The Two Phases of Romantic Love

Brain imaging studies of people in love show that falling in love and loving have different brain signatures

Wildflowers. Photo by the author.

There is a scientific consensus that romantic love happens in two phases.

Romantic love is characterized by “euphoria, intense focused attention on a preferred individual, obsessive thinking about him or her, emotional dependency on and craving for emotional union with this beloved, and increased energy.” (Aron et al., 2005).

First phase: falling in love or limerence

Falling in love or being in love is an initial phase in which the characteristics of romantic love are greatly exaggerated. The attraction for the other person reaches levels close to obsession. We cannot spend enough time next to her or him. The euphoria, a sense of floating that has been compared to being drunk or high on cannabis, permeates the whole life. Likewise, the loving feeling of connection extends to everything: everybody seems the be good and well-intentioned, not just the beloved.

This first phase was christened “limerence” by Tennov (1979), a term that has since acquired a negative connotation. Today, some people consider limerence almost a form of madness.

It is true that an infatuation that is not corresponded can lead to extreme suffering. However, mutually falling in love is one of the richest experiences in life.

Polyamory: New Relationship Energy (NRE)

In polyamory culture, the being in love or limerence phase is called new relationship energy, or NRE.

This is intended to serve as a warning, because people in an established relationship may feel that their love in that ongoing relationship is eclipsed by the new infatuation, and may therefore neglect or even discard the old relationship.

Conversely, when NRE is over, the new relationship may lose its attractiveness in comparison with the shared history and deeper connection of the older relationship—which some people call established relationship energy, or ERE.

A savvy polyamorous person, therefore, would protect the old relationship while being in NRE and intentionally strengthen the new relationship when NRE is over. This brings feelings into balance and avoids unethical behavior and unnecessary suffering. 

How long does falling in love last?

So, how long does the being in love phase last?

In his book The Compass of Pleasure (Linden, 2012), neuroscientist David Linden puts its duration at 9 months to 2 years, but does not give any evidence for this. One paper gives infatuation a duration of 6-18 months (Langeslag and van Steenbergen, 2020).

The second phase: attachment or established love

In The Compass of Pleasure, Linden claims that, for some people in long-term marriages, the being in love phase never ends. This is based on a paper (Acevedo et al., 2012) that used fMRI to study the brains of people in long-term monogamous relationships while they viewed pictures of their partner. The study claims that this phase activated the same brain areas that get activated when newly in-love people view images of their beloved.

However, a careful examination of the results of the paper shows that, while the two phases of love activated some of the same brain areas, like the right caudate and right ventral tegmental area, established love also activated brain areas involved in evaluating emotions, like the insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. The activation of the posterior cingulate cortex switched from the right to the left hemisphere. This is consistent with a previous study by Bartels and Zeki (2000).

Therefore, the two phases of romantic love have different brain signatures.

These two phases of romantic love may correspond to the establishment and maintenance of pair bonding in prairie voles, which have been used to study how dopamine, oxytocin and vasopressin mediate pair bonding (Aragona et al., 2006; Young et al., 2011; Walum and Young, 2018).

References

• Acevedo BP, Aron A, Fisher HE, Brown LL (2012) Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 7:145–159.

• Aragona BJ, Liu Y, Yu YJ, Curtis JT, Detwiler JM, Insel TR, Wang Z (2006) Nucleus accumbens dopamine differentially mediates the formation and maintenance of monogamous pair bonds. Nat Neurosci 9:133–139.

• Langeslag SJE, van Steenbergen H (2020) Cognitive control in romantic love: the roles of infatuation and attachment in interference and adaptive cognitive control. Cognition and Emotion 34:596–603.

• Linden DJ (2012) The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasms, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good: Penguin Books.

• Tennov L (1979) Love and limerence: Stein & Day.

• Walum H, Young LJ (2018) The neural mechanisms and circuitry of the pair bond. Nature reviews Neuroscience 19:643–654.

• Young KA, Gobrogge KL, Liu Y, Wang Z (2011) The neurobiology of pair bonding: insights from a socially monogamous rodent. Front Neuroendocrinol 32:53–69.