Monday 11 February 2013

Love, Lust and Attachment

Artwork by Joseph Lorusso


“I do hope we stay together for ever”, she said to him, “but you know we might not”.  
As they had only just met while sitting at adjacent tables in the coffee shop, 
the likelihood of them lasting was pretty slim.
I give them a week. Tops.



Let’s look at love and marriage in the cold light of statistics: nearly half of all UK marriages end in divorce. Relationships are difficult, even intelligent, confident people who go into them with their eyes open and the best intentions end up in situations which leave them powerless, heartbroken, asking themselves what went wrong. Again.

Science knows very little about love. A key insight is that love has three distinct modes or phases: attraction, lust and attachment. Humans are messy, the attraction, lust and attachment phases get blended together. Every loving relationship can be seen as a unique combination of these three modes. They form a ground on top of which the cultural and individual variants of love are built. This is the simple but rather melancholy observation that, when you knock away thousands of years of ritual, poetry, myth and song, love is just another neurobiological process, like sweating.

Long-term relationships are problematic for modern humans because we aren’t built for them. We’ve evolved to successfully procreate, not to enjoy deathless romance. During our long hunter-gatherer existence, life expectancy is thought to have been about 30 years. This means that, assuming we coupled off as teenagers, for the great majority of our species’ history, at least half of all relationships would have ended within 15 years. Today, the median length of a marriage is 11 years, which fits surprisingly well with our human ancestors’ 15 years. As we live ever longer, it seems that we are condemned to outlast the possibilities of love.

So, the next time you end up fighting over who gets to keep the Homeland DVD box set, blame human evolution. 




With grateful thanks 
to great chunks from an article in the
guardian weekend 09.02.13. 


44 comments:

  1. You have spoken ~~ the truth.

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  2. Well said. Also provides immense perspective on all the other cultural battles that we have in this country.

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  3. Hello:
    Somewhat depressing statistics but ones which do not surprise us at all.

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  4. Hello Friko....Very interesting, very enlightening and also very true....sad sometimes but true. I totally agree with this article. It's so easy to fall in love but it's just as easy to fall out of love too. Not that I'm being negative here because I'm not. I'm just being realistic. That's just the way life rolls for most couples in a marriage commitment. It's a proven fact but with those statistics that would mean that most people if they live to be in their 80's would have had at least 7 or 8 marriages.
    Wow...interesting thought. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. i think it def comes from our happiness based culture as well...what makes me happy in the moment may not be so later...

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  6. Marriage is hard work. I don't know if I knew that as a teen and then as a young woman who married her high school sweetheart. After over 46 years, my husband and I are still evolving - and still working at it. I like this quote: "We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person." -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

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  7. door veel mee te maken ,groei je stteds meer naar elkaar toe, ondanks alles.

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  8. Not surprising at all....but with a bit of faith, anything can happen. I just saw a beautiful movie and one of the lines will stick with me for a very long time..... it was over a cheating husband, and she told her daughter, "I decided to stay with him for all the wonderful things he had done or given me, instead of leaving him for the one thing he did wrong!" It makes such perfect sense!

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  9. I have to believe in love that lasts, having been married 40 years now. But it does take some effort!

    =)

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  10. Well, I guess I'm actually right to be on my fourth marriage at seventy. We met 20-some years ago and are still happy, but our expectations are drastically different (read: reduced) from what we thought marriage was when we were twenty. And married to different people. :-)

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  11. I assume, Friko, that the header photo is a painting of you and your beloved in one the local pubs. More seriously, I think that the Somerset Maugham quote provided by Barb gets to the nub of it: "It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."

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  12. The problem with the evolutionary interpretation (which has some merit) is that the older women would be discarded since their childbearing years end before their mates do. The men would be constantly looking for fertile, younger women with whom to procreate. Older men might have more wealth, wisdom and cachet than younger ones, leaving the younger ones out of the procreation loop just when they are most eager to procreate. Conflict ensues.

    These human relationships are such messy businesses. Good thing evolutionary psychology isn't an explanation for everything - like love that persists into old age, rare as it is becoming.

