While researching the components of successful long-term partnerships, Brynin found intense first loves could set unrealistic benchmarks, against which we judge future relationships. "If you had a very passionate first relationship and allow that feeling to become your benchmark for a relationship dynamic, then it becomes inevitable that future, more adult partnerships will seem boring and a disappointment," he said.
Dr Gayle Brewer, a lecturer in social psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, agreed: "If you judge adult relationships against your first relationship, you are using a single benchmark: that of an intense and unrealistic passion," she said. "Adult relationships need all sorts of other virtues to survive, many of which are not compatible with that level of intensity. For example, you might have felt passionate about your first love because their spontaneity was breathtakingly exciting.
"Adult relationships, however, require people to be committed and reliable. Someone who excels in spontaneity is unlikely to also have those characteristics. So you're caught in a bind: the characteristics that excite you are the ones that lead to the failure of an adult relationship. If you emotionally fixate on having the excitement, while knowing you need the reliability, you're making demands that no relationship can satisfy," she added.
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Interesting...
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