New relationships, especially when people fall in love, can be very intense (in a good way). Unfortunately, these intense feelings do not last, which causes people to question what happened. There is also a desire for the relationship to return to the way it was, and a deep disappointment when this does not happen. In this article, I will explain what causes the honeymoon period and why it (almost) always ends.
What Causes the Honeymoon Period?
The honeymoon period is a result of one of two of the following items:
- Creating a false self to please a partner
- Collapse of ego boundaries (i.e. falling in love)
Let’s explore each of these items in more detail.
Creating a False Self
At the beginning of relationships, people tend to hide behind mask versions of themselves. These masks are created primarily due to 2 factors:
Self-esteem issues
One of the most common worries about dating in general is that people don’t believe that their potential partners will find them “good enough.” As a result, people have a tendency to change their behavior based on how they believe that their partners would want them to ask. Once in a relationship, these people will continue to change their behaviors in an attempt to please their partners and “make them happy.”
Partner demands
It is very common for people to demand that their partners change, even though common sense dictates that you cannot actually change someone. Recently, there has been a push to justify changing a partner via a concept known as “love language.” The idea behind love language is that a person demands certain behaviors from their partner, as this is the way that they feel loved. As anyone who has studied psychology understands, love language is simply a technique used to establish unhealthy, codependent relationships.
A second technique used to change a partner is via the practice of establishing “healthy” boundaries. Unfortunately, there is nothing healthy about these boundaries. The purpose of establishing boundaries in a relationship is to try to prevent one partner from triggering the other, ignoring the fact that triggers are caused by underlying psychological issues that need to be healed.
In fact, triggers are the emotional body’s signal that there is something that needs attention. Thus, establishing boundaries in a relationship enables a person to ignore the fact that they have personal healing work to do. In short, boundaries in a relationship are simply another way for a person to demand changes in their partner’s behavior.
Collapse of Ego Boundaries (Falling in Love)
The greatest love stories of all time are usually based on experiences of falling in love. Part of the intrigue of falling in love is due to its mysterious nature: most people do not understand how it occurs. But the “science” behind falling in love is quite simple. Two people fall in love when the ego boundaries between these two individuals completely (although temporarily) collapse.
In general, the ego is a psychological construct that is meant to “protect” us via the construction of psychological defenses. When we are triggered, the ego views this event as an attack and then must decide whether to counterattack, run away, or freeze. However, when the ego boundaries have collapsed between two people, they are incapable of triggering each other and instead can only feel an intense love for each other.
The End of the Honeymoon Period
The False Self Scenario
Keeping up the pretense of a false self takes effort, regardless of whether it is something you chose to do or something your partner demands of you. However, the excitement of a new relationship makes it easy for people to initially ignore the effort involved. As the excitement wears off, people who have created false selves start to realize how much effort is going into the relationship. In these cases, the honeymoon period ends when one person in the relationship decides the effort “is not worth it,” which causes fights to occur.
In some cases, a partner will continue to live as the false self, but they will be resent their partner for “making them” put in so much effort. In other cases, a partner will revert back to their normal ways, which will result in the other partner making accusations of “he’s not trying anymore” or “she’s changed.” But the reality is that these individuals have not changed; they have instead simply stopped pretending to be somebody else.
The Ego Returns
People sometimes describe the experience of enlightenment as the “death of the ego.” But unlike falling in love, which is a collapse in boundaries between two individuals, enlightenment can be characterized as the complete collapse of boundaries with every person and every thing.
In the past, enlightenment was generally understood to be a permanent experience. But over the past couple of decades, this understanding has changed. The spiritual teacher Adyashanti, in his book “The End of Your World” explained that temporary experiences of enlightenment will occur before the condition becomes permanent. And we now have many people who talk about spiritual awakenings that have occurred in their lives, which the understanding that these profound experiences of bliss and love were temporary.
The concept of falling in love is the same: the experience is temporary. Gradually, the ego reconstructs itself and the psychological defenses between the two lovers are restored. Once this occurs, the triggers will occur and the two people – who were previously madly in love – will start questioning why their lover has changed and is now actively trying to hurt them.
What they fail to realize is that nobody is trying to hurt them. I.e., triggers are not a personal attack. As I have commented before, triggers are instead an important psychological sign that we have internal work to do.