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  13. I wish I knew something profound to say here, but I don't. We just had our 45th Anniversary and are still happy to be together and grateful for what we have. It hasn't always been easy. Life isn't all roses. But we've had each other to lean on during the bad times... and perhaps that's what it's about.

    And I'm not against divorce. Lord knows there are good reasons people shouldn't stay together.

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  14. And then it was possible too that men had more then one partner and were not monogamous as we expect them to be now with a life long devotion. That is kind of unnatural too. He did want to procreate himself in all the best possible ways. And maybe women liked different partners too. There had to be diversity after all. The gene pool had to be enlarged.

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  15. I am happy to have been married for 43 years before my dear husband passed away unexpectedly in December. Marriage is an ongoing work of art. It takes commitment, love, patience, forgiveness, encouragement. Neither of us was perfect. I miss him terribly.

    Have a lovely Valentine's day ~ FlowerLady

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  16. As we approach 46 years of marriage this year, I see the wisdom of your post. Attraction and lust certainly played strong roles. We had known each other less than 5 months when we married, and the attachment part had to be worked out after the wedding. It is the attachment that has gotten us through the rough patches, but the attraction and lust have never waned. No woman over the years has come close to exciting me as much as she still does today.

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  17. Your throw-away line about the DVD set made me laugh, and threw me back - over thirty years. In the midst of divorce, in the midst of dividing up the possessions and such, everything was completely polite, completely rational, completely calm. Until we got to the New York subway tokens. Why about a half-cup of tokens should be the single thing that elicited such wrangling, I'll never know. It took hours for us to realize we could split the danged things! It was the perfect example of the essential comedy of human relations.

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  18. Hello Friko,

    Thanks for the good laugh: "...just another neurobiological process, like sweating." I laughed out loud and had to read it to my husband in the other room. (We've been married for 48 years, which I don't say to dispute the statistics here of course (biting tongue) ;-) Nice to read your work again after my lengthy absence.

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  19. Being firmly in the 'attachment' phase of my marriage, I have to laugh ... SB and I have beat the statistics and keep right on tickin' along. Never thought of it as 'a neurobiological process', but what the heck, whatever it is, it's still working!

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  20. Always a worthy visit, Friko!



    Aloha to YOU
    from Honolulu,
    Comfort Spiral
    ~ > < } } ( ° >

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  21. Quoting Margaret Mead, " We have to face the fact that marriage is a terminable situation".

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  22. I think you have made some valid points here. We should not be surprised at the short lived marriages that abound around us. We change in so many ways as the year progress. It is a miracle that any of us have marriages that survive after ten or fifteen years.

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  23. I so enjoyed this. Love is like sweat. Think I can find that on a Hallmark card? ha

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  24. nicely done....thanks for sharing your words

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  25. Gotcha...just may wanna keep this out of the hands of whoever is giving the wedding toast.

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  26. Have you read "Essays on Love" by Alain de Botton? If not, I can recommend it.
    My parents got together when my Mum was 16 and my Dad 18, and their marriage has always been an example for me. Sadly, I made a mistake when marrying my first husband; that lasted 10 years on paper and maybe 5 or 6 in reality. My second marriage ended very unexpectedly with Steve's sudden death four motnhs before our 5th wedding anniversary. I don't know whether there will be a "3rd time lucky" for me, but I am certainly not excluding the possibility :-)

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  27. I never knew that 'sweating' was neurobioligical ... "Condemned to outlast the possibilities of love" -- now that's really got me thinking!! Happy Valentine's Day, Friko!

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  28. Sound, level-headed common sense...

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  29. Hi Friko - I love seeing my friends and family who've had/ have happy marriages, no doubt going through challenging times ... but being together through thick and thin ... thankfully many of them ... me - well that's another matter .. but as Librarian says above I'm certainly not excluding the possibility!

    Enjoy your pancakes today ... cheers Hilary

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  30. You can meet someone at an adjacent table...and it can last.
    It has for us.
    We did not, however, indulge in an improper display in a public place as in the artwork...

