Unfortunately, it's not all wine and roses when it comes to love. Ecstasy, euphoria, elation and contentment may be accompanied by jealousy, rage, rejection, and hatred.
Falling in love may have evolved because people who focus their attention on a single ideal partner save time and energy, therefore improve their chances of survival and reproduction. Unfortunately, this also means people are pre-disposed to terrible suffering when jilted by their beloved.
Painful emotions develop when the reward centres of the brain, associated with the dopamine high of falling in love, fail to get their hit. Paradoxically when we get dumped we tend to love back even harder, as the brain networks and chemicals associated with love increase. First we protest and attempt to win the beloved back. Panic also kicks in as we feel something akin to the separation anxiety experiences by young mammals abandoned by their mothers.
Then love can turn to anger and hate, as the regions associated with reward are closely linked to rage in the brain. Finally when jilted lovers are resigned to their fate, they will often enter into prolonged periods of depression and despair.
These negative emotions can spawn anything from obsession and domestic violence to stalking and even murder of supposed loved ones.
While such behaviours may be classed as pathological, and perhaps rare, the truth is that they are closer to home than we dare contemplate. Passion's thrills resemble obsessive-compulsive disorder, but in some people, love can conjure up something much more sinister.
The chances of a relationship succeeding would seem to be difficult to predict, but one study suggests that divorce may be partially genetically predetermined. There are even mathematical formulas for predicting the chances of divorce - and for equitably dividing up possessions.
Nevertheless, psychologists have some simple tips for making our relationships last.
