Is love destined to grow dull as the years pass? In a long-term intimate relationship, can real love still stay fresh, keeping two people connected and full of passion? These questions touch on something many of us search for: the truth about love. Recently I read a thought-provoking book, 《Can Love Last》, in which the author Stephen Mitchell draws on psychoanalysis to give a searching account of love's nature and its challenges. Combining his insights with my own experience, this article explores, together with you: what real love actually is, and how we can sustain a relationship that is both long-lasting and full of love in everyday life.
What Real Love Looks Like: From Phenomenology to the Fusion of Fantasy and Reality
Real love is often interpreted as a selfless, enduring and profound emotion, but what is its nature, really? Seen through the lens of phenomenology, real love exists not only in objective behaviour but is also deeply rooted in our subjective feelings and the meanings we build. These two are not opposed; they are interwoven, and together they shape the unique experience of love.
In everyday life, many of the things we do look ordinary — passing someone a tissue, sharing a dinner, even just sitting quietly side by side. The objective significance of these acts is nothing special in itself, but when they happen with someone we deeply love, they take on a particular feeling and value. That transformation comes from the connection within us, and this is precisely the truth at the level of feeling that phenomenology emphasises.
At its heart, real love can transcend the binary opposition of reality and fantasy. The traditional view holds that the passion at the start of love is merely an illusion, one that fades with time and gives way to everyday flatness. Yet Stephen Mitchell's perspective reveals a new possibility: fantasy and reality are not enemies; they can coexist within real love. In other words, real love is not just about accepting the flatness of reality, but about pouring that initial fantasy into our daily interactions, so that even the ordinary can shine with an extraordinary light.
To sustain real love, we need to learn to respect and treasure our inner feelings, and to keep pouring new meaning into everyday life. This is not about chasing a passion that never fades, but about keeping love perpetually fresh and profound through careful awareness and genuine interaction. When we embrace the truth of our feelings within reality, we come to understand that real love is a journey that blends effort, giving and growing together.
Real love is not merely an emotional state; it is a conscious choice, one that needs to be proven through action. It lets us see the extraordinary in the everyday, and find love within the ordinary.
Why Love Cannot Last: We Are Afraid of Love's Uncertainty
Why does love — that soul-stirring feeling — so often retreat gradually over time? In 《Can Love Last》, Stephen Mitchell offers an intriguing perspective: it is not that time waters down our feelings, but that, out of our dread of the unknown and the unstable, we unwittingly let love become flat and unremarkable.
The wonder of love lies in its unpredictability. When we fall into the river of love, what we feel is not only happiness, but also a force that breaks through the self and transcends the ordinary. Think of the cold, hardened characters in films who, because of real love, begin to do impossible things — lowering their defences and revealing a tender side. This is the captivating force of "destabilisation" in love. It disrupts the everyday we know so well and brings us change. Yet at the same time, love's uncertainty fills us with dread.
In order to make love unchanging and eternal, we tend to try to "stabilise" it, turning it into a relationship that can be controlled and follows a settled pattern. But the consequence of doing so is that love gradually loses its vitality, like a bunch of flowers preserved as a specimen — seemingly eternal, yet drained of life. We may even invest our passion in a one-night stand, an affair or a sexual fantasy, because such objects carry none of the risk of a real relationship, while still momentarily satisfying our craving for the dreamlike.
Stephen Mitchell argues that it is precisely our dread of uncertainty that, without our noticing, turns vibrant, vital love into something dry and tasteless. But real love lies not in avoiding the unknown, but in learning to embrace it. The heart of real love is not that both people stay forever unchanged, but that we accept the ongoing challenges within a relationship, as well as the other person's growth and change, and find again, within reality, the possibility of fantasy-like love.
Real Love Takes Tending: Accepting Change and Creating Together
Sustaining real love requires both people to feel genuine enthusiasm for a shared life, and to be willing to accept the uncertainty within the relationship. In his work, Stephen Mitchell points out that love is not merely the continuation of passion; it is more a process in which two people create together, and guard, a sustainable form of life. In this process, we need to learn how to balance reality and fantasy, and to find the possibility of romance within the problems of real life.
