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Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares.
—William Shakespeare
At age eighteen this playwright married a lady of twenty-six, fathered a baby six months later, indulged in out-of wedlock sex, left his wife three years later, went on to multiple affairs with younger females, and wrote 126 love poems to a male known only as “Young Lord” or “Fair Youth.”1 Obviously the bard knew a thing or two about the nightmares part!
I far prefer this quotation written by a man who had once been a motorcycle messenger and a mechanic. The insightful author, Louis de Bernières, acknowledged the madness of romance yet understood that only those who wait until the frenzy passes will discover the magic of true love.
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. . . . That is just being “in love” which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when “being in love” has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.2
At the beginning of your relationship, the delirium of discovery and fantasies of the future make the chemicals in your brain gush like a new oil well. You’re singing in the rain, dancing between the stars, frolicking on cloud nine. The frenzy is so fantastic that reality doesn’t get through to the brighter part of your brain up front. You and your beloved close your eyes to all the signs: “Warning!” “Danger Ahead!” “Proceed with caution!” Early love is definitely not a drug-free zone.
Huntresses, after you’re engaged, girlfriends flock around you, oohing and aahing over your ring. Caterers call to tempt you with delicious finger foods that your wedding guests will devour. Bakers entice you with pictures of multitiered white castles with a miniature of you and your lucky man on top. On the big day you will wear the most exquisite dress you’ll ever own, and he will look so dashing in his tux.
Hunters, you may be less involved in the preparations for the big day, but you’re just as excited. Your buddies tease and slap you on the back. But under their joking put-downs, you know you’ve got one up on them because you’ve found the one. And besides, the guys throw you one helluva good bachelor party.
Your family and friends will give you ridiculously costly crystal, kitchen gadgets, and tchotchkes. Then you’ll cast off on the real Love Boat, a cruise to the Caribbean to drink Mai Tais on the beach, dance ’til dawn, and indulge in lovemaking that would make rabbits seem celibate.
But the bridal industry has a dirty little secret that wedding magazines and vendors don’t tell you. When you come home from the honeymoon, no one makes a fuss over you anymore. No bakers begging, no caterers calling, no friends congratulating. You become just normal folks. At that point you look at each other and think, “Where have all the hours gone? Is it really over? Where’s all the excitement?”
Is either of you disappointed in your mate or wish you hadn’t taken the big step? Of course not! You still love each other as much as ever and know in your heart you made the right choice. So what’s happening? Why is it no longer as exhilarating?
Journalists write about a phenomenon called “postwedding blues.” Sociologists say “postnuptial depression.”3 But only Cognitive Science can tell you precisely why you feel this way. Up until the honeymoon cruise ship sailed home, dopamine was gushing like a volcano. Your systems were swimming with serotonin, and both your pleasure centers were as bright as flashing cameras taking beautiful pictures of what was to come.
“Okay, no big deal,” you shrug. Life is good, your mate is great, and your love is strong. The small discoveries about your loved one give you a chuckle. The way he scrunches the toothpaste and leaves the cap off is so cute. You smile at the way she “gently hints” you should take out the garbage. Dopamine and serotonin start dancing again.
However, this time it’s more of a waltz than a samba. Pleasure Island lights up again, but now it’s more like a night-light than a spotlight. You settle into a routine. Up at seven, off to work at eight, back home by six, dinner by seven, a few hours in front of a screen, and to bed by eleven.
Sex is still good, but she’s put away the beaded penis wrap and mirrors. She doesn’t scream as loud, and he’s down from an hour of foreplay to ten minutes. And then there’s her occasional headache. You no longer crave his company every minute or thrill to her tiniest touch. His phone calls, which you once awaited with fervor, become a familiar ring. Face it, we get used to things. Even the best experiences, when repeated, become ho-hum.
Time continues to march on. You’ve been together for two years now. You’re still happy together and think the other is terrific. But where’s the sizzle? Where’s the spice?
Studies say the fizzle-on-the-sizzle effect inevitably takes place between eighteen months to two years of constant togetherness.4 His touch no longer ignites Sparks. Her body no longer incites animal hunger. But here’s the real tragedy: Many couples feel that love is cooling along with the passion.
