The Psychology of the "Relationship High"

Initial High (Meet & Sleep)

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The "Trough of Sorrow" ──► Slopes of Hope ──► Real (True) Relationship

What makes couple's relationships endure.

Love is not something that we stumble upon, but something that comes out of two people's relationship between one another.

How come some relationships are bright as a shooting start and then poof get snuffed out?

*Uninformed optimism : When a new partner first meets the eye, everything seems obvious and feasible. People experience an energetic rush driven by absolute fantasy.

*The "We are one" bump. You declare to each other and the world "we are an item". This garners peak attention.

Why is it that certain relationships shine bright "like a diamond" and then go "dark" in a few years?

Why do couples who are passionate with each other end up arguing over everything while seemingly “quiet” couples resist the storms of life?

The answer has nothing to do with luck but more with the deep structure of a relationship.

Let's explore what the pedigree of a "stable" relationship is.

“Sexual chemistry ignites the spark. But it’s other ingredients that keep the fire burning over time"

Sexual chemistry: powerful but not enough

One of the main errors in judgement we make is that we confuse sexual chemistry with compatibility. Even though they often overlap in the early stages of a relationship, the main distinction is that sexual chemistry is fast, intense and biological. The brain releases a three-in-one cocktail dopamine, oxytocin and adrenaline. It creates euphoria, magnetism, the feeling of having found something extraordinary.

But this phase is temporary and doesn’t guarantee real compatibility. Two people can feel passion and have deeply incompatible values, opposite communicative styles and last but not least irreconcilable life visions. Hence the difficult conversations must take place right away and not wait weeks months or even years. Oh you wanted kids? Too bad we didn't have that conversation 10 years ago.

Why do some passionate relationships fail?

When there is a lot of attraction but little trust, or passion but disrespect, a recurring cycle is created: great passion → intense conflicts → rapprochement → new conflict. This may sound like strong love, but it’s actually emotional instability — a pattern that couples therapy can help recognize and dissolve.

Emerging Love: The Six Essential Ingredients

The sexologist Sara Nasserzadeh developed the Emergent Love model that overturns a common belief: lasting love is not only born of sexual chemistry but emerges from the interaction of six fundamental ingredients. When they are all present, love is not a choice: it is a natural result.

Mutual Attraction. Not just physical. Mental, emotional, social. What ignites curiosity about the other and maintains it over time.

Trust. The certainty that the other will be reliable, consistent and present. The safe base on which to build everything else.

Respect. Recognize the autonomy and limitations of the partner. Treat it with dignity even in conflict, even when it hurts.

Compassion. Welcoming the emotions of the other without judgment. Don’t turn your pain into an accusation.

Shared Vision. A common direction: values, objectives and lifestyle compatible. The project of a life consciously built together.

Loving Behaviors. Daily concrete actions: gestures, attention, communication, mutual care. Love as a practice and not just as a feeling.

What is often observed in couples therapy is that relationships in difficulty almost always have 3 or 4 ingredients present and 2 or 3 missing. Identifying what ingredients are missing is often the first step to building a lasting bond.

Attachment styles: the roots of the way of loving

Before we talk about what to do to improve a relationship, it is useful to understand why we love how we love. The attachment theory, developed by psychiatrist John Bowlby and later expanded by Mary Ainsworth, tells us that the first relationships of care — those with parents or those who took care of us in the early years of life — create internal models of relationship functioning. These models profoundly influence — and often unconsciously — how we behave in pairs: how we are able to approach, how scary we are, how we react when we feel neglected or threatened.

The anxious-avoiding combination is among the most common in couples arriving in therapy: those who are afraid of abandonment often attract those who fear excessive closeness, creating a circle in which one chases and the other escapes. Not out of meanness: for defense. The good news is that attachment styles are not immutable. Through secure relationships — with a partner, a therapist, a group — you can learn new ways of bonding.

“We are not condemned to repeat what we have experienced. We are able to learn to bind ourselves differently”

When and why to look for couples therapy

Many couples arrive in therapy when the situation has already become critical: blocked communication, eroded confidence, unbridgeable emotional distance. Couples therapy is most effective when undertaken before the damage is too deep. Some signs that indicate that it may be the right time:

You always fight over the same things without ever really solving them.

One of them is constantly heard or not included.

Physical or emotional closeness has decreased significantly.

There were important events — a betrayal, a loss, a crisis — that were not worked out together.

The couple entered a new phase of life without tools to deal with it.

“Couple therapy is not a sign that the relationship is failing. It’s an act of care towards something you care about.”

The therapeutic work aims to restore the six ingredients of emerging love: to rebuild the trust where it has cracked, to train compassion where it has hardened, to find a shared vision where the thread has been lost.

Love is not found. It builds.

The idea that lasting love is not something that is found but something that is built is one of the most liberating insights in the psychology of contemporary relationships. It means that the relationship does not depend on the fate, alignment of the stars or the luck to meet the “right” person. It depends on daily choices, concrete behaviors, willingness to look at yourself and the other with honesty and compassion.

It means that chemistry is not the point of arrival, but the point of departure. What comes next — the trust built over time, the respect maintained even in conflict, the care expressed in small gestures and difficult times — is the substance of which a love that endures is made.

And it also means that when something breaks, it can be repaired. Not always, not in any case. But much more often than you think. Because loving is a verb: you combine every day, you learn, you choose.