Does Forever Love Really Exist? Exploring True Love and Romantic Love
The concept of "forever love" often drives the plots of popular movies, television, books, and the stories we tell about our lives. But is it actually possible for love to last forever?
The definition and duration of love can be debatable, but research suggests that love is frequently resilient – and, in some cases, it can last longer than a lifetime. In 2015, a study by researchers at the University of Arizona found that even after a romantic partner passed away, their characteristics continued to influence the surviving partner’s well-being long after their final year of life. These findings illustrate the potential strength of bonds between romantic partners, and how someone’s love, care, and even personality traits can impact their partner’s life, even after death. Forever love is possible if both partners nurture their connection in meaningful ways. If you’re looking for ways to sustain your love and create a bright future for the two of you, strategies like prioritizing healthy communication, playing together, and seeking professional help from an online or in-person therapist can be helpful.
What is forever love?
Depending on your relationships and unique life experiences, your definition of love may vary. Regardless of how you define love, it’s generally a complex and nearly universal emotion that many people pursue throughout their lifetimes. The American Psychological Association (APA) notes that love normally involves strong feelings of affection and tenderness for a “love object,” which might be a person, animal, or inanimate subject. The APA also emphasizes that love can come in many forms: there’s erotic love, self-love, religious love, and familial love, and all can be defined by varying degrees of intimacy, passion, and commitment. Love is a force that shapes and defines relationships, making it a key aspect of the human experience.
Forever love can be viewed as a sustained form of love, and many psychologists believe it can be built over time. While life brought you together, maintaining a profound love for life takes effort from both of you. The following strategies can help you build your connection with your partner, boost your happiness, and optimize your mental health. Love is an ongoing process that can deepen through understanding and mutual care.
1. Prioritize healthy communication for forever love
Communication may not always be about the topics you discuss, but how you discuss them. Do you strive to express yourself with clarity and honesty, or do you find yourself blaming or attacking the person you love? There’s a difference. We may all have communicative slip-ups and grumpy days, but verbal attacks can evolve into unhealthy patterns of communication that may make it impossible to maintain healthy relationships. Love is a foundation built on respect; without healthy communication, love may become challenging to sustain forever. If you do not address these patterns, it can damage the trust and connection you’ve worked so hard to build.
2. Address conflict as it happens
Rather than try to avoid conflict altogether, experts usually recommend the more realistic route of conflict management. Compromise, accommodation, agreeing to disagree, and apologies can all be appropriate responses to conflict, depending on the scale of the argument or disagreement. Partners who shy away from conflict, dismiss concerns, or stonewall may be more likely to break up and go down different paths. Those who address conflict with healthy tactics often find that in doing so, a profound love does blossom.
3. Stay curious
You might ask thoughtful questions, check in with your partner regularly, and take time to learn about the things that matter to them. By learning and committing together, you can grow closer while developing new skills and stories. If you struggle to come up with topics, consider researching conversation starters you can use at the dinner table. Your conversations sustain love, and these moments will help you continue to bond. Even in silence, the connection you share can deepen through mutual understanding.
4. Play together
Any new activity can present an opportunity to learn, grow, and play. For adult partners, play can be a purposeful (and fun!) way to promote bonding, communication, conflict resolution, and overall satisfaction with your relationship, based on studies of deep, long-term love. Couples may find that the same activity will become the brightest part of their week, and in doing so, they will continue to deepen their connection. Love is often nurtured through shared experiences, and these activities can bring couples closer, fostering joy and understanding.
5. Show gratitude for your forever love
It can all start with a simple “thank you.” To keep your connection strong, relationship experts recommend working toward a “culture of appreciation.” This concept can apply to both romance and workplaces. In the case of forever love, appreciation is typically founded on gratitude, and it normally requires that individuals take the following steps:
- Recognize what they’re grateful for: It can be easy to overlook the small things in a loving relationship. Recognizing that you're grateful for your partner's support or their daily acts of kindness can create a foundation of appreciation that will help your love grow stronger forever.
