Love is a beautiful feeling that unites people. Romantic love brings two strangers together; however, despite the immediate affection, they should still take time to get to know each other’s personalities over different stages of their relationships. When two people fall in love, they learn each other’s character, morals, and natural responses to the challenges that arise. It takes time to understand all these aspects and live through all the stages. Psychologists divide romantic love into five different phases, and each phase is both beautiful and challenging at the same time. Let’s break down these periods and try to understand why some people can’t get through all of them and sadly give up in the middle or even at the beginning of the journey; and what it takes to reach the “final destination.”

Attraction. 

This is the initial stage of every love story; however, what you are feeling is not love. You feel physical attraction; hormones are racing through your body. The release of testosterone and estrogen makes you physically attracted to the other person, and you might not even know their name yet. Even though this is considered the first phase of love, it is not love – it is a biological process. People say they feel “butterflies in their stomach,” but what if I told you that this feeling is also a biologically explainable process? This sensation is provoked by the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for triggering the ‘fight-or-flight’ response through a rush of hormones. The interesting fact is that the “fight-or-flight” response, also known as the acute stress response, is typically provoked by potential danger. This means your nervous system identifies the person you just met and felt physically attracted to as a potential threat, and I’m sorry if that doesn’t sound romantic to you. It is your body’s reaction to a situation where you need to take immediate action to either fight for survival or flee to safety. In order to understand which route to take, you need to get to know the person you feel physically attracted to, and this is when the fun part begins.

Romance. 

Also known as the “honeymoon phase,” the romance phase is the stage of obsession, mania, and idealization of the other person without any logical basis, explained by the release of dopamine and norepinephrine – hormones responsible for the euphoria you feel toward your partner. It is a typical projection of our expectations onto a person who is still not fully known to us. In other words, this is the person we want to fall in love with, our prince or princess charming, and not the real individual we are dealing with. In many stories, it is the most beautiful phase of love; it is when many of us commit to moving in together or, in some cases, even marry each other.

Disillusionment. 

This is the stage when those butterflies settle down, and common sense starts to kick in. Our nervous system becomes less influenced by hormones, and we begin to think rationally and see clearly. We come to recognize the genuine traits of the person we love. We take off those “rose-colored glasses” and start noticing aspects we might not like or agree with. This is the harshest phase of a romantic relationship as we must decide whether we can live with the real person we chose as a partner. Sadly, this is also when most breakups occur. Have you heard the expression “love lasts three years”? Well, this phase usually comes three years after the start of a relationship, but it doesn’t mean love dies afterward. You are the one who decides whether to extinguish it or keep it alive and make it work for both you and your partner. That’s when you reevaluate love. Surprisingly, this phase might cycle through the subsequent phases of love, and you might return to it repeatedly.

Attachment. 

If you reach this phase, you most likely can’t imagine waking up without your significant other or going to sleep without telling them how your day was. That’s when oxytocin, “the cuddle hormone”, is at its highest and is released through physical touch and eye contact. You are emotionally and physically attached, feeling a need for your partner’s constant presence in your life. Congratulations, you’ve developed an attachment. It is not the unhealthy mental attachment you might think of. It is the phase of commitment when you have already seen each other’s flaws and accept one another as a whole. This is the time when you truly choose each other and realize you want to continue this relationship and fully commit to your partner. This is the phase of a complicated process – deciding whether this is “your person.” This is the stage of mature love, and it should be the time when you decide to get married.

Stable love. 

This is truly the most beautiful phase of love when you realize you’ve been through everything together and still choose your partner every day. This is the “quiet love,” the peaceful one. You’ve developed a true understanding of each other’s feelings and needs and support one another deeply. This is the love we see when we look at a grey-haired couple and wish we had someone to spend our whole life with. Little do we know that this elderly couple went through all the challenging phases of love and did not give up on each other.

Viktoriia Kolomiiets | Writer