What’s next? Navigating Passion to Compassion

The good news is that if couples get past that two-year slump and hang on for an another couple of decades, they may well recover the excitement of the honeymoon period—at a most unlikely time: 18 to 20 years later, when their children have typically left home and, with the freedom of the so-called “empty nest,” partners are left to discover one another—and, often, their early bliss—once again.Familiarity may or may not breed contempt, but research suggests that it does breed indifference. Or, as Raymond Chandler wrote: “The first kiss is magic. The second is intimate. The third is routine.”

Sonja Lyubomirsky Ph.D.- When love is new, we have the rare capacity to experience great happiness even 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. The reason is that human beings are, as more than 100 studies show, prone to hedonic adaptation, an innate—and measurable—capacity to become habituated or inured to most life changes, positive or negative.There are evolutionary, physiological, and practical reasons why passionate love is unlikely to endure for long. If we obsessed, endlessly, about our partners and had sex with them multiple times a day—every day—we would not be very productive at work or very attentive to our children, our friends, or our health. When married couples reach t