Scientists Say Passionate Love Lasts Only One Year

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MrsSpringsteen

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Reuters Nov. 29, 2005

ROME - Your heartbeat accelerates, you have butterflies in the stomach, you feel euphoric and a bit silly. It’s all part of falling passionately in love—and scientists now tell us the feeling won’t last more than a year.

The powerful emotions that bowl over new lovers are triggered by a molecule known as nerve growth factor (NGF), according to Pavia University researchers.

The Italian scientists found far higher levels of NGF in the blood of 58 people who had recently fallen madly in love than in that of a group of singles and people in long-term relationships.

But after a year with the same lover, the quantity of the ‘love molecule’ in their blood had fallen to the same level as that of the other groups.

The Italian researchers, publishing their study in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, said it was not clear how falling in love triggers higher levels of NGF, but the molecule clearly has an important role in the "social chemistry" between people at the start of a relationship.
 
I´m positive that in a couple of decades couples can go to get their yearly NGF shot. I wonder if its gonna help?
 
I guess it's easier and a "cop out" to say that a molecule is responsible for passion.

I know very little about all of this but couldn't one say that passion requires work and effort? From what I've seen, people lose passion and attraction for each other when the more difficult aspects of their relationships aren't working and they aren't making much of an effort. I'd say if you are still passionately in love w/ someone after many years of marriage that is special, and requires quite a bit of work. That ephemeral passion and lust for someone is easy, love isn't.
 
20 years I have felt this way toward a ROCK STAR>guess who? and more years toward my husband. I am very surprised at this finding, one must of found it in a Cracker Jack box.....remember them??Im in love with them too and fortune cookies!!
 
It actually seems about right to me, lol. But I'm talking about when your stomach flips with excitement and your heart pounds when the phone rings and you sit around day-dreaming about your lover all day and you can't concentrate very well on other things and you can't keep your hands off each other when you're together. Of course I know couples who've been together for 20 years who are still very affectionate with each other and have passionate sex but it's very different from that falling in love phase. The love just deepens and transforms. So they tell me. :|
 
What do scientists know anyway??? Maybe their marriages didn't last past a year 'cos they spent all their time in the lab :D
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
lol, I thought the same thing

I could get passionate for a guy who knew that word and could spell it :wink:

I know the word! And can spell it...but I am thinking I'm not what you're looking for :lol:

I agree with joyful. Could the body or heart cope with that kind of pressure constantly, longterm? I'd be guessing not.
 
joyfulgirl said:
It actually seems about right to me, lol. But I'm talking about when your stomach flips with excitement and your heart pounds when the phone rings and you sit around day-dreaming about your lover all day and you can't concentrate very well on other things and you can't keep your hands off each other when you're together.



this sounds very familiar to me right now ... :sexywink:
 
whenhiphopdrovethebigcars said:
I´m positive that in a couple of decades couples can go to get their yearly NGF shot. I wonder if its gonna help?

viagra_dpa.jpg
 
Passion might not last, but love does :) I read myself that this passional feeling came back in cycle after a certain number of years.
 
Angela Harlem said:


I agree with joyful. Could the body or heart cope with that kind of pressure constantly, longterm? I'd be guessing not.

That was pretty much what I was thinking. As much fun as it is in the short term, I don't think I could stand that giddy period for very long. :yikes:

Then again I'm not terribly romantic in the first place. :shrug:
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
I guess it's easier and a "cop out" to say that a molecule is responsible for passion.

I know very little about all of this but couldn't one say that passion requires work and effort? From what I've seen, people lose passion and attraction for each other when the more difficult aspects of their relationships aren't working and they aren't making much of an effort. I'd say if you are still passionately in love w/ someone after many years of marriage that is special, and requires quite a bit of work. That ephemeral passion and lust for someone is easy, love isn't.

word. :up:

many people simply don´t want to work for a relationship.
 
I think it's weird to call scientists dorks and say what do they know anyway. I mean they are doing tests in a lab, that's what they know. It's called a controlled study. They are talking about something that happens on a molecular level. I don't think we help by dismissing their studies. It's much more effective to say that it's not your personal experience.
 
MissMoo said:
I think it's weird to call scientists dorks and say what do they know anyway. I mean they are doing tests in a lab, that's what they know. It's called a controlled study. They are talking about something that happens on a molecular level. I don't think we help by dismissing their studies. It's much more effective to say that it's not your personal experience.

You can think its weird...but I am still going to say it.
 
Your heartbeat accelerates, you have butterflies in the stomach, you feel euphoric and a bit silly.
I agree with foray, joyfulgirl and indra--it seems very obvious to me that they're describing infatuation here, not the capacity to love someone and still feel sexually attracted to them after however many years. Longterm commitment can be hard work, yes, but we don't generally measure the results of that hard work by heart rate or butterflies in the stomach.

I suppose to some extent the above description also applies to sexual arousal, which may be the source of confusion here. But again, I think it's pretty obvious that that's not what they're talking about.
 
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I've only ever blushed once in my life. And it was over a boy. Not a nice sensation: :eek: I kinda prefer this steady-love-feeling.

yarof
 
why can passionate dislike last a whole lot longer? :evil:

I don't know, I guess I'm foolish enough to believe that if someone can love you in the bad times as well as good, when you're sick, when you look like crap, when you're in a horrible mood, when you are angry at them, when you are real and not their idealized version of you..whatever-that would cause "butterflies" and passion etc. That's when attraction is based on real things not superficial things, and it has nothing to do with molecules/ biology.
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
why can passionate dislike last a whole lot longer? :evil:

I don't know, I guess I'm foolish enough to believe that if someone can love you in the bad times as well as good, when you're sick, when you look like crap, when you're in a horrible mood, when you are angry at them, when you are real and not their idealized version of you..whatever-that would cause "butterflies" and passion etc. That's when attraction is based on real things not superficial things, and it has nothing to do with molecules/ biology.

:applaud: reply of the year! :up:
 
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