The practical issues of life in a relationship often give us headaches — a family's expectations, where to live after marriage, whether to have children, even whether to emigrate. On the surface these questions have nothing to do with romance, yet they are a necessary part of the journey of love. If, out of a fear of losing love, we focus all our attention on passion, then love will instead lose its balance. As a Cantonese lyric puts it: "If you want to have, you must first learn how to accept loss."
This line reminds us that love is a dynamic, organic process. Both people change over time, and accepting these changes — letting love "die and be reborn" — is the key to keeping it fresh. For many couples who met in secondary school or university, the reason they break up often lies in their trying to cling to love's earliest form, unable to allow the relationship to evolve over time.
Another of Stephen Mitchell's insights is also well worth reflecting on: love and hate may, at heart, be chemical reactions beyond our control, but the choice of whether to sustain a lasting love through action lies entirely with us. We need to use action to keep creating shared meaning, and, on the foundation of reality, to allow each other to grow and to accept change.
Love should not be merely clinging to a beautiful image of the past; it is about helping each other find a new connection amid change. Only in this way can real love truly last, becoming a journey that blends fantasy, reality and growing together.
What "I Love You" Really Means: An Act of Choice
For many couples, those three words — "I love you" — can sometimes be hard to say out loud. Have you ever felt a little hesitant in a relationship, unwilling to say them lightly? Stephen Mitchell analyses the reasons behind this in his book. He points out that "I love you" is not merely an expression of feeling; it carries several deeper layers of meaning: I want to love you, I am willing to love you, and I will prove that I love you through action.
In this light, the weight of "I love you" comes not only from the physiological level — the chemical reactions that make us feel love — nor merely from our past experiences or our preference for a certain type of person. Although these factors certainly exist, the real power of "I love you" comes from choice — choosing to embrace this feeling, choosing to keep and develop this affection.
It is precisely because of the element of choice in love that we are able to build it on a more genuine, lasting foundation. When we say "I love you", we are not simply pulled along by the feeling of being in love; we consciously commit to it, and choose to maintain the relationship through action. For example, planning to share good times with a partner, or, as the book mentions, expressing a simple "I love you" — these actions are all ways in which we choose love and make it more beautiful.
Stephen Mitchell emphasises that sustaining a long-term relationship means accepting the possibility of loss within love. Whether a complete break-up or a partial change, these are an unavoidable part of love. If we refuse to accept this vulnerability, love can become a static, unchanging specimen, unable to keep growing and developing. Only by accepting this vulnerability, and choosing of our own accord to commit to love, can a relationship truly move towards a beautiful future.
Download MindForest to Guide Your Real Love with Wisdom
The challenges and emotional ups and downs of love often leave us feeling lost on the road to finding real love. Have you, too, ever felt confused because you were unsure of your place in a relationship, or couldn't make sense of love's vulnerability? MindForest, your AI companion, is designed with deep psychology to help you understand love, offering you the wisdom and guidance to navigate real love. Here is how MindForest can help you find wisdom and balance in love:
1) Set a Personal Vision and Clearly Define Your Relationship Goals
In every relationship, we often hold different expectations of the future — expectations that come not only from our longing for real love, but also from what we expect of our partner. MindForest helps you clearly set out the core values of your relationship and guides you in setting growth goals within love. Whether it is deepening your connection or learning to handle conflict and change, the AI helps you avoid emotional missteps.
2) An AI Mentor to Reflect on Behaviour and Feelings in Love
The road to finding real love is not always smooth. When you feel emotionally confused, MindForest's AI mentor helps you look at the problem from different angles and guides you through deeper reflection. Whether you are coping with emotional turbulence or trying to understand your role in love, the AI mentor can offer practical suggestions to help you face every challenge in love with a more mature mindset.
3) An Inspiration Journal to Learn and Grow from Experience
In the pursuit of real love, we need time to sort through our feelings and reflect. MindForest's guided journalling feature helps you record the experiences within each real love, and to think deeply about how these experiences shape your personal growth. The AI encourages you to reflect on what you learn in each relationship and draw wisdom from it, becoming a self that understands love and growth more fully.
Download MindForest now and let it become your best companion for exploring real love and emotional wisdom, helping you find more wisdom and balance in your relationships and leading you towards true love!
References
Mitchell, S. A. (2002). Can love last?: The fate of romance over time. W W Norton & Co.
Comments
No comments yet — share your thoughts.