Must be love on the brain :)
My sister is currently going through a break-up (she gave me permission to tell her story here). She and her partner had been together for a little over two years. It’s amicable and they’re both on good terms but Frankie has found herself living alone in a new state and she’s been despondent, incredibly depressed and, even though it was her decision to end the partnership, she often finds herself in panicked tears. The sensation she describes is one of profound and tremendous grief, a terror that all will never be right again. I’m sure we’ve all been there—it’s a horrible place to be! But it’s also biologically programmed into our psyches—this period of intense and debilitating mourning.
Yes, I want to be my own unique snowflake! And yes, I want to be the person in charge of my own life! And yes, when I began studying romantic love and our brains, I was hesitant to give my brain any power. It’s a very ugly organ in my humble opinion—all pale and wormy. I don’t want such and aesthetically dull piece of flesh to run my life! But, sadly, it turns out that I’m not very special—a lot of what I think and feel when loving and being loved, is exactly like everyone else, all over the world, not just in western cultures.
Why We Love Who We Love
So, there are a bajillion studies about people with money being more attractive mates. I’m not even going to bother going into this because I find the idea so abhorrent. But, I can’t deny that it’s true. People with money tend to be more desirable.
This is also an annoying fact but when it comes to attractiveness, people tend to gravitate to people who look more or less like themselves, in terms of physical attractiveness. Although, what people find attractive does vary.
Also, the more unavailable people are, the more likely you are to be attracted to them. RUDE! But if there is distance or another spouse involved, people are more likely to want to form attachments.
This is a cool fact! Our personalities are about 40-60% biologically informed. Meaning nature plays a strong role in who we love and why. There are four brain systems that are responsible for specific constellations of personality traits—the dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen systems (find out which one you are!)
If you are dopamine dominate, you’re called an explorer. You love life! You’re creative! You want new experiences all the time! You want an adventure buddy. You want someone to see the world with you! And you want a partner exactly like you.
If you are serotonin dominant you are calm and cautious, you like plans and routine and a steady life. You also want someone like you!
Testosterone—well, you’re basically someone like Steve Jobs lol. You’re analytical and tough and you don’t always play well with others, but you get things done! You want a partner who is estrogen dominate—your opposite.
Estrogen—you’re the peacemaker, you’re empathetic and compassionate, good with words, imaginative and take the long-term view about everything. You want a partner who is testosterone dominate.
What Happens to Your Brain When You’re in Love
Short answer, you become an addict.
Long answer:
So, Helen Fisher (who I am mostly citing here) did brain scans of people who are falling in love. Guess what? The part of their brains that lit up were the parts of the brain that generate dopamine. Meaning being in love literally creates a high. It’s called the ventral tegmental area or VTA.
There was also activity in the nucleus accuumbens, which is a part of your brain that acts like a reward system and is fueled by dopamine. This part of your brain is associated with all addictions, heroin, alcohol, sex, food and gambling.
So, your brain in love is a brain looking to get its next fix.
How Long Does Love Last?
So, bad news. That dopamine hit? That active VAT? It stops firing after about two years. Also, people tend to get divorces or break up after four years together. Probably because that high doesn’t come any more and people want the next fix.
The main hypothesis is that “romantic love” is a survival mechanism that we developed because pair-bonding made raising children easier and increased our chance of survival. Not very romantic, is it? But, since we’re just trying to advance the species, some scientists think those love drugs wear off so we can mate with someone else and spread our DNA. Who really knows at this point?
The moral of the story is that the drugs don’t last.
EXCEPT! They did a study of 17 men and women who had been in relationships for an average of 21 years. When they put them into the fMRI scanner, they saw that the VAT was just as active! In new love, our brains our literally flooded with feelings of anxiety, but these areas of the brain weren’t active for long married men and women. Instead, the parts of their brains that were active were for calm and pain suppression. Cool!
Attachment Theory
If you all read one book I’ve ever recommended, I recommend you read Attached. It talks about how the way we were raised affects the way we love on a neurological level.
There are three main types. Anxious, Avoidant and Secure.
I myself am anxiously attached which is super annoying. I want to be the secure person in love! But alas, I tend to get very anxious and stressed if I feel unsafe in a relationship.
If you read this book, know that it’s not prescriptive and people grow! You can’t blame your behavior on your attachment style, “I can’t help it that I called 50 times until you answered even though I know you’re with your friends. I’m just anxiously attached!” No, it doesn’t work that way. But, the book does give some tools to help you and your partner work through some painful moments when your brain is telling you I AM LITERALLY GOING TO DIE if I don’t get what I need from my person.
What Happens When A Relationship Ends
So, there are three “systems of love” in our brains.
The first one, sexual drive, motivates us to seek a range of mating partners and is driven by testosterone (in both men and women).
The second, romantic love, drives us to focus our energy on a single person at a time and is driven by dopamine (the high!).
Finally, deep attachment, which is driven by oxytocin (the cuddle hormone!) enables us to remain with our special person long enough to raise a child through infancy.
If someone is breaking up with you, the first thing your brain does is try to get them back. Basically, your lover is the “reward” in the reward system of your brain—remember the addiction? So, your brain literally is going to get you to try to win back the “reward.”
