It is hard to believe that our feelings and the logic of relationships in a pair are genetically programmed. But the behavior characteristic of lovers has developed over millions of years of evolution. “This is true,” says Sergey Savelyev, doctor of biological sciences, author of the book “The Origin of the Brain”. “Our distant ancestors simply did not have time for romance: the main goal was to survive and continue their family.”

It was this need that forced people to unite in pairs: it is difficult to protect the child in solitude, get food for him and at the same time protect himself and him from predators. But something else was needed that would make a man and a woman stick together.
“We can say that this is how love arose. Thanks to this feeling, two adults were able to admire each other, and so much so that they wanted to live together and suffered when they parted, ”says French neuroscientist Lucy Vinsan. “The chemical processes that took place in the brain seemed to blind them: they did not notice each other's flaws, felt integrity and fullness, and emotionally depended on the partner.”
The power of this feeling allowed the couple to stay together for the survival of the child, and after about three years, when he grew up and could do a lot on his own, it faded away. “One parent was now enough for survival,” continues Sergey Savelyev. - Why stay together if the task of procreation is completed? From an evolutionary point of view, such a question is quite logical.”

The power of hormones
“As in ancient times, the love feeling of a modern person is controlled by his brain,” says Sergey Savelyev. “And all in order to help preserve the human genome: we must continue our family, and the brain forces us to behave in such a way as to achieve this goal in the best way.”

Helen Fisher, a professor of anthropology at the University of Rutgers in the USA, conducted research on the nature and chemistry of love for 30 years. They showed that its various stages - romantic love and long-term affection - differ from each other by neurological and biochemical signs. But each is accompanied by an increase in the hormonal background. The feeling of love is associated with androgens and estrogens, stable love relationships - with dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, a feeling of affection - with oxytocin and vasopressin. When the brain normalizes and returns to its usual rhythm, hormones stop stimulating the emotional dependence of partners on each other.

At this moment, the hormone oxytocin begins to play of particular importance. It seems to help the couple overcome the resulting crisis moment in a relationship. His blood level rises when two caress each other, kiss, make love, and even when they talk peacefully at dinner. Oxytocin stimulates the immune system, slows the heartbeat, thanks to it our body relaxes. And we feel a deep sense of unity and affection. “Falling in love makes us focus on one specific person - this is how we save time and energy,” says Helen Fisher. “And affection encourages us to live with one partner for a long time.” Perhaps that is why those couples who maintain a warm, gentle relationship, and three years after the first meeting, live together for a long time. Partners are aware that they are no longer emotionally dependent on each other, they have no need to be together every minute. And at the same time they are happy.
“Perhaps true love begins from this moment,” suggests Jungian analyst Robert Johnson. “Partners strive to learn, understand another as an ordinary, real person, begin to love him in that capacity and take care of him.”

Should I leave?
It is difficult for lovers to imagine that excitement, a strong emotional dependence on each other will pass in about three years, and a crisis may arise in family relationships.
“At the end of the phase of insane love, when we do not get the“ supporting ”sense of brain signals, the moment of awakening comes,” comments Lucy Vinsan. - Our satellite no longer seems irresistible to us, on the contrary, “unexpectedly” we find many flaws in it. There is a feeling that we were deceived. And we think about the fact that perhaps we were just mistaken in the choice. ” Since the partner at this moment experiences about the same, there is a danger of a real breakdown in relations.
Those of us who respond to the cooling of feelings too rapidly and quickly and consider the separation to be the only possible reaction to what is happening, risk getting into a vicious circle. Starting a new relationship and experiencing new love, they may never experience true love.
Scientists at the University of London University Andreas Bartles and Semir Zeki scanned the brain of students in love and found that love activates mechanisms similar to those that give rise to a state of euphoria from drugs.
“Moreover,“ love affection ”is formed according to the same algorithm as drug addiction,” says psychophysiologist Alexander Chernorizov. - A person again and again seeks to reproduce forms of behavior that have already led to a feeling of pleasure, in a broad sense - to success. And this is a biologically justified algorithm. ”
“Lovers are always in a high spirits, they can’t sleep, they don’t want to eat,” says psychologist Ekaterina Vashukova. “Chemicals provoking euphoria can also be addictive.” Having started new novels, some of us are striving to return to this intoxicating state.
But such people are rapidly developing tolerance for “drugs of love”, so their novels are so short-term. Physical attraction, not supported by feelings, also leads to the development of "euphoric" substances, but for a much shorter period and in smaller quantities.

More than chemistry.
“The brain and the chemical processes occurring in it, of course, affect our behavior, but love is never fully programmed,” said Alexander Chernorizov. - Of course, we are dependent on the “hormonal component” of love attraction - this is the ancient driving force of our survival. But hormone chemistry alone is not enough to explain success or failure in a relationship. The power of hormones is great, but the power of personal, social experience is great. In real life, these factors act together, and it cannot be argued that one of them takes precedence. ” When Helen Fisher was asked how she treats love after she received the results of her research, she replied: “I studied the mechanism of love, but this did not at all reduce her charm in my eyes. After all, you continue to enjoy the dessert, even if they describe its composition in detail? ” Knowing that the information recorded in the genes affects our feelings and behavior, that at some point hormones influence us, does not detract from the happiness that we experience next to our loved one. And our desire to maintain and continue relations with him. On the contrary, now we have the opportunity to reason differently: the addiction is over - there is time to think about the development of our relationship.

“Do not lock yourself up”
Why is it dangerous to pre-set the expiration date for relations? What is the attractiveness of this approach? And how to overcome the crisis of three years?
“Love lives only three years” - why is this installation so in demand?
Wedding as a one-time event, fidelity as an indisputable value - such is the centuries-old position of Christian society. The modern world uses other ideas, in particular, that love lasts three years. This is a very market installation. She doesn’t just allow her partner to be abandoned in three years, she simply obliges to do it! We are already participating in the conveyor of constant change. Under pressure from society, we change cars, housing, clothes for more fashionable and prestigious ones. And lately we have been doing this more and more often. Now our relationship is drawn into this movement. An ordinary life can push to a decision to part with a partner: in any relationship there are periods of love, routine, difficulties, conflicts. And at some point it may seem that love has passed. Society offers ways not to solve, but to distract from these problems. The problems are only exacerbated, which ultimately leads to a break. And to the search for new partners and relationships in which all the same difficulties arise. This situation creates a situation of adulters, mutual betrayals, makes it the norm of life. It is very difficult to believe in the psychological well-being of a person who again and again experiences a wonderful period of love, but has not learned how to build relationships, solve difficulties. So his life will not be complete. Perhaps the thoughts that love is doomed in advance are attractive and romantic for some of us? To believe in this idea is to kill your love. If, barely starting to meet, people think about how they part, their relationship turns out to be shrouded in a mourning fleur. This context takes part of the attention from love itself, and it really quickly fades away. By and large, this is always a losing situation. How can one change family relationships when it seems that they are completed? When the period of love passes and the scenes of the showdown begin to repeat, like a hackneyed record, you need to make an effort and break out of this circle to change your own life. Only then does the prospect of new relationships appear, new meetings within the former family, in which not a housewife and breadwinner or, say, a matron and henpecked live, but two full-fledged partners, each of whom has his own life. They do not confine to family relationships, live dynamically, change, but at the same time interact. There are problems in such a marriage too. But they become an incentive for the change, development of each of the partners, and not an occasion for monotonous conflicts that lead to the thought: “Enough, as much as possible, you have to diverge!” The development of each of the partners and their joint development as a couple helps them understand and feel that love does not die in three years - it continues to live, gaining new looks.