爱情能持续 3 年？

人际关系是如何失败的

I’ve once read an article in a paper magazine which half-jokingly stated that “every love relationship lasts 3 years”. The idea was that intimacy, passion and infatuation in an average relationship last about 3 years, after which they either dissipate into boredom and routine, or turn into resentment and criticism.

Even if no expert can seriously support such an idea, it didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s based on the fact that few couples manage to deeply love and respect each other for many years. The theory about “the shelf-life of love” is an expression of a rather cynical resignation of many people whose hopes and dreams of happiness were shattered, perhaps repeatedly.

Maybe you are convinced it can’t happen to you… or maybe you remember being convinced it couldn’t happen to you? It only takes a bit of laziness, ignorance and thoughtlessness to spoil your most important adult relationship.

A rational explanation of this half-serious “theory” could be summarized in this way: by the third year of an average relationship, positive projections and transference* have faded away, negative projections and transference have developed, motivation has given in to laziness, communication has become careless and inconsiderate, the partners have started to 想当然地毯下的那堆东西已经成熟并开始繁殖。

It’s so easy to thoughtlessly lash out at the partner when for whatever reason we feel irritable, to blame them for our immature anger, to strive to control them out of various fears, and show less and less love and respect because “it’s understood”.

发展信任

通过建立信任和尊重，爱情和激情可以维持多年。 每一次发脾气、每一句不体贴的话、每一次不负责任和不经思考的表现，都会侵蚀信任和尊重。 当这些都不复存在时，一些不健康的联系（基于移情）还能存在一段时间，但健康的爱却不能。

Some relationships fall apart because people carelessly apply the idea that it’s healthy to argue and express oneself. This is basically true – but many people practice that idea without much responsibility and self-awareness. Thus what might have been a healthy discussion can easily become a power struggle full of criticism and blaming. Arguing and expressing yourself is healthy – providing you do it responsibly and thoughtfully. 

有些人可能会把激情等同于情绪紧张和戏剧化. They might half-consciously provoke fights and insecurity to increase “passion”. They probably learned to associate emotional drama with love as young children, in their early families. If such people don’t put effort into resolving that pattern, they might find it very difficult to even be attracted to a healthy and responsible person. Thus achieving a quality relationship might be nearly impossible.

成人之爱

Infatuation doesn’t last forever, no matter how much we might hope so. But if you maintain trust and respect, infatuation will be replaced by a more stable and calm form of love. Healthy love usually does not bring so much intensity, ups and downs, butterflies in the stomach even at the very beginning, compared to infatuation based on childish transference. You might ask, does it mean that healthy love means less passion? You might perceive it that way if you confuse tension and drama with passion.

Healthy love does not include so much obsessiveness, idealizing, anxiety, relief and rapture at every sign of attention by a loved one, but that’s more than made up for by passion which is calmer, but deeper; by 来自相互承认和信任的亲密关系而不是自欺欺人和投机取巧；也要与自己保持良好的关系。

健康的激情可以随着时间的推移而增长和加深，因为伴侣们已经 有越来越多的机会相互理解和欣赏. Acknowledging our mistakes responsibly, calm and supportive reactions when the partner is emotionally overwhelmed, expressions of affection and attention … enable intimacy and respect to grow rather than decrease. Every time you express your opinion, disagreement or an objection thoughtfully and without criticism, every time you show you pay attention and think about what your partner says… you add another brick into the house of lasting love.

明智的选择

You shouldn’t take all the responsibility upon yourself, however. For your expressions of respect, understanding, and support to improve your relationship, your partner also needs to recognize them, appreciate them, and be motivated to reciprocate. Not all people are willing or able to do so. Here are some 关键的个性特征 选择伴侣时（或选择是否继续保持关系时）：

• 情感意识。 People who are used to ignoring their own feelings won’t be able to distinguish which of them are healthy, and which are not, so they are likely to follow immature urges when those become strong enough.
• 责任.你的伴侣是否愿意承认自己的错误、克服不健康的冲动、认识到自己需要改变的模式并努力改变它们？
• 周到的沟通. Does your partner take care to choose appropriate words? Do they work on improving their communication, or do they believe it’s their god-given right to blurt out whatever they feel like, and if that feels hurtful, it’s your problem?
• 同理心.缺乏同情心自然会导致不思进取、自私自利和不负责任。

如果你和你的伴侣都具备这些品质，我敢说几乎所有其他分歧和误解都能迎刃而解。但是，如果缺少其中哪怕一项品质，长期幸福关系的可能性就会很小。关键问题是 这些品质有多强 在一个人身上？我们无法用任何已知的尺度来衡量它们，甚至在一开始可能都很难对它们进行评估。

我建议你依靠自己的直觉（而不是希望）来寻找可能缺乏这些品质的人，不仅是在行为上，还包括你的恋爱对象的面部特征、语言和手势。做好以下准备 it might take quite a while to figure out someone’s faults, especially if you don’t yet live together.  Try not to fully commit to a relationship until you’ve spent at least one year living together – that is often (but not always) enough for masks to fall. Of course, by that time your partner might decide you lack some of those qualities, so it pays off to practice self-awareness.

* 预测 可定义为感知 我们自己的 感情、意图和特征，无论是真实的还是想象的，都属于 别人.

转移 是指无意识地将眼前的人视为 别人 – usually somebody important from your past – and react with similar feelings and behaviors as if that other person were there.

相关文章

如何保持激情

自尊与爱情关系

当伴侣成为父母的替代品时会发生什么？

所有文章 

在线辅导