Last Fourth of July, I was part of the oohing and aahing crowd straining their necks staring up at the fabulous Macy’s fireworks show. A family with three little tots stood next to me. Unfortunately, Mommy and Daddy had only one pair of shoulders each. I hoisted one of the little boys up as high as I could. To me, his joyful squealing was far more exciting than the artistic explosions overhead. After the last incredible blast that lit up the sky as bright as midday, I put him down. “NO!” he howled. “It’s not over. It can’t be.”
As his little arms stretched up for me to lift him again, I said, “I’m afraid it is over. But wasn’t it beautiful?”
“No, it can’t be over,” he screamed again. “There’s more. There’s got to be.” When I kneeled down and shook my head, tears flooded his eyes in disbelief.
Sadly, that’s the way many couples feel when the fireworks in a relationship are over. When the deliciously passionate drugs of phase one diminish or disappear, they face a dilemma. They look at each other through tears and ask themselves, “Is love really over?”
“No! No! No!” I want to shout at these people who once passionately loved each other. Robert Browning grasped the truth when he wrote, “The last of love for which the first was made. . . . The best is yet to come.”5
And neuroscience agrees.
You may have been devastated when you discovered the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus were myths. But because of what you’re going to learn in the rest of this chapter, you don’t need to fear that “happily ever after” will be next.
If you’ve been buried in neuroscience night and day for the past few years as I have, you’re probably sick to death of hearing about the prairie vole. I was too—at first. Until I fell in love with the little creature. Everyone does, except farmers whose crops he chomps on. When you hear more about this cute critter’s lifestyle, you’ll love him too.
Many people mistake this tiny animal that lives in the prairies and meadows for a mouse, but he’s got stockier legs, a shorter tail, teensy eyes, and almost hidden ears. He is absolutely adorable and very admirable.
The loveliest thing about these little meadow mice is that when they fall in love and mate, they stay together forever.6 Upon meeting his future lifelong partner, the male has wild round-the-clock love-making with her for twenty-four hours. After that he’s a goner. The couple sleeps cuddled together, grooms each other, and raises the kids together as loving parents.
Unlike the nasty lab rat we discussed earlier, this faithful little meadow mouse won’t even look at another female. The experiment proving this is amazing to watch. Researchers put the “husband” meadow mouse in a center cage sandwiched between two other cages.7 One adjoining cage contains his “wife” and on the opposite side “the other woman.” No matter how hot the other female may be—for a meadow mouse, that is—he won’t even go sniff her out. He prefers the side of the cage closest to his “wife.”
Infidelity is practically unheard of in his species. If his true love dies, it’s a rare meadow mouse that will go on to “marry” again.8 The big question: Why is this faithful mouse so different from practically all other male mammals, birds, and fish in our world?
You may have guessed. It’s Chemistry, of course. Just like humans falling in love and staying in love, his devotion comes from naturally produced substances. The first time the two furry little creatures have sex, a big dose of the bonding chemicals we’ve discussed, oxytocin and vasopressin, flood through their systems. In the prairie vole it sticks. And here’s what’s so amazing. Without these chemicals they would become sexually promiscuous rats.9 In fact, when lab scientists extracted the fidelity chemicals from the devoted little male, he started chasing tail just as much as other species. In addition, his true love’s motherly instinct went right out the cage window.
There is another 99 percent genetically identical animal called the “montane vole.” (I’ll give Cognitive Science students time to hiss.) He is a real bastard when it comes to family values. After having sex Pop runs off immediately to find a hotter new mouse. And it’s not just Dad who drops the family. Mom also abandons her babies soon after birth.10 At least the kids don’t have any deep psychological problems with it. They just shrug it off, grow up, and repeat the whole dysfunctional process. And to think that the only difference between the loving mice and the lousy mice is a few drops of oxytocin and vasopressin!
“Oh, no,” you may be thinking. “Are you trying to tell me all those beautiful heartfelt, lasting emotional bonds come down to chemicals?” I suppose one could look at it that way (neuroscience does), but here’s another. Like all emotions, sentiments of love, devotion, and commitment emanate from your brain. When your brain feels those sentiments, it manufactures chemicals—chemicals that create and influence feelings. So it’s the story of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or in this case, the chemicals or the emotions? And does it really matter?
