Furthermore, we explored how the emotional experience of closeness with the partner was related to their sexual activity. In the Sexual Habits Survey 2020, we explored people's emotional experience of being close to their partner in relation to how many years they had been together. But does research provide any evidence that this is actually the case? And if there is such a thing as the seven-year itch, that would mean that couples reach bottom in their relationship at about this time. You would think that the longer a couple has stayed together, the closer they would feel towards each other. The rock band The Clash sings ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ It’s clear that some couples separate at this point in their relationships, while others work on staying together and remain partners for years. So love should get stronger and stronger with time, to make sure that these irrational feelings hold the relationship together when rational arguments would push for a breakup.People talk about how couples in trouble may be experiencing the seven-year itch. According to the commitment model, love is needed later, when circumstances change and it’s no longer advantageous for one or both partners to be together. In short, love is not really necessary at the beginning. According to this model, when two people start a relationship, their partnership is advantageous to both: they have common interests and want to pursue common goals because going alone is either impossible or less effective than a joint venture. The commitment model, however, would predict the opposite temporal pattern. Although true love lasts forever, the kind of love available to common mortals seems to be strongest at the beginning of a relationship, when passion is at its peak, and to gradually fade until, in some cases, it simply disappears. If love is an irrational feeling that occurs independent of the costs and benefits of being in a relationship, it follows that changes in these costs and benefits would not cause love to end. If it’s true that love provides a solution to the commitment problem, how long does the solution last? This is the third problem with the commitment model: it does not explain when, how, and why love between two people ends.
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