Love Grows With Us
Love does increase over time for romantic couples, but commitment and satisfaction need to be there too, for it to last.
Do intimate partners really love each other more with each passing year, as suggested by the Hallmark anniversary or Valentine's Day card? Do they see their love getting better over time? A study on premarital relationship development in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published by the American Psychological Association explores how love improves over time for romantic couples if satisfaction and commitment increase too.
'Love does tend to grow, but loving each other may not prevent break-up,' according to psychologist Susan Sprecher, Ph.D., of Illinois State University. 'Couples break up because of decreased levels of satisfaction in the relationship-not because they stop loving each other.'
Dr. Sprecher discovered that satisfaction and commitment were as, or more, important than love for couples in their desire to stay together by surveying both partners of 101 heterosexual couples at a Midwestern university. She examined both their actual and perceived changes in love, satisfaction and commitment for each other over a four-year period.
By the end of the study, 59 percent of the couples had ended their relationships. These couples reported decreased levels of satisfaction and commitment before the relationship actually ended, but said that their love remained unchanged.
'These results suggest that people do not end their relationship because of the disappearance of love,' said Dr. Sprecher, 'but because of a dissatisfaction or unhappiness that develops, which may cause love to stop growing.' She also noted that love might not completely end when the relationship ends.
Of the 41 couples who remained together, 71 percent had married. The couples who remained together reported that their love, satisfaction and commitment increased over time. Furthermore, the largest increase was in their commitment for one another.
Article: 'I Love You More Today Than Yesterday': Romantic Partners' Perceptions of Changes in Love and Related Affect Over Time,' by Susan Sprecher, Ph.D., Illinois State University, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 76, No. 1.
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