The good news is that there are methods to create the loving chemicals in your lasting Love Partner’s brain. You don’t need to drug her with pills, inhalers, or liquids. You don’t need to slip secret substances into his beer. There are actual techniques, Chemistry Sparkers, to make the brain and body of your Love Partner naturally produce these exquisite chemicals.
Do I sound like a hack hawking a hair-growing magic potion from a stagecoach bandstand?
I would understand if you answered “yes” to my question. It does sound preposterous, doesn’t it? But brain imaging doesn’t lie.
One of the easiest methods of stimulating oxytocin is speaking the primal language—touch. The human need for touch starts while enveloped in the close quarters of the womb for nine months. The fetus’s more than five million skin sensory cells thrive on touch to prepare him for the large and intimidating planet he’ll inhabit.
The need for human touch doesn’t stop at birth. The moment you make your grand, squealing entrance into the world, you need it continually for healthy development. Something as simple as loving touch can make the difference between life and death for children in an orphanage, and its power remains throughout life until the very end.11 Nursing homes report its phenomenal effect on residents’ health, happiness, and longevity. And we now know the difference that loving touching makes on the health, happiness, and longevity of a couple.
All kinds of touch puts oxytocin in people’s tanks—kissing, hugging, holding hands, an affectionate caress, even incidental toe touching the other’s body while sleeping. Each touch, accidental or intended, fleeting or abiding, shoots the trust chemical into the touchee’s brain and tweaks their memories for the better. Patients who were touched in casual conversation thought their doctor had stayed with them longer. Waitresses who touched got higher tips. Dentists who touched got more referrals.12 In one study, women entering a brain scanner were told they were going to be given a shock. But when their partners touched them, their fear circuits shut down.13
I experienced something similar. Last year, sliding into one of those scary tubes for an MRI, I was silently freaking out. My partner, Giorgio, who was allowed to stay in the room, sensed this. He softly caressed one of my bare feet sticking out of the machine, and I relaxed like a midday snooze. Almost.
In case you think I’m getting too sentimental about touch, guys, you’ll appreciate this. Teams who touch more, win more! Professors from the University of California, Berkeley filmed ninety NBA games.14 The basketball teams who touched each other the most won the most. The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers were the touchiest. No names here, but teams who touched the least lost the most. Even casual guy touching like high fives, fist bumps, and back slaps boost buddyship.
Gentlemen, you may think you’re doing all that nonsexual touching just for her benefit. Well, your chances of getting same-night nookie are better if you affectionately touch her during the day. Don’t forget, her foreplay began hours, days, and weeks before. Light touch now can mean heavy sex later.
Conversely, Huntresses, you should go overboard with touch of the sexy kind. Sitting on the couch, initiate a snuggle, massage his knee, rub his chest, plant a kiss on his cheek. Use your imagination like you used to do in your Gummi bear days.
Do it anyway! Even when your long-term Love Partner (LP) is grumpy, you can boost the bonding chemicals through something called “cognitive consistency,” a natural phenomenon that means your brain and body struggle to be in agreement. It’s like when you’re feeling lousy, you grumble. When you grumble, you feel lousy. Well, when you feel love, you touch. When you touch, you feel love. Imagine your brain and body holding this conversation.
Brain: Hey there, Body, whatcha doin’? I notice you’re touching him a lot. What are you trying to tell me?
Body: Yeah, I noticed that too, Brain. I guess I’m telling you that that I love him.
Brain: Well, there certainly is a lot of physical evidence. I guess you’re right. You really do love him.
Hunters, on the street, if she’s miffed, take her hand. She may yank it away, but she’ll warm up faster. Huntresses, if he’s grouchy, slide closer to him on the couch. If he stiffens, ignore it. Your attempted snuggle has done its job.
Chemistry Sparker #68
Find Any Excuse to Touch Your LP
Hunters, give her daily light kisses, nonsexual caresses, hugs, and cheek brushings. Huntresses, initiate hand holding, putting your head on his shoulder, and making loving moves. Light touching all night long is a veritable oxytocin factory. Let your foot rest against his leg. Leave your hand on her shoulder. And of course, the ultimate is “spooning,”’ sleeping like little spoons in a drawer.
You’ve heard that people have to work to keep a relationship together. Snore. Somehow I just don’t picture “working” at a relationship being much fun. Let’s talk about playing together to stay together. That works wonders—just like enjoying the same activities sparked more Chemistry in dating.
