Myth: Happily Ever After

Disney and Hallmark has a lot to answer for.

Our perception of love and marriage is quite skewed; many of us clutch to ourselves overblown and unrealistic perceptions of infinite bliss that accompanies couplehood.  
Sonja Lyubomirsky brings the data. Newlyweds are happy, but that euphoria lasts approximately two years. However, if the couple stays together for at least another twenty, they can reclaim that giddiness again. 

Wonderful, I thought sarcastically.

As we know, humans adapt. New love is so all consuming, Lyubomirsky says, because it is just that: new. Like any new purchase, eventually the gleam dims. 

But it is not that the new love ceases to exist; it evolves into something better. 

Humans are also programmed to take good things for granted. When something grand initially comes our way, we are awash with gratitude and appreciation; we thank God for its advent into our lives; we cherish it. A few weeks go by . . . 

One of my favorite lines from Joy Behar, which I have used more than once, goes a little something like: When you first meet a guy, you breathlessly rhapsodize, “He's the strong silent type.” After ten years, you shriek, “What are you, mute?!”

Additionally: 

Familiarity may or may not breed contempt; but research suggests that it breeds indifference. 

I have always thought that separate vacations for a couple can do more good than bad.

New love may sound cute, but it's not so much. New love is obsessive and all consuming, much like an addiction. Being possessed by any addiction—alcohol, narcotics, shopping—has never been a good thing.

(To quote a line from the 2004 film “Before Sunset,” about two former lovers who chance to meet again after a decade, if passion did not fade, “we would end up doing nothing at all with our lives.”) Indeed, the condition of being in love has a lot in common with the state of addiction and narcissism; if unabated, it will eventually exact a toll.   

So, the next step should be an improvement, no?    

When love is new, we have the rare capacity to experience great happiness while being stuck in traffic or getting our teeth cleaned. We are in the throes of what researchers call passionate love, a state of intense longing, desire and attraction. In time, this love generally morphs into companionate love, a less impassioned blend of deep affection and connection.

But the human brain wants variety. I really like having cereal for supper, but a week of it perverts the cool, soothing milk and satisfying crunch into something like soggy cardboard in flavor. 

We may love our partners deeply, idolize them, and even be willing to die for them, but these feelings rarely translate into long-term passion.

Yet all is not lost! 

The key thing is not to throw in the towel when the new love begins to ebb. It is simply converting from new love into a love that is less superficial and more meaningful. 

When married couples reach the two-year mark, many mistake the natural shift from passionate love to companionate love for incompatibility and unhappiness. For many, the possibility that things might be different — more exciting, more satisfying — with someone else proves difficult to resist. Injecting variety and surprise into even the most stable, seasoned relationship is a good hedge against such temptation . . . simpler changes in routine, departures from the expected, go a long way. 

OK, one's spouse is no longer novel. But by doing something new and enjoyable together can bring the necessary brain chemistry back. 90 minutes a week of doing an activity that they both find exciting—as opposed to pleasant—infuses into the relationship the what the brain craves.

Lyubomirsky says there is a difference between variety and surprise. When two people first meet, there is a whole lot of surprise. Every single newly discovered detail is a "zing!" of surprise. But after all the secrets are known, the zing is gone. 

Surprise is a potent force. When something novel occurs, we tend to pay attention, to appreciate the experience or circumstance, and to remember it. We are less likely to take our marriage for granted when it continues to deliver strong emotional reactions in us. Also, uncertainty sometimes enhances the pleasure of positive events. For example, a series of studies at the University of Virginia and at Harvard showed that people experienced longer bursts of happiness when they were at the receiving end of an unexpected act of kindness and remained uncertain about where and why it had originated.

Note it says "act of kindness," as opposed to "gift." I have always felt that actions speak louder than words and certainly louder than a beribboned box. A marriage should not have to rely on spending money to keep it strong; doing unlooked-for considerations gives more of oneself than whipping out the plastic. 

A marriage is likely to change shape multiple times over the course of its lifetime; it must be continually rebuilt if it is to thrive.