- Acknowledge it. Recognizing and appreciating your partner’s efforts can strengthen your bond meaningfully. Showing gratitude through small gestures or words helps foster trust and deepens your relationship.
- Appreciate it: Consistently showing appreciation for your partner’s efforts can help them feel valued and understood. This ongoing gratitude can strengthen your connection and ensure your love grows even deeper over time, lasting forever.
These three simple steps can take just a few minutes, but in a relationship, taking time to highlight small acts of kindness can remind partners that they’re loved, appreciated, and fully seen, bringing a smile to their face and warmth to their heart. Love is about those little moments, and forever cherishing them can strengthen the bond between partners.
6. Be willing to sacrifice
To an extent, making sacrifices in a relationship can be a healthy, expected reality of long-term love. The university years of focusing on your own needs have long passed. When your partner is going through a difficult time, feeling sick, or simply wants to attend a special event, you may need to shift your plans and forgo self-interest for your partner's benefit. Love is about stepping up for one another in these moments. At other times, your partner may reciprocate and does the same for you – and over time, this game of push-and-pull can strengthen your relationship.
Like many things in life and love, the key is usually balance. Commitment must generally be shown on both sides, and with clear communication, partners can take “turns” stepping in to support one another. It’s how the relationship will endure, through these small sacrifices that reinforce love forever.
7. Make time for yourself
When you’re in a committed, long-term relationship, it can be tempting to invest all your time and energy into your partner. Love is a powerful bond, but it does not mean losing yourself. In some cases, this inclination can lead to codependency: an emotional and behavioral condition that can affect someone’s ability to maintain a healthy relationship. Codependent relationships may be one-sided, emotionally destructive, and/or abusive. Forever relying on each other for validation and support will hinder personal growth. Instead, each partner does need to maintain their individuality for the relationship to thrive.
If you or a loved one is experiencing abuse, contact the Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Support is available 24/7.
While codependency is not typically recognized as a mental health disorder, it is usually a learned behavior that is often passed down generationally. It may be impossible to change your genetics or the family you’re born into, but it can be possible to invest in your mental health and maintain your core sense of self, even in a relationship. Love is about supporting one another while also respecting each other’s individuality.
Making time for yourself can feel challenging and borderline impossible, especially if you’re parenting or balancing a heavy workload. You might start small, and build from there: five minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of reading, or simply enjoying a cup of tea by yourself can all be meaningful acts of self-care. Eventually you may find time to grab dinner with a friend who attended the same school as you or attend a show you wanted to see. Forever nurturing your well-being will ensure that you remain your authentic self in the relationship, ultimately benefiting you and your partner.
8. Seek professional help
Relationships can be beautiful, meaningful, and rewarding, and if you’re in one, you probably know that they can take time and energy to cultivate. Forever honoring each other’s individuality can strengthen the bond. If you’re looking for deeper support to revitalize a relationship, there is no shame in reaching out to a licensed therapist.
Online therapy for love: There is a bright future ahead
A mental health professional can offer an external, unbiased perspective on your relationship and revitalize your love life. Many partners choose to work with a couples counselor or marriage and family therapist. Therapists in either specialty are generally trained to help clients navigate relationship- or intimacy-related challenges. Whether you’d prefer couples counseling or individual sessions, online therapy platforms often feature thousands of accredited and thoroughly vetted therapists who can support you from the comfort of your home or another personal space. Love is not always easy, and finding the right support can make a significant difference.
Takeaway
What does forever love or eternal love mean?
Concepts like forever love, or eternal love, exist in many different forms in popular culture. For many people, “forever love” is a type of care that lasts forever or that a person hopes or expects will last over the long term, even as the years pass. No one can predict the future or guess how long a certain love or relationship will last, but the concept of forever love means that the individuals involved are committed to keeping their relationship strong for as long as possible. Does it mean that love will always remain perfect or unchanging? This kind of love often brings comfort, representing a bond that does not quickly fade.
