How to keep long-term love strong
Long-term love runs on daily deposits, not grand gestures. Two underrated engines — gratitude and novelty — keep attraction alive after the honeymoon phase.
Small moments of attention are one part of keeping a long relationship alive. In Gottman’s account of an observational study of newlyweds, couples still married six years later had turned toward their partners’ bids more often than couples who divorced (about 86% versus 33% on average). That comparison does not rank bids against conflict style or compatibility as predictors of relationship stability.
When early intensity changes — and what that means
Early intensity can change as a relationship develops. This is not evidence for a universal 12–18-month dopamine switch or for the idea that sustained romantic intensity is biologically impossible. Those claims go beyond the research cited here.
Acevedo et al. (2012) studied 17 people selected because they reported intense love after an average of 21.4 years of marriage. When participants viewed their partner, brain scans showed activity in dopamine-rich reward regions alongside regions implicated in attachment. This selected, cross-sectional sample cannot establish how common lasting intensity is or when feelings change in any one couple; fMRI did not measure dopamine release. Read the study ↗
Esther Perel (2006) asks how couples can sustain desire alongside security. Her account offers a way to think about attention and novelty, not a timetable for a biological change that every couple must undergo. Familiarity need not be the enemy of desire.
Our practical advice is to make room for ordinary acts of care, especially when routine makes attention easy to miss. This is editorial guidance. The cited newlywed follow-up does not measure a prevalence of maintenance strategies among couples feeling connected after ten or twenty years.
Two underrated engines: gratitude and novelty
Most relationship advice defaults to communication and conflict resolution — useful, but they address problems. Gratitude and novelty are what build the surplus that makes conflict survivable.
Gratitude works by reversing the familiarity tax. The longer two people live together, the more their partner’s contributions become background noise. You stop noticing the coffee made, the logistics handled, the detail remembered. Gottman’s prescription in The Love Prescription (2022) is specific: name the routine acts, not just the exceptional ones. ‘Thank you for making sure we had milk’ is not a small thing when said with presence — it signals that you are still paying attention. Partners who feel seen tend to increase effort; it compounds.
Novelty sustains desire because familiarity alone erodes the sense of self-expansion. Arthur Aron’s research on shared novel activities demonstrates that couples who regularly do things neither of them has done before report higher relationship satisfaction than those who stick to comfortable routines. The mechanism is not excitement for its own sake — it is that each person becomes, again briefly, a source of new experience for the other. This is the same dynamic that made the early relationship feel alive. You can engineer it deliberately. See our piece on attraction and dating for more on how novelty operates in the psychology of desire.
The explicit stance: small daily deposits beat grand anniversaries
Here is the unhedged claim this post is making: the anniversary dinner is overrated. Not worthless — rituals matter — but our editorial view is that relationship health is built in the unremarkable daily moments, not the milestone events.
Gottman’s concept of the emotional bank account makes the math legible. Every bid for connection that is met adds a deposit. Every bid ignored or dismissed makes a withdrawal. Grand gestures are single large deposits that do not offset the deficit accumulated by months of small withdrawals. A week of consistent turning-toward — noticing, responding, touching deliberately — builds more trust than a weekend away planned to make up for inattention.
This is also where Kanwer Singh’s (Humble the Poet) framing in How to Be Love(d) (2022) lands hardest. Love as a feeling is unreliable; love as a daily practice is something you can actually do. On the days when the feeling is faint — and in every long relationship those days exist — choosing the action is what sustains the relationship and, with time, regenerates the feeling.
Robert Greene’s observation in The Art of Seduction (2001) adds a useful counterpoint: one genuine sacrifice, something that visibly costs you something, carries more relational weight than months of verbal reassurance. The reason is credibility. A sacrifice makes your prioritisation legible in a way that words cannot replicate. Ethically applied, this is simply about being willing to be inconvenienced for the person you love — and making sure they can see it.
One final principle from Kevin Fredericks (Marriage Be Hard, 2022): dream together, not merely side by side. Long-term couples who share forward-facing vision — a place they want to go, something they want to build, a goal that belongs to both — have a source of energy that pure contentment cannot supply. The relationship becomes a project, not just a state.
For the conversational structure that makes all of this feel less forced, our guide on communication for couples is the natural next step — particularly the section on how to build rituals around daily check-ins without them becoming interrogations.
References
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Reference The Love Prescription
Gottman, J., & Gottman, J. S. (2022). Penguin Random House.
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Reference Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
Perel, E. (2006). Harper.
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Reference The Art of Seduction
Greene, R. (2001). Viking Penguin.
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Reference How to Be Love(d)
Singh, K. (Humble the Poet). (2022). HarperOne.