At the beginning of your love the two of you have a blast. Maybe movies, museums, and the beach. Perhaps bicycling, boating, bowling, or beachcombing. You think this high-dopamine life is pretty cool. You want it forever, so you move in together or marry.
But guess what? Real life happens! You no longer anxiously await the next moments when you do fun things together. He’s there all the time. You’re no longer wooing her, so the great dates diminish. No more picnics or discos. No more fancy restaurants or renting row-boats. Life is not as exciting, therefore you feel your Love Partner isn’t.
This is due to the transference effect we talked about in Chapter 6. You’re no longer connecting the concept of fun to your LP. Huntresses, you now subconsciously associate him with boring evenings in front of the TV, the computer, or the latest techno gizmo. Hunters, perhaps you feel neglected because she spends all her time with the kids.
Why did all the bicycling, boating, bowling, skateboarding, and snorkeling end? Many answer, “There’s not enough time, and besides, it’s too expensive.” Well, you made time when you were dating. And little do couples know how much more it’s going to cost them in the future by not continuing to enjoy these things after they’re married. You’ll spend a lot more on divorce or marriage counseling later than you will for babysitters and movie tickets now.
You needn’t be concerned about the relationship just because the sex doesn’t give you the roller coaster thrills it once did. That’s Mother Nature’s plan. But having good shared experiences can keep you on a longer-lasting fun merry-go-round. The more you do, the more dopamine speeds up the carousel and makes it a more exciting ride.
Chemistry Sparker #69
Reinstate the Fun “Excitation Transfer” to Your LP
Ah, if only all big problems could have such a simple solution. Think of all the cool things you used to do, and make a mutual bucket list. Now go out and enjoy those thrilling activities together to raise both your dopamine levels.15 You’ll subconsciously connect the excitement to being with her. You’ll think he’s the reason you’re having such a good time.
You have probably heard about the Asian laughing clubs, the endorphin-exploding health benefits of laughter, and how kids laugh six times more than adults do. I’ll spare you repetition. Nor will I quote one of the unfunniest books I’ve ever read, Freud’s Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious, which tells you how laughter reinvokes the joys of childhood. I’ll just give you the bottom line: Laughter is very good stuff indeed.
People—primarily of the male gender—have asked me, “But what if I’m not funny?” It doesn’t matter. You may think laughter is inextricably connected to humor. Not at all! It has more to do with social interaction than it does with anything funny.16 Those serious humor researchers I mentioned earlier recorded friends hooting, hollering, and having a great time together. They found that the majority of laughter had no relation whatsoever to anything funny. It erupted simply from the joy of being together.17 Laughing with—not at—each other expresses joy at being with your lasting Love Partner.
Let me bring cognitive consistency and the transference effect back for a quick encore: When your body is laughing, your brain thinks you’re happy and, of course, your mate thinks you’re the reason for the joy.
Brain: Hey, Body, why are you laughing so much? You must be happy.
Body: Yeah, I noticed all that chuckling and stuff. I guess I am happy when I’m with my partner.
Chemistry Sparker #70
Laugh with Your Long-Term Love Partner
Laughter is contagious, a socially transmitted condition. When you laugh, your Love Partner laughs. When your Love Partner laughs, you laugh. It doesn’t make any difference who started it or what it’s about. Whoever is around at the time gets the credit. Find excuses to laugh, giggle, guffaw, and crack up together. It’s like spraying both of you with a refreshing mist of dopamine and oxytocin.
This is the question that always comes up. Millions of writers who are more interested in telling readers what they want to hear than revealing the truth say that you can keep the same early kind of intense passion alive for decades. Many of them, both best-sellers and flops, promise to keep you humping until the day you meet your maker. I put those in the fiction pile in my basement.
The media don’t know, repress, or conveniently ignore the fact that there is a chemical reason for this. A few years of sex with the same person just doesn’t give the same kicks because, as we’ve learned, dopamine diminishes with any oft-repeated pleasurable experience.
Joyously, there will always be interludes of that early sizzling sex in a marriage. Vacations and celebrations are great for that. So are those special moments when, for a multitude of reasons, you feel a tremendous rush of love. But are there ways to poke the embers in between to get them blazing constantly again?
