There's no love like the first, they say. Falling in love is truly a great thing that a lot of people have experienced for once in their life. It is your first love that is very difficult to forget, a feeling that can still make you giggle every time you remember the experience. Indeed, first love will never die.
Your first love affects all your relationships after
However, according to Davis, first love isn't going to be the best or deepest love. It is because of the intensity of the first love that could translate someone a feeling that they loved that person more in their memory.
Deep love may be referred to as unconditional love or a soulmate connection. Although it can take time and effort to find this connection, it is often possible.
First love influences all subsequent relationships
April Davis, a matchmaker and founder of LUMA (Luxury Matchmaking), explains that first love often feels incredibly intense, leading people to believe they loved their first partner more than any other.
Dealing with heartbreak is hard, and it can make falling in love for the second time feel much scarier than it was the first time around. Fortunately, though, your second love is often healthier, and you're likely happier having learned valuable lessons from your first romantic experience.
“You Never Forget Your First Love”
Your first love may actually have an impact on your brain. Feel-good brain chemicals called neurotransmitters are released when we're in love, including dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. Physical touch can make pleasurable feelings even more intense.
Multiple studies have confirmed our brains experience something very much like an addiction when we're in love. The first time may be the most important because it's the foundation. Most likely, you experienced this foundation of love during a time (adolescence) when your brain was still developing.
Yes and no, according to experts — ultimately, it all comes down to how that relationship ended and how content you are in your current life. Experts say there are lots of valid reasons why a first love can be difficult to move on from. For one, you tend to go all in when your heart hasn't already been broken before.
There's evidence to suggest that there's a love gender gap between men and women. In a series of several studies, published together by the American Psychological Association in 2011, researchers found that in partnerships between a man and a woman, the man is more likely to “confess to love” first.
Your First Love Leaves An Imprint On Your Brain
Since your memory is much stronger during this period, you're much more likely to remember the experience of falling in love vividly. “Your first love is hard to forget because it leaves an 'imprint' on the sensory areas of your brain,” Bordelon says.
This is backed up by Marissa Harrison, a psychologist from Pennsylvania State University who thinks that women are much more cautious when it comes to love, while men tend to fall in love harder and faster. Studies show that a man's requirements to fall in love are significantly less stringent than those of a woman.
Agape — Selfless Love. Agape is the highest level of love to offer. It's given without any expectations of receiving anything in return. Offering Agape is a decision to spread love in any circumstances — including destructive situations.
The purest form of love is selflessness.
First loves defied the divorce rate, too: 78% of reunited happily and remained in love over many years of marriage, with divorce a minimal 1.5%.
Your current partner may be annoying and sometimes even impossible. But no matter who they are or what they're like, know that your first love will always be your first love, plain and simple. You will always have intense associations with that person, but those don't mean your current partner isn't worth it.
For many men, this first love is also the first time they have been in the sort of relationship where they are asked to make a series of compromises. More accurately, it may be the first time they really wanted to make those compromises, because they valued the relationship.
And generally in heterosexual relationships, men fall in love faster than women, per a study published in Evolutionary Psychology in 2010. Meanwhile, in relationships between two women, love or commitment is expressed after around six months, according to a 2000 study.
They theorized that when men said it first, before having sex, it was a way to gain their partner's trust and thus ease the way to sexual activity—an impulse that the men may not even have been conscious of. “The decision to say they feel love first can make sense strategically,” Ackerman says.
A Study Shows That We Fall In Love with 3 People in Our Lifetime and Each One Has A Specific Reason. A study has shown that a person can fall in love at least three times in their lifetime.
While 40% of people marry their first love, reunited or not, only 4% have a happy ending after reuniting.
First love is characterized by idealism, innocence, emotional connection, reciprocal involvement, orientation to the future, and desire for a pervasive presence of the loved one.
They may be feeling unfulfilled or concerned that there might not be a possible future for their partnership. For people between relationships, their searching may be driven by nostalgia, haunting feelings that they left a past relationship prematurely, or being reminded of a past love.
Those firsts can be intense and memorable. If these 'firsts' were positive, you may remember your first love with fondness, and consequently, find it harder to move on. On the other hand, if your experiences left a sour taste in your mouth, it is more likely you may find it easier to let go of that first love.
“It's your first one and it's so painful, it almost creates an imprint,” Maslar notes. You might find yourself putting up walls with future potential partners to avoid getting your heart broken again. That said, it's totally possible to work through these mental blocks and heal from the breakup.
In a 2022 study that included over 1,400 participants, researchers discovered that men usually say “I love you” before women do, a tendency that held true across the US and 6 countries that were included in the study's results.