Was Love Meant to Last? The Myth of Forever

Somewhere along the way, human beings decided that falling in love should come with a lifetime guarantee.

And we've romanticized the hell out of that idea. Books, movies, love songs, and fairy tales have been selling us the same story for generations. Two people meet, fall madly in love, overcome a few obstacles, and live happily ever after. Roll the credits.

Nobody seems particularly interested in what happens 25 years after the credits roll.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm a huge romantic. I love falling in love. I love being in love. The excitement, the attraction, the emotional connection, all of it. I'm certainly not questioning love itself.

What I'm questioning is the expectation that we're supposed to experience all of that with the same person for the rest of our lives.

Think about that for a minute.

We stand in front of family, friends, and sometimes God, and promise to love another person for the rest of our lives.

Not for five years. Not until we become different people. Not until the person we married at 25 bears little resemblance to the person sitting across from us at 55.

Fucking. Forever!

That's a hell of a promise, considering most of us can't even figure out what we want for dinner tonight.

But here's something worth asking: Did human beings actually evolve to love one person forever, or did we invent the idea of forever because the thought of losing love scares the hell out of us?

Over time, we turned the POSSIBILITY of lifelong love into the expectation that everyone should experience it.

What Does Evolution Tell Us?

Evolutionary psychology suggests humans developed the ability to form powerful romantic attachments, partly because cooperation between partners helped our ancestors survive and raise children.

But forming an emotional bond and maintaining that bond exclusively for 50 years aren't necessarily the same thing.

In a 2019 review, anthropologists Ryan Schacht and Karen Kramer examined human mating patterns and described how pair bonding is widespread across human societies, while relationship arrangements vary considerably.

Serial monogamy—forming a committed relationship, separating, and eventually forming another with someone new—is a common pattern.

Maybe falling in love is natural, but staying romantically in love with the same person for an entire lifetime isn't necessarily the biological default.

And that's a hell of a distinction.

Did We Confuse Love With Security?

Human beings crave attachment. We want to feel wanted, understood, and safe.

Psychological research by Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver established important connections between romantic love and emotional attachment.

But here's where I start wondering.

When we promise to love someone forever, how much of that promise comes from love, and how much comes from wanting reassurance that we won't someday be abandoned?

There's a difference between saying, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you," and saying, "I need you to promise you'll never leave me."

Maybe the promise of forever is partly about love and partly about our fear of losing it.

That doesn't mean lifelong love is impossible.

Research by Bianca Acevedo and colleagues found that some people married for decades continued to display brain activity associated with intense romantic attraction.

So yes, lasting romantic love is possible.

But being capable of something doesn't necessarily mean we're biologically programmed to do it.

What If Forever Isn't the Norm?

And what about the whole idea of soulmates?

We're often told there's one special person out there for each of us. One person we're destined to find, fall in love with, and spend the rest of our lives with.

But who the hell decided there's only one?

What if we can have multiple soulmates throughout our lives? Different people who connect with us in profound ways at different stages of who we are and who we're becoming.

Maybe someone can be exactly the right person for us at one point in our lives without necessarily being the right person forever.

I've had relationships that lasted only a few months that affected me more deeply than others that lasted years. Some brought more excitement, connection, and personal growth than relationships I stayed in far longer.

Should I consider those relationships failures simply because they ended?

That's bullshit.

I'm certainly not suggesting people should abandon relationships when things become difficult. Commitment matters, and I have enormous respect for couples who genuinely remain in love throughout their lives.

But maybe we've confused what human beings are capable of with what we should expect from everyone.

What if lifelong romantic love is one possible expression of human nature rather than the standard by which every relationship should be judged?

And what if falling out of love isn't necessarily a personal failure, but sometimes part of being human?

I don't pretend to have all the answers.

But I think these are damn good questions.

Coming Soon: The Myth of Forever

I'm developing an Escape the System mini-book that will explore the evolutionary psychology of love, lifelong monogamy, human attachment, and how religion, culture, and society have shaped our expectations of romantic relationships.

We'll examine whether humans evolved to love one person forever, form successive romantic bonds, or follow several different relationship patterns.

Because maybe it's time we stopped trying to make human nature fit our expectations and started asking whether our expectations fit human nature.

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References

Schacht, R., & Kramer, K. L. (2019). Are We Monogamous? A Review of the Evolution of Pair-Bonding in Humans and Its Contemporary Variation Cross-Culturally. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 7, Article 230.

Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3), 511–524.

Acevedo, B. P., Aron, A., Fisher, H. E., & Brown, L. L. (2012). Neural Correlates of Long-Term Intense Romantic Love. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(2), 145–159.

Acevedo, B. P., & Aron, A. (2009). Does a Long-Term Relationship Kill Romantic Love?. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 59–65.

Coontz, S. (2005). Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Viking.

Cherlin, A. J. (2004). The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66(4), 848–861.

Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). The Longitudinal Course of Marital Quality and Stability: A Review of Theory, Method, and Research. Psychological Bulletin, 118(1), 3–34.