Yes, but I don’t think you’d want some of the proven “gotta have your body” hot-sex stimulators—like constant periods of separation or frequent squabbles and then a dramatic makeup. Both are dopamine boosters, but dangerous ones.18 One unintentional derision during the dispute could be the final blow. It could hit him too hard, hurt her too much. Your emotional amygdala could turn the delicious fun-fighting-then-making-up kind of dopamine into the detesting kind. And during one too-long separation, your Love Partner might meet a tempting someone else.
“So without separations or slugging it out for excitement, can I ever put that magnificent mind-blowing kind of sex back in our relationship?” As I said at the very beginning, you can create a more magnificent kind of passion—which is really mind-blowing because only a minority of couples attain it. The most important thing to remember is: Don’t think just because sex is not as hot as it was at first that love is cooling. It could be just the opposite!
“How could that be?” you ask. Life is unfair sometimes. Oxytocin and vasopressin, the attachment chemicals that the brain produces as love grows, actually reduce a man’s testosterone.19 Here’s another of Big Mama’s chemical tricks: She further diminishes it when his wife is pregnant.20 “Why waste all that precious sperm in her when he’s already got her knocked up?” she asks. During pregnancy a wife often fears that her husband no longer finds her attractive because he doesn’t want sex as much. She’s wrong. She’s just as beautiful as ever to him. It has little to do with the big tummy and a lot to do with his lower testosterone.
There are other reasons long-term sex doesn’t give the same fireworks. Your caudate nucleus, or reward center, which has that nasty habit of living in the future, isn’t looking forward to anything new with the same partner.21 A Hunter knows how his wife looks when she’s hot. A Huntress knows how her husband sounds when he comes. No sexual surprises are around the corner, so the lights on Pleasure Island dim a little.22
Then there is the simple aging process. Mother Nature doesn’t give a flying toot about human humping later in the game. Because she’s so obsessed with propagation, she has no vested interest in you staying together much beyond childbearing. In her opinion, “Why even have sex after menopause?”
Okay, so that’s the bad news.
With devotion, respect, support, and emotional intimacy, a different type of powerful desire for each other grows.23 Sure, he no longer ravishes her like a rabbit on Viagra, and her screams don’t disturb the neighbors every night. But sex is more fulfilling because this time it grows out of deep oxytocin-filled love, not a raging testosterone rush. Your hot sex can develop into warm long-term lovemaking by using some of the other concoctions in MN’s chemistry set—the same ones she injects into new parents to bond them to the amazing baby they created together.24 By using the touch, laughter, and doing things together we discussed, you create the bonding chemical that encourages continued warm lovemaking. That kind is fulfilling not only physically but also emotionally.
Throughout history, all around the world people have sought aphrodisiacs such as the highly touted Spanish Fly, the Jamaican cow cod soup, Taiwanese deer penis, Asian dried lizard, and even (yuck) sick sperm whale vomit.25 None are as effective, however, as the following. This aphrodisiac to extend sexual desire for each other is an unspoken trade deal based on the irrefutable time honored “Give and ye shall receive” doctrine.
Hunters, you’re going to love the first. Huntresses, the second is for you.
Huntresses, sweet lovemaking for us means luxuriating in deep kisses, slow caresses, loving words—maybe even a foot massage if we “get lucky”—then the hot sex. But for a male, as much as he loves you, his main interest is the big finale. Unfortunately, Mother Nature is on his side, because his caressing your body does nothing for her propagation goal. His orgasm does.
Let’s say you’re now living together. It’s a typical weeknight. You’re both exhausted. The heartless alarm will blast you out of bed in six hours. But your testosterone-filled sweetie is all set to go and craves some high-speed mingling of limbs. For you to really enjoy it, however, you need some sensual stroking, licking, and loving. On average it takes eighteen minutes to bring us women to orgasm. He can do the job in eight to eighteen thrusts.26
Have mercy, Huntresses. It’s a tall order for a tired male to slow down and start the quarter of an hour minimum process of warming you up by giving proper attention to the countless supersensitive areas all over your body. You’re tired too, and because quickies aren’t as fulfilling for you, perhaps you feign a headache. Now he feels unloved.
Think about it, girl. It takes it more time for you to hem and haw about a headache than for him to be fully satisfied. Sure you might not be in the mood right now, but never forget that he interprets a quickie as your love for him.