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Reference Marriage Be Hard
Fredericks, K., & Fredericks, K. (2022). Crown.
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Reference Self-expansion model
Aron, A., & Aron, E. N. (1986). Love and the expansion of self. Hemisphere.
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Reference Neural correlates of long-term intense romantic love
Acevedo, B. P., Aron, A., Fisher, H. E., & Brown, L. L. (2012). Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(2), 145–159.
https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq092
FAQ
Does the honeymoon phase have to end?
Not necessarily. The research cited here does not establish a fixed 12–18-month dopamine peak or an inevitable switch from passion to attachment. Acevedo et al. (2012) scanned 17 people selected for still feeling intensely in love after an average of 21.4 years of marriage; partner images activated dopamine-rich reward regions as well as areas associated with attachment. The study did not measure dopamine release or track how feelings changed over time, and this selected group cannot tell us how common lasting intensity is. A change in your early rush is not, by itself, a verdict on your relationship.
What does 'turning toward' mean and why does it matter?
Turning toward is John Gottman's term for responding to a partner's bid for attention or connection. In his observational account of newlyweds, couples still married six years later had turned toward about 86 % of bids on average, versus 33 % among couples who divorced. Those are group averages from one follow-up, not a target that every couple must hit or evidence that this response outperforms other predictors.
How can gratitude strengthen a long-term relationship?
Gratitude works by counteracting the negativity bias that familiarity amplifies. The longer we know someone, the more their ordinary efforts become invisible — we stop noticing them and start expecting them. Gottman (The Love Prescription, 2022) recommends expressing thanks specifically for routine acts: a made coffee, a picked-up dry-cleaning run, a remembered detail. The specificity is the point — 'thanks for handling that' signals that you actually saw the effort. Partners who feel seen increase their own effort; it is a compounding loop, not a transaction.
How do you keep curiosity alive in a long-term relationship?
Treat your partner as perpetually incomplete — because they are. People change continuously, and the version of your partner you knew at year two is not the person at year ten. Gottman recommends open-ended questions that go beyond logistics: not 'how was your day?' but 'what is something you have been thinking about lately that you haven't told me?' This kind of curiosity also signals respect — it communicates that you still want to know, not that you assume you already do. Our guide on how to express needs to your partner covers the conversational moves that make these exchanges feel safe rather than clinical.
Why does novelty help sustain attraction?
Arthur Aron's self-expansion research shows that humans are drawn to experiences that grow their sense of self. In early relationships, partners expand each other constantly — new perspectives, new activities, new feelings of aliveness. Over time, if the couple stops generating new shared experiences, each person stops being a source of growth for the other. The solution is intentional novelty: activities neither of you has done before, a different restaurant neighbourhood, a weekend trip somewhere unfamiliar. Esther Perel (2006) frames this as the interplay between security and freedom — desire needs some distance and mystery to survive proximity.
Is physical touch really that important after years together?
If you both want it, affectionate touch can be part of everyday care. Ask what feels welcome and respect a no. This is practical advice, not an oxytocin explanation or a prescription that every couple should follow.
What is 'love as a verb' and why does it matter for long-term couples?
The idea, articulated by Kanwer Singh (Humble the Poet) in How to Be Love(d) (2022), is that love is not a feeling you passively receive — it is a set of actions you choose, repeatedly. This reframe matters for long-term couples because the feeling of love fluctuates by design; relying on it as a signal tells you nothing about what to do on the days it feels faint. Choosing the actions — the check-in, the touch, the question — tends to regenerate the feeling, not the other way around. Singh also warns against ego-driven approval-seeking that substitutes for genuine connection; long-term love requires less performance and more presence.
How much scheduled 'couple time' do you actually need?
Choose time together that suits both of you. A regular walk or a planned outing are options, not a research-proven ranking of formats or a required weekly dose.
Can a single sacrifice really outweigh months of reassurance?
Robert Greene (The Art of Seduction, 2001) makes the counterintuitive claim that one genuine sacrifice — something that costs you something real, visibly chosen for the other person — lands with more emotional weight than sustained verbal reassurance. The reason is credibility: words are cheap and repetitive; a sacrifice demonstrates prioritisation in a way that cannot be faked. The ethical reframe here is important: this is not manipulation, it is legibility. Telling your partner they matter is less visible than showing it through a concrete choice that makes the preference unmistakable.
What is the biggest threat to long-term love?
There is no single, research-established biggest threat: this guide does not establish that contempt outranks every other predictor of separation. Patterns worth addressing early include mockery, displays of superiority, and criticism of a partner's character rather than their behavior. Discuss specific behavior rather than labeling the other person’s character; seek support if the situation feels unsafe.
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