6 Secrets to Keep Romantic Love Alive

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couples-in-loveThe definition of a romantic relationship – intense love, sexual desire and long-term attachment – is not as uncommon or unattainable in marriages as you may think.

“We are born to love,” writes anthropologist and author of Why We Love, Helen Fisher. “That feeling of elation that we call romantic love is deeply embedded in our brains.”

Our culture can be pretty suspicious about the prospect of romantic love enduring over time and through obstacles, and for good reason. Roughly 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, with 2.4 million U.S. couples splitting in 2012. And among those that stay together, marital dissatisfaction is common. In long-term partnerships that do succeed, romantic love tends to fade into companionship and a love more akin to friendship than to that of a couple in love.

But no matter how cynical we are about the prospect of life-long love, it still seems to be what most Americans are after. Romantic love is increasingly viewed as an essential component of a marriage. One study reports that 91 % of women and 86 % of American men say that they would not marry someone with whom they were not in love. Even if the other person had every other quality they wanted in a partner.

And romantic love is good for both our marriages and our health. Free from the craving and obsession of the early stage of falling in love (I call this the endorphin stage) – research shows it’s correlated with marital satisfaction as well as individual self-esteem and well-being.

Research psychologists who study love, marriage and relationships have pinpointed a number of factors that contribute to long-lasting romantic love.

Here are 6 science-backed secrets of couples that keep intense romantic love alive for decades and entire lifetimes.

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All About Anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or….

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 “Wouldn’t it help if I were prepared for what happens to me?”

If you have experienced an extremely threatening event where you felt your life was in danger and you could not exert control to change it, you’ve experienced the “fight or flight” response. This is the body’s automatic reaction and it prepares you for lightening-speed decisions. The chemicals released cause an increase in your respiration rate and blood pressure, and blood is directed into your muscles and limbs for running and fighting. Your pupils dilate, awareness intensifies, sight sharpens as you scan and search the environment for danger.

WhatsGoingOn?Afterward we may revisit the event and wonder, wouldn’t it help if I were prepared for what happens to me? At the moment this thought appears, you may notice that you begin to feel similar body sensations as before. The heart pounds faster, you may begin to shake. This is the cognitive aspect of processing trauma. “What if…. If only…” – You want to be sure it never happens again. So the brain tries to remember and learn from the threatening event… “if only… I’ll never… “ and

“If only my life had background music so I could tell what the heck was going on!”

Think of storing memories as being like putting away groceries. When a person experiences a traumatic event, it’s like the memories were stored by shoving too much stuff into a cabinet. And anytime it gets opened, all the “stuff” explodes as it falls on your head.TooMuch

If not processed properly, your experience can spiral into generalized anxiety and panic attacks, or worse – a syndrome called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With PTSD, ordinary events can serve as reminders of the trauma and trigger flashbacks or intrusive images. A flashback may make the person lose touch with reality and reenact the event for a period of seconds or hours, or very rarely, days. A person having a flashback, which can come in the form of images, sounds, smells, or feelings, usually believes that the traumatic event is happening all over again.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is best treated with a combination of psychotherapy and medications. People with PTSD should seek out a therapist with specific experience and background in treatment post-traumatic stress disorder.

If you have experienced a traumatic event and the “flight or flight” symptoms won’t go away, please consider counseling to help you cope. With a qualified therapist, you can learn new skills to help process, manage and resolve the distressing thoughts and feelings related to the traumatic life events.

Here are 8+ ways to quiet the overactive stress response:[i]

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