Here’s the reason quickies can literally keep the Chemistry between you alive. With repetition, the bonding oxytocin and vasopressin that flood his brain at ejaculation have a cumulative effect on his feelings of togetherness with you.27 He associates, or in neurolinguistic programming terms, “anchors” his joy of sex with you.
An added benefit is oxytocin’s talent for burying unpleasant memories.28 If he’s flaming mad at you for any reason, his ejaculation acts as a fire extinguisher.
Chemistry Sparker #71
Give Him Lots of “Quickie” Bonding
Girl, look at it this way: Constant sex plays a bigger role for a male, and you wanting it with him demonstrates your love. The chemicals released in his brain accumulate over the long term. And just think: A quickie can take less than five minutes.
So you must decide if quickies are worth it. If you ask him to slow down every time, he just may figure it’s not worth it. Compromise.
I was discussing this chapter with a friend of mine who has been married for eight years, and whenever I see her with her husband, it’s obvious that he’s still deeply in love with her. In one of those girltalk moments, she said quickies are part of their regular love life. She would never tell her husband, but she jokingly said, “I think of it as ‘taking one for the team.’” In fact, she initiates the quickies every so often. It’s part of keeping “the team” together.
Incidentally, don’t feel you need to compete with Meg Ryan’s infamous fake deli orgasm in the movie When Harry Met Sally. In fact, don’t fake it during a quickie because he may think his speedy style is all you want. Tell him you enjoy it too because you love him. But do tell him how you love it even more when it’s long and slow. Save your “Oh, oh, yes, yes, YESSSSS!” for the incredible real ones he’ll want to give you when there’s more time.
Hunters, now it’s time for you to “give one for the team.” Whenever there’s time, thrill her with the tender leisurely lovemaking she longs for—and make time more often. She craves those as much as you crave quickies.
Gentlemen, to increase the sexual Chemistry between you and your Love Partner, I suggest you go back and reread the Sparkers in Chapter 7:
•Chemistry Sparker number 46: Set the Stage for Sex. Creating her desired erotic atmosphere is just as important now. What kind of music puts her in the mood? Does she prefer dim lighting? Does she like a back rub or a foot massage before the action begins?
•Chemistry Sparker 47: Let Her Start the Strip. You can start the strip now—but of her clothes, not yours. While tenderly unbuttoning her blouse, express how much you care for her. Kiss her shoulder as you gently slip the top of her nightgown to the side. No quickies now. This is her time. Think “Slowies.” Slow and sweet.
•Chemistry Sparker 48: Don’t Get Physical, Get Oral. Your tender words mean more to her now than ever, and you can truthfully use the “L” word. Say it often—and not just during sex.
•Chemistry Sparker 49: Play in Her Secret Garden. You no longer need to ask what she wants because you’re already familiar with her erotic paradise. Visit it with her frequently.
•And, of course, give yourself a refresher on Sparker 50: Geography 101 for Hunters.
Earlier I suggested that women read magazines that show the average man’s attitude toward sex. Turnabout is only fair play here too. Pick up a copy of Cosmopolitan. One cursory page flipping suffices to see the setting for sex through your lady’s eyes. You’ll find beautiful bedding, an occasional candle, and the omnipresent admiring and loving expression on the face of the male she’s having sex with.
Chemistry Sparker #72
Don’t Think “Sex.” Think “Seduction.”
Courting doesn’t end at the altar, and neither do seduction techniques. Now that you know all the hidden pathways in her secret sexual garden, explore each one unhurriedly. The chemicals created during foreplay have an especially endearing and enduring effect on a Huntress.
Every decade or so, a TV commercial comes along that makes you think, “Wow, I gotta get one of those thingamajigs.” This was not one of them, and I do not even recommend their product. But we can learn a lot from their advertising campaign.
Madison Avenue types spend millions of dollars annually for focus groups to discover what consumers want to hear and then pay millions more for just the right actors to dramatize it. This particular commercial is on target and gives great insight into the sentiments that your long-term Love Partner hungers to hear from you.
The following individuals flashed on screen for three seconds and delivered one line each into the camera. Here are the numbered characters, and their one-liners are in the alphabetized list below it. Figure out what each person wanted to hear and fill in the letter next to the desired expressions.
