After over thirty years of marriage, I can tell you that love is beautifully weird. It’s spontaneous and overwhelming, yes, but it’s also surprisingly scientific. What poets call fate, researchers call biology mixed with learned behavior and a whole lot of choice. Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re starry-eyed and dating: that butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling has a name. It’s dopamine flooding your brain, the same chemical that makes you check your phone fifty times waiting for his text. Add oxytocin, the bonding hormone released through physical closeness, and you’ve got the perfect cocktail for falling head over heels. This chemical rush is why new love feels intoxicating, like you could stay up talking until 3 AM every night and somehow function the next day. But chemistry only gets you so far. The uncomfortable truth is that our childhood experiences shape how we love as adults. Attachment theory explains why some True Love
of us feel comfortable with intimacy while others panic at the first sign of real closeness. I spent my thirties learning that my need for constant reassurance stemmed from watching my parents’ rocky marriage, not from anything my husband was doing wrong. Understanding these patterns doesn’t erase them, but it helps you recognize when you’re reacting from old wounds rather than present reality. Sustaining love after the dopamine fades requires different skills entirely. It needs communication when you’re exhausted and don’t want to talk. It needs empathy when your partner is being difficult and you’d rather be right than understanding. It needs the ability to say “I’m sorry” and actually mean it. The couples who make it aren’t the ones with the most chemistry. They’re the ones who learned to listen without defensiveness, express appreciation regularly, and resolve conflicts without keeping score. Love is both a feeling and a practice. Biology sparks it, but commitment sustains it. The honeymoon phase eventually ends for everyone. What replaces it, if you’re lucky and intentional, is something deeper. Something built through thousands of small choices to show up, stay present, and keep choosing each other.
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6 Estrella Publishing - Up The Hill magazine
February 2026
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