Helen Fisher, PhD

James Brosnan

12 Things People Get Wrong About Relationships

Psychology Today, February 7, 2022

Problems don’t disappear, and you don’t always have to be happy.

  • Love is important—but too many couples focus on the passion and forget the friendship. Passion fades and there are many ways to feel love.
  • Believing in soulmates is a myth that leads to a lot of unrealistic expectations about what your partner “should” do and who they “should” be.
  • Love is tough. You won’t always be happy and problems don’t magically disappear.
  • Successful relationships start with knowing yourself and knowing what you want.

Read the Article at Psychology Today (opens in new window)

This is Your Brain on Heartbreak

Love changes us at a physiological level, making us more sensitive to joy—and to pain.
By Florence Williams

We all know that when love is good, it’s really good. Research shows that romantic attachments, when they’re healthy and supportive, can be immensely beneficial for our health. Married people tend to live longer than single people and seem to fare better when seriously sick. But as poets and pop singers have long told us, when love goes awry, it hurts like nothing else. After my marriage ended—not by my choice—I found some comfort in art, but what I really wanted was science. I wanted to know why we feel so operatically sad when a romantic attachment dissolves. What I discovered is that love changes us so deeply—at a physiological level—that when it’s lost, we hurt more than if we had never loved at all.

Read more at TheAtlantic.com (opens in a new window)