There’s a thing called frustration-attraction which is kind of why we like people who are unavailable. When the reward is delayed in coming, the neurons in the dopamine system still continue to fire, which sustains that feeling of intense passion. Addiction.
This heightens our stress response. Meaning, when we’re falling in love and in that state of romantic love we are STRESSED. Our body is literally on high alert. That’s another reason scientists think the drugs wear off and we lose those intense romantic feelings—they’re literally wearing us out! It’s unsustainable to be that stressed all the time!
When we are rejected we experience something called frustration-aggression, or abandonment rage, Helen Fisher says, “The primary rage system is closely connected to centers in the prefrontal cortex that anticipate rewards. So, as a person begins to realize that an expected reward is in jeopardy, even unattainable, these regions of the prefrontal cortex stimulate the amygdala and trigger rage, a trait that stress the heart, raise blood pressure and suppresses the immune system.”
Do you ever notice that you get sick when you’re suffering from a broken heart? It’s because your body is literally going through withdrawals and your brain is SUPPRESSING YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. You’re not making it up. You are sick because you are heartbroken.
But, what happens when you know “we are never, never ever, getting back together?” You get depressed. Like really depressed. Your body decreases its dopamine activity which causes lethargy and despondency. Remember Frankie? Yeah, even though she logically knows she doesn’t want to be with her person any more, her brain is telling her she’s never going to love again and she should just never get out of bed and eat ice cream all the time.
It seems crazy! To get so depressed, even suicidal after a break up, but scientists think it’s a feature of biology. If you’re a cave woman and your partner leaves you, who is going to take care of you? If you’re depressed to the point of not being able to care for yourself, guess what? The community sees you suffering and suddenly all the cave men and women want to lift you up—the depression is a flag to everyone around you saying, I need help! Which, is kind of cool :)
Finally, remember that people are dopamine, serotonin, testosterone or estrogen dominate? Well, it can dictate how we are in relationships.
Dopamine dominate people tend to be more unfaithful and are less likely to settle down, more likely to break up and seek something new.
Serotonin people want deep attachment and they want it now.
Sadly, testosterone people are more prone to romantic violence.
And estrogen people are more prone to suicidal ideation after a break up.
Monogamy
I hate it when people try to describe Monogamy or Polyamory as natural—or when people try to determine what we’re naturally born to do. We might have been biologically created a certain way but we’re constantly evolving! We’re not Neanderthals anymore! Yes, we still have lizard brains that haven’t adapted to the current world (which is one reason we have so much violence and brute, competitive idiocy but I digress) but that doesn’t mean that what humans did at the dawn of time is what we should do now.
Here are facts: there have been studies throughout the last seventy years about how faithful people are in relationships. Results vary but are pretty consistent—around 30-50% of partners (men and women) have been unfaithful during their lifetimes.
So, basically, the moral of the story is that people cheat. It is very, very common.
Another fact is that one of the motivating factors for infidelity is the secrecy and the lying and the hiding. It’s a turn-on. The illicit part of the affair is often what gets people going. Which is why people cheat in polyamorous relationships. So, just opening the relationship isn’t going to get people to stop the cheating 100% of the time.
Fact: humans pair-bond. Even when given the opportunities to build harems and live in free sex communes, humans gravitate towards one-on-one matches. A famous example was a cult active in Oneida, New York in the late 1800’s. Basically this dude brought all these men and women together and forbade people from forming partnerships and everyone was supposed to have sex with everyone else otherwise they were punished. And people in the commune paired off in secret, despite the fear of retribution.
So, two facts! People cheat! And people want to be paired with one person! What the fuck, biology? WHY?!
Because: there are three systems that form love: the first feelings of romantic love, deep attachment and sex drive and they’re not connected! Which means you can be falling in love with someone new, but also have a deep attachment for your spouse, and also be sexually attracted to someone else!
All of this is to say, do whatever makes you feel good. If you want to have multiple partners and be polyamorous, do it! If you want to be monogamous, do it! But, be flexible. Because statistically speaking, at some point in your relationship either you or your partner is going to be interested in someone else. And the more honest and accepting you can be about those feelings, the more likely you’ll be to weather the storm.
Also another fun fact—monogamy for men and women is a very recent thing, like the last a hundred years recent. Men have pretty much always been able to do whatever they want. Women, less so. So, while men have been able to have their cake and eat it too, for the first-time in human history women are not killed by the state for being unfaithful or punished in other horrific ways—and with more economic freedom women are more likely to leave relationships that are bad for them.
Books that I Found Really Helpful When Learning About Polyamory:
Books to Read About Relationships:
Also, Come as You Are, because people with vulvas need to start talking about sex more and more honestly! If you are a straight cis male you still should read this book! Women experience pleasure VERY differently than you were taught to believe. And chances are, they’re too afraid to be honest and tell you what feels good and what doesn’t. SO BUY THIS BOOK ALREADY.
I LOVE THIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL! IT’S HILARIOUS. AND WONDERFUL.
And there you have it folx!
Live long and prosper,
Sammie
i feel like all of these statistics just serve to validate the broken-hearted. what is the point of relationships if literally all of these conclude that people are bored but comfortable, at best, after two years? why reduce the most profound, indefinable human experience (love) to a list of pessimistic data, or recognize that a study involves a very very small number of people who cannot define the universal experience of love and relationships? idk. this is just not it to me.