We’ve all heard of—and likely experienced—the “honeymoon” stage of a relationship, but like all good things, that hormone-driven and infatuation-loaded phase has to come to an end. That’s not to say that the next steps in love as not as passionate, but no healthy relationship can experience the first stage alone. You need the next two processes to know if your partner is truly “the one.”
Throughout our work in the “Love Lab,” we’ve observed couples and relationships to find the exact conditions of each of the three stages of love. To find out which one you’re in, and which await you, see which stage fits yours best:
First stage: Limerence
During this stage you are in a state of chemical confusion and constant oxytocin overdose. This heady cocktail of infatuation is made up of oxytocin, dopamine, phenylethylamine (PEA), testosterone, estrogen, serotonin, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you can’t stop obsessively thinking about your partner, you are crazy excited, head over heels in love, and you may find yourself doing some wild things—and the same may be true for whoever the lucky person is who sets off this cascade of hormones and other chemicals in your body.
When both of you are in limerence, it feels remarkable, wonderful—like the best drug in the world that can’t be prescribed, grown, or sold on a street corner. But while you are both under the influence is not the time to make a long-term commitment. This is not the time to rush off to a wedding chapel in Vegas and get married because you think he’s the one. It’s great to be in love, but remember that oxytocin lowers your fear response and can also make you trust someone even when there are red flags popping up and neon signs that are flashing “dangerous curves ahead.” Oxytocin can make you blind to these obvious signals.
Second stage: Building trust
During the second stage of love, you start to come down from this hormonal love drug and the haze begins to clear. You start to see the red flags that you ignored before. Stage two is all about building trust. This stage usually takes place during the first couple years of a relationship and as you progress toward living together. The evolutionary drive in this stage is about reproductive care. If evolutionary biology tells us that stage one is about finding the best genetic fit for mating, stage two is about finding out who will help you care for your offspring—whether you are consciously planning to have children or not. (Biology doesn’t care about what you think.)
What this looks like is trust. Will she be there for me? Will he be there for me? In stage two, many of the qualities that first attracted you to someone may become a source of annoyance or concern.
All of the arguing in this stage of love is around trust and one question: Will you be there for me if I need you? This can look like many other questions: Will you be sexually faithful? Will you take care of me if I’m sick? How important am I to you? Can I trust you to do what you say you are going to do, and keep commitments? These questions, and arguments about these questions, are all precursors to having chil- dren.
Third stage: Building loyalty
When you are in the third stage of love, you’ve chosen commitment. You know that this man is the man for you—it’s an amazing choice to make, but it also means that you’re vulnerable and you can get hurt. In this stage, you’ve chosen to go down the rabbit hole with your partner and to take an amazing journey together. You are committed to another person’s well-being as much as you are committed to your own. This is powerful, and it goes both ways. Each of the stages of love is selective, and this third stage only works out if you are both committed to monogamy and mutual sacrifice for one another. If you are not monogamous in this stage, you open the door to experiencing limerence (stage one) love with another person.
Now, not all commitments lead to marriage and a lifetime together, but we believe, and the research shows, that men are happier, healthier, make more money, and live longer when they are married. We’re not telling you to get married as a preventative health measure, but we know—from personal experience and from the research—that a deep, stage-three committed relationship with an incredible woman is deeply satisfying on every level. For gay men, the same is true about having a stage-three committed relationship with an incredible man. A man becomes his best self when he has a real partner in life at his side.
What do you get when you give up the possibility of sleeping with any person who crosses your path? A lifetime of love and happiness, if you’re willing to work at it. Nothing more. Nothing less.
