Welcome to "Therapy Shorts", a collection of quick insights and gentle nudges to help you along your healing journey. These posts, published twice per week with a short audio, provide bite-sized wisdom to help you grow and discover yourself. Join me as we investigate the small ways we can bring peace, clarity, and connection into our lives.
This week is about Stages of a Relationship.
How many of us lose ourselves when we meet that new special person? I’ve done it and no doubt you have too. We find the early stages of a relationship intoxicating, addictive and our world is fully in order because this person has suddenly dropped out of the sky and into our lives to wash away everything that went before. No, we don’t (at this point) worry about their past or those pesky red flags that might spoil the picture. This is great and it will stay this way and nothing can change that view in our minds. Yet, we should be more cautious than we are in the early phases, much more and we need to in a way, fight our brain to be able to do it.
During the infatuation and honeymoon stage of a relationship (lasting up to 6 months to one year), our brain chemical changes. Chemicals like dopamine and norepinephrine are released in excess in the brain during the honeymoon period of a relationship, intensifying feelings of pleasure, euphoria, and excitement. Reduced serotonin levels lead to recurrent and even compulsive thoughts about your partner. Physical intimacy raises oxytocin and vasopressin levels, which fosters trust and a sense of bonding. Strong emotions, butterflies in the stomach, and an almost compulsive need to be near your partner are the results of this concoction of brain chemicals. These alterations explain why the honeymoon period is so unforgettable and why early love feels so thrilling and all-consuming.
This cocktail of chemicals feels extremely nice but can also leave us open to making decisions we might regret later, or indeed, subject us to the threat of manipulation and abuse. I have known new couples get married, become pregnant, buy houses and commit to a lifetime of “love” with someone they hardly know. That is the power of the brain. On many occasions, the couples have regretted making such decisions later in the relationship.
So, what’s the answer? As I tell clients, enjoy this period of bonding but see it for what it is. A chemicals and hormone driven time that should be enjoyed but wait to make that decision until it is over, when your brain has returned to normal!
