Despite the fact that there are a number of marriages that end up in divorce, there are still those couples who have enjoyed very long relationships. Brain scans have proved that a small number of people can respond with as much love and passion after 20 years of relationship as most of us experience only in the first days of our relationships.

 

The scientists scanned the brains of couples who had been together for 20 years and compared them with those of new lovers. They found that their MRIs showed activity in the same regions of the brain as those who were in their first days of love.

 

Previous research has suggested that the first stages of romantic love fade within 15 months and after 7 years the butterflies are gone forever.

Researchers said that after years of romantic love, the couples can enjoy “intensive companionship and sexual liveliness.” They named such veteran couples swans and compared them with swans, voles and grey foxes which stay paired for a lifetime.

 

“The findings go against the traditional view of romance - that it drops off sharply in the first decade - but we are sure it's real,” said Arthur Aron, a social psychologist at Stony Brook University and co-author of the study.

 

The study was presented in November at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

 

The brains of veteran couples also showed less anxiety and obsessiveness. About one in 10 couples still displayed elements of what psychologists call “limerence” – the term for the obsessive behaviour of new lovers. Limerence is characterized by intrusive thinking and pronounced sensitivity to external situations and events and it can be experienced as intense joy or as extreme despair. These persons are generous, calm and deeply attached.

Studies showed that elderly couples who married when they were young are still deeply in love with each other. But there has been little research on the individual factors that influence the evolution of long-term couple relationships. Couples who have worked on finding a number of ways to communicate with each other are more likely to be satisfied with their relationship.

 

Previous studies have shown the importance of social interaction between couples, demonstrating that marriage or having a partner halved the risk of developing dementia. Studies found a greater risk of developing cognitive impairment for all those who live alone, whether single, divorced or widowed. Social isolation or lack of personal contact also carries an increased risk of dementia and mental decline.