1)Frazzled woman in a suburban home, dishes piled in the background, trying to control her frisky infant
2)Rushed thirtyish middle-management male straightening his tie getting ready for work
3)Kindly old man sitting alone on a park bench
4)Young woman looking into the camera flirtatiously
5)Poignantly smiling bald woman who had lost her hair obviously due to chemotherapy
6)Male teenager making a video of his face on his computer for his girlfriend
7)Ten-year-old kid in a superman costume
Here are their one-line scripts. See if you can match the people above to what they most wanted to hear.
___a)“Tell me we’ll stay together forever, in sickness and in health.”
___b)“Tell me we’ll grow old together.”
___c)“Tell me I’m still beautiful.”
___d)“Tell me you need me.”
___e)“Tell me you miss me.”
___f)“Tell me that I’m your superhero.”
___g)“Tell me you love me.”
The Answers: a) 5; b) 3; c) 1; d) 2; e) 6; f) 7; g) 4
Chemistry Sparker #73
Say What Your Long-Term Love Partner Needs to Hear
Grow an extra antenna to pick up precisely what your Love Partner needs from you emotionally. Then find a hundred ways to repeat this truth over and over. She will never tire of hearing it. He will feel closer to you every time you say it.
In this case, you needn’t feel hesitant about making gender-stereotyped generalizations. Hunters and Huntresses need to hear different things to get long-lasting love chemicals flowing through their brains.
I’m embarrassed to reveal that it was a Hallmark Card Valentine’s Day commercial. (Yes, sometimes a flower grows in dung, and this was such a blossom in a stench-filled field of TV ads.) The final line speaks the truth: “Everyone has something they need to hear.”
It is often said, “Life is not a Hallmark card.” That’s true, but in long-lasting love it’s beautiful to make it sound like one.
Evolutionary psychologists once tucked all human behavior into an envelope neatly labeled “Evolution” and sealed the flap. They figured that, although we now reside in cities and suburbs rather than jungles and woods, we still needed precisely the same ancient toolbox between the ears. Then neuroscience and developmental evolution discovered that our brains are changing more quickly than expected. However, especially in the framework of love relationships, it’s pretty clear that ancient influences continue to have a strong foothold in our thinking.
Chemistry Sparker #74
Give Her a Daily Dose of What She Really Needs
Hunters, at least once a day—minimum—tell your long-term Love Partner that you love her. And no matter what happens, bite your tongue before saying anything that she could, in the furthest stretch of her imagination, possibly interpret as “I don’t love you anymore.” If you do, her Cro-Magnon grandmother will tell her, “Girl, you’re as good as dead.”
Females know that if a man loves a woman, he stays with her. And up until recently, Mom needed a Hunter for both of them to survive. So she had a vested interest in being loved by her man for a very long time. In her mind, love equals survival. Thus, she needs a man’s love.
A Hunter, of course, wants to be loved too. But a male doesn’t need it as much because ancient voices are not echoing that he can’t survive unless a woman protects him.
Once I was being interviewed as the guest expert on a show with four couples going through the two-year itch. The host asked the guys, “When was the last time you told your wife you loved her?” One responded, “I told her I loved her when I married her. If anything changes, I’ll let her know.” Every woman in the audience wanted to hurl rotten tomatoes at him.
I decided to web search the question: “Why doesn’t he tell me he loves me?” At this writing, the question got 110 million hits from women asking precisely that. Yet I didn’t get one hit from a man complaining, “Why doesn’t she tell me she needs me?” In fact, a search on “Why doesn’t she tell me she needs me” first brought up a woman asking about her toddler, “Why doesn’t she tell me she needs me . . . to take her to the potty?”
A man craves being needed by you as much as you hunger for his love. Buried deep in his brain, his brawny hirsute heroic club-carrying ancestor is alive and well. Because the womenfolk’s lives depended on his wonderfulness, he got used to being dauntless and depended on.
Sisters, if you have ever dreamt about being swept up by the handsome prince, why can’t he dream of being Prince Valiant? When you can’t fix the electrical wire in a lamp, he wants to come riding into the living room on his white steed, shouting, “Fear not, sweet damsel! I will rescue you from this dilemma.” So, ladies, let him. And bite your tongue until it’s bloody before giving him advice on how to go about doing it.
