‘Til Nonlimerence Do Us Part.

                                                                             Photo by Sophie-G. Ritter

 

Scientists claim to have discovered that true love can and does last.  By scanning the brains of couples together for more than 20 years and comparing them to those newly in love, they found that a small percentage – a shockingly low one in ten – experience the same brain chemical reaction when shown photographs of their loved ones.  This they call “limerence” and if you are lucky enough to still have some floating around your brain cells then you must be enjoying what the scientists at Stony Brook University in New York call “intensive companionship and sexual liveliness.”

This new discovery  worrries me – a lot.  Firstly, because that means that nine in every ten couples I know, including possibly my own couplehood, could be nonlimerent ergo no longer in love.  Secondly, show me a picture of Mr. Jules and I tend to laugh as he takes a notoriously bad photo with an uncanny resemblance to “Ivan the Terrible”.  

Ummmmmm.  It is a dangerous crossroads where love and science meet and I don’t believe that number of one in ten.  It is such a depressing thought.  I and almost all of the couples I know, may not be experiencing the first joys of flushed cheeks and overwhelming desire but most are enjoying intense companionship and contentedness, even fun with their partners – especially if given half the chance which means a babysitter and a free afternoon preferably in a hotel room.   

It takes more than a smattering of a brain chemical to keep a marriage alive.  What is required is dedication and commitment from two people.  It takes patience, careful husbandry (!), an ability to know when to pick your arguments and what is worth fighting for.  I do think that having two sets of parents who stayed together and set a good example of how to live happily ever after helped both Mr. Jules and I.  As a recent Sunday Times editorial stated “The absence of love from generation to generation led to the death of baby P and other outbreaks of depravity that scarred 2008″.  The absence of love from generation to generation the eight saddest and most hopeless words ever written. 

Limerence or no limerence, what we have to pass on, what it is our duty to pass on, is the ability to get along, to respect the needs of others as well as our own and to be responsible for the decisions we have made in our lives.  If your marriage is boring then make some fun.  As one of the older loved-up couples in the experiment explained “we make sure our lives are always changing”.  This makes sense and doesn’t mean bungy jumpying in Guatamala followed by  a week of sushi making in Tokyo: It also simply means trying a different restaurant or recipe or turning off the telly one night a week.    

What I am fearful of is that there will be a rush of people taking this test: a lack of limerence proving new grounds for divorce and “nonlimerent” becoming the legal term which is just another excuse for walking away from commitment/responsibility/duty and a chance of working towards sustainable, true love.