behaviors, and occurs in elevated levels for those in successful long term relationships. Once the dopamine phase recedes, oxytocin is one of the hormones responsible for keeping the relationship going.
The reason this transition is not so straight forward is that feelings of bonding are not the same as the fiery, sexual, and rollorcoaster-like experience found at the beginning of a relationship. Bonding is more warmth and affection, often found in familial, parental, and platonic relationships. Its ubiquity in all strong relationships may be why it is confusing for the inexperienced to navigate aging romantic situations.
Yes, this means partnership bonds can feel more like friendships which could confuse the person who thinks romantic relationships are supposed to feel different and more intense. Hollywood does not help with this confusion as usually the fiery, dopamine-driven stage is what is shown in the movies and not the stable, and, relatively "boring", bonding phase that defines successful long term relationships.
Oxytocin has received a lot of press in recent times. Some of the things you should know about the chemical is that it is released during sexual intercourse, childbirth, and through physical interaction with a partner like touching and holding hands. Just spraying oxytocin up your nose is also shown to increase feelings of affection, causing couples to do more to the maintain the relationship when exposed to oxytocin.
Further Considerations with Biochemical Love
As you can see, very important and powerful chemicals are involved throughout the evolution of a relationship. These chemicals are so central to our activity that romantic love is just one area where they are expressed and influence our behavior.
As a result, problems with one's relationship with oxytocin and dopamine can set people up for struggles in romantic love. For instance, if one has addictive tendencies, struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, they have a higher tendency to struggle with love as well. Either repeatedly pursuing the love as a drug phase or replacing the relationship experience with love of the bottle instead.
Moreover, oxytocin function stems all the way back to our first bonds with our parents. If we were neglected as a child or severely disciplined such that we never learned how to healthily bond with a parent, we are more likely to struggle as an adult. Environment plays a huge role in our ability to bond, so it is important to understand that everyone has different tendencies for success in healthily relating to others. These are things you cannot control or change in meeting them many years later into their lifetimes.
Having these biochemical influences in mind will lead you to have more wisdom and compassion in relationships. If you want to give the relationship the best shot for the long term, take it slow. Let yourself transition smoothly from fiery to committed to help your expectations evolve with the relationship. When meeting new potential partners understand that not everyone will have the experience or maturity to meet your own needs and expectations for a potential relationships. Maintain a set of standards to make sure your potential partner is good dating material to contract your natural tendency to overlook "fatal" flaws when infatuated.
Most importantly, take good care of yourself. Develop your ability to have intrinsic motivations, so you have strong alternatives to solely chasing dopamine hits from external factors outside your control. Be understanding and generous. Sometimes loving the other person means fighting with all your might to get them to see they are making mistake by leaving. Sometimes loving someone means letting them go and respecting everyone's unique value, which is never yours to control or change.
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