    I would love to sign this as myself...but a message saying URL contains illegal characters keeps popping up.....

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  31. Some excellent observations here. I've seen happy marriages and some not so good. I guess I benefited from one that wasn't so good because after they were apart, I met Rick! We've been together for 17 years this year, happy together two blocks away. I'm not sure if it's because we just like the independence of it, though we are clearly committed. Or if it was just easier. It doesn't matter. Intriguing about the life expectancy and all. This is good food for thought.

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  32. Given the facts you quote, we should be glad that over half of all marriages do last, Friko. I am one of five sisters and DH has two brothers. Of the seven marriages between us all, 3 have ended in divorce and four are still going strong after between 34 and 45 years. One of the 3 divorcees married again and that marriage is also lasting very well, so we're beating the odds. :-)

    As a neurobiological process, love is much more satisfying and fun than sweating.....

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  33. I have a somewhat scholarly curiosity when it comes to marriage, but never wanted to engage in it myself. ~Mary

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  34. Hallo Friko,
    ich stelle fest, dass Du in den Themen sehr variabel bist. Du thematisierst hier: Beziehungen - Glück - Paarbeziehung - Ehescheidung usw. Schön, wie Du das Thema mit einem Gemälde beginnst und dann fleißig herum diskutierst, was Du alles dazu weißt. Finde ich mit Deinem Textaufbau und der Themenbildung klasse !

    Gruß Dieter

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  35. Well said, m'lady and love both the illustration and your source material.

    XO
    WWW

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  36. I guess to marry for love is still preferred but I have known many couples who had “arranged” marriages and were very happy. My aunt went to Lebanon to find a bride for her son (my cousin) and brought her back to Egypt – and they are still happy after 50 years of marriage. The same for many of my Algerian, Dubai and Kuwait trainees who married their second cousin or people in their family, as it is their culture, and many of them were happy – not all, but you say it is the same for “love” marriages. Of course, my father had found an Armenian husband for me …. and I left very fast!

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  37. Busy days at present, so Guardian lies unread - must read it.

    When you get down to brass tacks our sole purpose of existence is procreation of the species... Love lust and attachment - progressed through this trio with my handsome one and I guess now after *9yrs I am at the happy attachment phase with deep affection (?love) thrown in.

    Must admit I lust after certain men - but do nothing about it. So I think Irene (23.24)is right in that long ago we were not monogamous...

    Anna :o]

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  38. All three can go together but can also exist separately perfectly well . One hopes for a mixture of all three .

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  39. I once asked a long married friend the key to a good marriage. She said it differs at different ages or stages of the relationship. I personally believe love exists. I learned what unconditional love was the hard way. Unconditional love is the only real love. Lust is entirely different. Dianne

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  40. Dear Friko, thanks for this posting. I've thought about what our living longer has meant to government programs and health care, but never about marriage. A new thought for me. Thank you and the Guardian! Peace.

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  41. Real love doesn't necessarily mean life-long love. Some people are naturally monogamous, some aren't - most probably muddle along in the middle. Relationships started before we are actually adult are intrinsically problematic. Marriages have often been constructs within family/social/economic relationships - the "happiness" of the couple a distant consideration. In short, I take issue with assumed definitions.

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  42. I don't think humans are meant for marriage or monogamous relationships and, from a life expectancy point of view, it makes more sense to pair an older woman with a younger man.

    If no one else is interested, could I please have the Homeland DVD set?

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  43. So true, Friko! Long-term relationships are so hard at times! There are so many recurring cycles of intimacy and separateness and so many people panic during the times of emotional distance. I also think that real love happens in so many ways -- not just in romantic relationships, but also in long friendships and family relationships. Nurturing that love through so many life changes is not easy, but usually worth the effort.

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  44. We must accept that patience was not tried as much then. Likely there was less time to be bored and not much media to pollute the brain with notions of leaving a spouse for a better model!
    It is not an easy road to stay together but it is all the better if you get past the ugly hiccups that constantly remind us we are fragile but also stubborn! Interesting post!

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