Eternal love can really last and lead to happiness

Eternal love exists, at least according to studies and research; we could say “according to science”, even if we look around and this statement may seem absurd, just a phrase for ‘incurable’ romantics, the utopia of lovers, destined to vanish sooner or later.

Yet the exchange of vows for eternity continues to be veiled in an aura of magic, to be pursued as a dream, often considered unattainable, a desire that fascinates and at the same time almost frightens that it may end, and even badly.

Research confirms that it is possible to love each other forever

A study from the University of Arizona a few years ago, published in the American journal Psychological Science, revealed that eternal love exists and cannot be broken even by death. In addition to confirming the close relation between love and the wellbeing of spouses, the research shows that the bond continues even after the death of one of the two partners, regardless of age, health status and years of marriage.

And so, despite the high rates of divorce, of marital crisis spread all over the world, ‘eternal love’ still has some hope. Studies and research in the field of neuropsychology have analyzed the activity of brain regions responsible for falling in love in people who have been married for an average of 21 years and in those who have recently fallen in love.

The results say that it is possible to love each other for a long time and also to continue to fall in love, with each other, every day.

In short, it seems that science affirms that eternal love, seen as romantic, almost as a stigma reserved only for the naive, is not only really possible, but that it also does a lot of good and is a source of true well-being for people who live it; it is a kind of guarantee for happiness.

The beloved one is imprinted in the mind and it is not possible to erase him or her, and not even if – absurdly – we tried to do so, we would be able to eliminate that person, because true love is indelible, as a ‘strange’ movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, reminds us.

Eternal love is not just an illusory hope

The idea of authentic love linked to the desire for eternity persists in the younger generations, but perhaps only as an illusory hope, because what is missing is planning and commitment, and in the pact, the promise of eternity.

Translated into everyday life, it implies the courage to build that ‘forever’ every day, to renew those vows every day, to ‘say yes’ not only once and forever – which could sound, especially in times of difficulty, almost like a condemnation without appeal – but every day, in perpetuity, in a path that is built moment by moment, difficulty by difficulty, and that, in this way, becomes eternal.

Forever is possible and achievable because it becomes the fruit of a free and conscious choice, in which both lovers choose love first and foremost.

Eternal love doesn’t make news

The love we are talking about is capable of going through the crises – they are inevitable – of resisting the storms, the pride, the claustrophobic fear of living the bond that unites as a tie that oppresses and limits personal freedom.

Of course, as the old proverb says, “A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest”. And so, unfortunately, we find ourselves having to deal with so many stories of separations, of crises, and even in the cinema, apart from the rare cases of sappy stories, it seems to be difficult to tell the story of love, marriage, eternity and therefore happiness, a joy that does not mean, of course, the absence of pain, but that certainly implies a choice, the commitment of the will that is renewed every day.

That love which, all in all, still exists and survives in a ‘liquid’ society – where everything passes, in which couples, at the first sign of discomfort, often without even an attempt at reparation, prefer to separate and try again elsewhere – does not make news, it goes unnoticed.

So we are surprised when a rather famous Italian actor publicly declares to be still, and forever, in love with his wife whom he lost more than ten years ago, due to an illness. A rather similar story to that experienced by the protagonists of “Lei mi parla ancora” (She still talks to me) an Italian film by Pupi Avati released in February 2021 that tells of the strength and sacredness of an eternal feeling.

A possible and realizable dream that leads to happiness

Reality, however, sends us different images, it almost seems as if we live in a sort of negative illusion, supported in some way by society. The culture of ‘no-fault divorce’ has made marriage itself unstable, we no longer marry, we only settle for short-term happiness, or we marry, leaving the ‘emergency door’ open for when the falling in love ends.

Instead, as the research has shown, falling in love can be, if you want, a condition to live forever starting from everyday life, from the small gestures of every day, in the constant willingness to give and forgive each other, to fulfill the dream of eternity that every day and forever becomes present and leads to happiness.