Does True Love Last Forever?

Yes, it can, but it is unlikely to do so for two key reasons: our own emotional evolution and a lack of reciprocity.

First, as adults, we evolve through life as we age, and our needs are constantly changing to match our maturity. By the time we are 40, we are naturally a different person from the one we were at 25. Our aspirations, needs and desires, and especially how we perceive ourself, would have changed, some in subtle gradual ways, others more dramatically. It means that the love we feel for someone at 25, based on who we were then, will not necessarily last until 40 or beyond, unless that partner has evolved in the same direction with us and we have the same feelings of appreciation and value towards them.

The second major reason for love failing to stay the course is a lack of give and take - reciprocity - in the relationship. Like anything else, love has to be nurtured and sustained. However, within a few years of the partnership, it is likely that the couple will begin to get very comfortable with one another and start taking each other for granted. In short, they stop making the effort to affirm and reinforce each other in loving ways. The love between them either becomes static or goes altogether because of increasing resentment and failed expectations.

Every person who meets someone on a date and falls in love with them has the potential of enjoying everlasting love, if they love unconditionally, affirm their partner regularly, actually demonstrate that love at every opportunity and have the confidence to know what they both want in the relationship and mutually agree to it. However, all those things seldom happen in most relationships because of our emotional evolution which changes the way we view life. It means that the person we have expressed undying love for at 25, when we are inexperienced and just finding our way, is seldom likely to be the one we find attractive when we have reached a more experienced 45 years when our expectations are different and our values and attitude to life have changed remarkably.

In the end it is our basic need for change as we develop that prevents us loving anyone forever. No matter how wonderful the person, after a good while with them, we really just want to try something new.

What does your home mean to you? Is your relationship/marriage holding you back? Try our RELATIONSHIP QUIZ to test how you feel about your partnership. A bad relationship robs you of a life because it has a domino effect on everything else. Find out the state of yours now.

ELAINE SIHERA (http://www.myspace.com/elaineone) is an expert author, public speaker, media contributor and lifestyle columnist. The first Black graduate of the OU and a post-graduate of Cambridge University. Elaine is a Personal Empowerment and Relationships Consultant. Confidential advice is available on the quiz site. Author of: 10 Easy Steps to Growing Older Disgracefully; 10 Easy Steps to Finding Your Ideal Soulmate!; Money, Sex & Compromise, among others (available on http://www.amazon.co.uk as well as her personal website). She describes herself as, "Fit, Fabulous, Over-fifty and Ready to Fly!"

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