Does forever love really exist?
True love has different meanings to different people. For many, it’s the belief that unconditional love is the best thing that exists, what makes someone truly blessed, and the answer to what matters most in life. It’s a type of “real love” that can stay strong over the course of many years, whether the people involved have decided to marry—or are even romantically involved—or not. True love can take many forms. Does true love always require sacrifice and compromise? True love can take many forms, and its definitions vary depending on individual experiences and beliefs.
Can someone fall in love and be in love forever?
The truth is that love can take many different forms depending on the individuals involved and their circumstances. Some people may be involved in a loving romantic relationship for their entire lives, while others do have periods of being in love, and still others may never experience or never want to experience the feeling of romantic love.
How do you know you’ve met your forever person?
Many people today have come to believe that there’s no one person you can meet who will be a perfect fit for you from this moment and until the end of your life. Instead, the answer some have come to is that it can be the most realistic and rewarding to search for someone who shares similar values, who you enjoy being around, and who is committed to putting in the work on your shared relationship. Does your partner share those values? If you’re not sure whether the person you’re with fulfills any of these core criteria, it may be worth talking to them about the future and deciding whether you're both ready and interested in committing to a long-term relationship with each other. Do you both feel the same way about commitment?
How do you know someone loves you deeply?
If someone loves you deeply—whether they’re families and relatives or a romantic partner—they likely appreciate who you are as a person and want to spend time around you. They usually want what’s best for you, and do miss you and feel sad when you’re not around, and take your needs and desires seriously.
How do you explain why you love someone?
Putting one thing or another that you love about somebody into words can be the most difficult thing in the world for some. If you’re having trouble articulating why you fell in love with someone, you might turn to other mediums besides words. Painting pictures that express how they make you feel or playing music that they do inspire you to compose could also be meaningful expressions of your care.
Does forever love really exist-how likely is it that I will find my forever love or some kind of love that’s long term?
According to a July 2022 Pew Research survey, 69% of Americans report being married, cohabitating, or otherwise being in a committed romantic relationship. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the other 31% will never find love, but these statistics can help a person conceptualize the relationship landscape for themselves. It can also be important to define and talk about exactly what “forever love” means to you. Relatively few relationships last a lifetime, and many people now believe it does make more sense to focus on cultivating relationships that are right for you in your current phase of life.
Do people really stay in love for years?
Expecting to stay in the honeymoon phase for years may not be realistic. However, finding success in staying in love in the sense that you and your partner both continue to be committed to each other and the relationship even after a decade has passed does require effort and it does exist—even if your brain or past experiences tell you it doesn’t or can’t.
What does falling in love or experiencing true love feel like?
True love may feel different for everyone. Instead of measuring it according to your emotions, which can fluctuate frequently from one moment to the next, it may help to focus on the concrete elements of the relationship and how they align with your long-term needs. If you care deeply for this person, believe they want what’s best for you and support you growing into your best self, feel heard by them when you speak, and can see a future together based on shared values, care, and mutual growth, it does seem like the foundation for a lasting relationship—or what some people do call true love.
Is romantic love a choice or a feeling in pop culture?
In modern pop culture, love—particularly romantic love—is often equated with a certain feeling or emotion. In reality, however, making relationship decisions only off of fluctuating emotions can be a recipe for conflict and unhappiness. While it’s generally important to feel safe and cared for around someone you love, it can also be important to consider concrete factors like how they support you, how well you communicate, and how closely your values align rather than pinning the future of your relationship only on what you believe you're supposed to feel when “in love.”
Sometimes, it is crucial to do more than rely on feelings; it's about doing what indeed strengthens the bond between partners. A lasting love often requires actions that do more than reflect fleeting emotion, as it's a commitment to do the work necessary to understand each other deeply. One way you can do this is to focus on open communication to help deepen your connection. Another important way to reinforce your bond is to continuously perform and do small acts of kindness that can reinforce the bond.
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