Chemistry Sparker #75
Find Ways to Say “I Need You”
It’s not just your guy. Practically all males have a neurological need to provide the solution to problems, especially his woman’s. I’ve read dozens of books like 1000 Ways to Say I Love You. Nice stuff. But there aren’t any on 1000 Ways to Say I Need You to Your Man. In fact, not even One Way to Say I Need You to Your Man. Start noodling on some now and express them often.
Looking out my window some winters in New York City, I expect to see polar bears strolling down my street. That’s when I try to escape to Sarasota, Florida, for a mini-vacation. Even more beautiful than the sun and the sea there are the elder couples I see, some bicycling or kayaking together. Others strolling hand in hand or helping a partner in a walker navigate a grocery store aisle. I befriended several of the aging couples and learned a lot about the exquisite beauty and contentment that comes with long-term togetherness.
Recently I saw a TV talk show host interviewing half a dozen happy couples who had passed their fiftieth anniversary. Some had canes, a few were in wheelchairs, and most were holding hands. Their kisses were for the camera, but their sincere smiles were for their lifelong mates. Yes, a couple can stay in love forever.29
Naturally the host asked, “To what do you credit your lifelong love?”
One septuagenarian answered, “Because I didn’t marry a woman I could live with. I married the woman I couldn’t live without.”
There was a resounding “aww” from the studio audience. Another octogenarian lady replied, “Because my husband often buys two roses, saying, ‘One is for the woman I love. The other for my best friend.’ He gives them both to me.”
A crescendo of longer “awws” surged from the audience.
Finally a feeble old man with a wavering voice said, “From the moment I saw her at age eighteen, I knew life without her wouldn’t be worth living.” He then took her hand and kissed it. The audience reaction was something approaching a simultaneous group orgasm that lasted about five minutes.
If one of those octogenarians knew as much about neuroscience as you now do, his answer to the question would have been less romantic but more scientifically accurate. His frail voice would have murmured, “It’s because we knew about the chemicals affecting our brains and how to create the good ones. This wisdom and nurturing the valuable chemicals has kept us happily together.”
The audience reaction would have been stunned silence, thinking the poor old goat had gone off his rocker.
And yet the Chemistry they created together was one of the reasons they were still on earth to talk about their love. Long-term Love Partners live longer lives than people who reside alone.30 Oxytocin and vasopressin gently swim through the rivers in your brain during long-term love, making you astronomically healthier. It’s not like early stage love, when dopamine and serotonin levels spike up and down like an electroencephalogram of a grasshopper in a frying pan. The attachment chemicals you create don’t have the terrifying “Side effects may include” warning that TV ads spit out at the speed of light about hyperactivity, loss of appetite, compulsive acts, and symptoms associated with mental illness.31 There is no need to “Ask your doctor if long-term togetherness is right for you.” It has been proven that it is.
During the early crazy-in-love, passionate, gotta-have-you-round-the-clock days and nights, the sizzling chemicals swirl. Dopamine shoots through your brains like meteors. When he caresses your cheek, dopamine and estrogen party. When she brushes against your body, dopamine and testosterone do a dizzying dance. Serotonin swims through the synapses, and your caudate nucleus flashes like a neon sign.
After a few years of living together dopamine levels dip, but there are magnificent spikes, especially when you do thrilling things with each other and laugh together. When you make love, a myriad of both the hot and the bonding chemicals intermingle. Sometimes sex is fast when time is tight. Sometimes lingering and loving, like on weekends and vacations.
When kids come, an avalanche of chemicals consumes you. Testosterone and estrogen rise and fall like a roller coaster. Huntresses, you swim in an ocean of oxytocin while bonding with your baby. Hunters, big waves of vasopressin overcome you, especially when holding your newborn infant. There are problems, of course, and the frenetic fluctuating chemicals can cause frenzy and doubt. That is the time to cling together and not make foolish mistakes just because Mother Nature is making you antsy to move on.
When you have similar beliefs and definitions of togetherness, when you enjoy doing things together, when you can depend on the other in adversity and help each other reach life goals, a fortress of oxytocin and vasopressin approaches like a gentle mist and engulfs you in contentment.
As you grow even older, naturally estrogen and testosterone levels go down, but without gushing testosterone fighting the bonding chemicals, you become closer, and Dad becomes a stronger bonder. That’s when you reach the state Bernières spoke of when he wrote that “your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.”