Do guys change after a year of dating?

[betty]

My guy and I have like almost ayear and a half together and we are serious. Lately he has change things that he used to do like being super romantic or kissing alot. Is this normal or he's being strange? I heard some guys are so relaxed in the relationship that they don't have to do that anymore.

[Tony T]

Most relationships start off with a somewhat higher level of passion than they end up with. Passionate feelings are created by chemicals in the brain. These chemicals become very active when two people are very attracted to each other initially. It's kind of nature's way of ensuring propagation of the species. It's a built-in instinctual process we have no control over.

 

After a time, the action of the chemicals diminishes and to achieve the same "high" more of the chemicals are required. That's why people cheat or look for somebody else.

 

Early in the evolutionary process, there was no such thing as relationships, no such thing as marriage or committment, only the biological mandate to multiply. Early on, nature relied on males to become excited and that was just about it. Later on, females found they too could become aroused. People didn't get married. Actually, it was well along in our development as a species that communes were formed for the mutual protection of its members and children. Males shared females.

 

Dating, marriage, committment, etc. is something that society developed only recently (in the last few thousand years or so) as a means to put order and organization into society. As a matter of fact, dating is a very recent thing in the social process.

 

The reason we have committment is to ensure some measure of stability for people so that when that passionate love changes into a more realistic romance and companionate love, the parties don't split...especially if they have married.

 

We are today a society of chemicals. We take pills for everything and we demand to feel great all the time. Drug addicts need more and more of their stuff to get the same feeling or effect. Romance addicts need to find other people in order to achieve that same "high" or a different "high".

 

Our morals generally have degenerated to the point where for many committment means absolutely nothing. Instead of being married "until death do us part" it has gone to "until one or the other of us doesn't get the same high we used to" or "until one or the other of us just isn't happy with this any more."

 

Yeah, kind of sad. But if you learn to accept reality, you will be fine. If people learned to accept the reality that relationships, most of them anyway, don't remain in that passionate "high" forever and that real love can be sustained a very long time with maturity, caring, understanding, kindness, consideration, respect, etc., a lot more relationships would stay intact.