Presentation

Inquiries, Investigations & Immersion

Why We Fall Out of Love

And what science reveals about getting it back

Kyle Sy

Inquiries, Investigations & Immersion

Part 01 — The Question

I Want You to Remember

Ask Yourself "Remember the moment you fell in love. The electricity. The certainty. That feeling that you'd finally found your person. Now—be honest with yourself—where did that feeling go?"

We spend our lives searching for love, celebrating it, writing songs about it—and then we watch it fade. Not through tragedy or betrayal, but through something far quieter: the slow drift into comfortable parallel existence.

You're not alone in this. What you're experiencing—what so many of us experience—has a name. And science has finally begun to understand not just why it happens, but how we can get it back.

70%

of long-term couples report experiencing a significant decline in romantic passion within the first two years together. You are not the exception—and you are not broken.

Part 02 — The Paradox

The Cruel Irony of Love

There's a cruel irony at the heart of long-term love that almost no one talks about. The very things we work so hard to build in a relationship—stability, safety, predictability—are precisely what kill desire.

Think about your own relationship. You've created a home together. You've built routines. You know each other's patterns and preferences. You've become efficient. And in that very efficiency, you may have lost the mystery that fuels attraction.

Does This Sound Familiar? "You love your partner. You appreciate them. You'd describe yourselves as 'best friends who live together.' You rarely fight. You have a good system. You know exactly how they take their coffee. They know your schedule better than you do. You're safe. You're comfortable. And you haven't truly felt passionate toward each other in months—maybe years."

Psychologists call this a fantasy bond—an illusion of connection that provides you with security, but eliminates the very tension that desire requires to exist.

Part 03 — The Science

What Research Reveals

Dr. Helen Fisher

Rutgers University, Biological Anthropology

2005

fMRI studies reveal that passionate love activates the same dopamine-rich brain regions as cocaine. Your brain on love literally looks like your brain on drugs. But the brain adapts—within 18 to 30 months, that dopamine response naturally diminishes. What you're experiencing is biological tolerance, not personal failure.

Dr. Robert Firestone

Glendon Association, Psychologist

1985

Identified the "fantasy bond" as a defense mechanism where couples replace real, vulnerable engagement with an illusion of fusion. This protects you from the risk of true love, but it also eliminates the very conditions that passion requires to exist.

Dr. Esther Perel

Psychotherapist, Author of "Mating in Captivity"

2006

Documented the fundamental paradox: love requires safety, but desire requires mystery. You cannot deeply want what you already completely possess. The very conditions that create lasting love—predictability, familiarity, reliability—are the enemies of erotic desire.

Part 04 — The Pattern

How It Happens to You

Passion doesn't disappear overnight. It follows a predictable pattern that you might recognize in your own relationship:

The Honeymoon Phase

In the beginning, dopamine floods your brain, creating idealization. Your partner can do no wrong. Their differences feel exciting. The unknown feels thrilling, not threatening. Everything feels easy.

Reality Begins To Show

Faults become visible. Small conflicts emerge. The constant dopamine rush begins to fade. This is completely normal—but this is also where many couples begin to panic, wondering if something is "wrong."

The Fantasy Bond Takes Hold

This is the critical turning point. Without realizing it, you begin replacing real, curious engagement with routine-based comfort. You stop asking genuine questions. You stop being truly curious about each other. You settle for safety over spark.

Emotional Distance Grows

Parallel lives develop. True intimacy becomes rare. You feel that "something important is missing" but you can't quite name it. This is where most couples either seek help—or simply give up, accepting that passion is gone forever.

The very qualities that create safety—predictability, familiarity, reliability—are the enemies of erotic desire. You cannot want what you already have.

— Esther Perel, psychotherapist and author of "Mating in Captivity"

Part 05 — What You Can Do

Breaking the Pattern

Here's the genuinely good news: forty years of research across multiple fields has identified specific, evidence-based practices that can reignite passion in your relationship. These aren't tricks or games—they're fundamental shifts in how you relate to your partner.

Practice 01

Introduce Novelty Together

Dr. Arthur Aron's research shows that engaging in new, challenging activities together on a weekly basis reactivates the same dopamine pathways that lit up during your honeymoon phase. Create shared uncertainty—it's the original fuel of attraction.

Practice 02

Maintain Your Separateness

Esther Perel's research demonstrates that you cannot desire what you've already completely merged with. Cultivate your own identity, friendships, interests, and world outside your relationship. Be two distinct people who choose each other.

Practice 03

Turn Toward Connection

The Gottman Institute found that couples who thrive respond to each other's "bids for connection" 86% of the time. These small moments—a comment, a gesture, a look—build the emotional safety that enables true vulnerability and intimacy.

Practice 04

Challenge the Fantasy Bond

Firestone's approach encourages you to acknowledge that you and your partner are separate individuals with different needs, dreams, and perspectives. True intimacy requires two whole, distinct people actively choosing each other, not two halves merging into one.

These practices work together. You don't choose one and ignore the others—you integrate all of them into your relationship. Small, consistent changes create real transformation.

Part 06 — The Truth

What Actually Changes Everything

I want to offer you a reframe that might change everything about how you view your relationship.

We've all been sold a story that love should feel effortless. We're told that the "right" relationship will naturally sustain passion forever. This is not only false—it's dangerous.

The truth is that sustaining passion in long-term love requires more effort, not less. It requires continual curiosity. It requires tolerating the tension between safety and mystery. It requires actively choosing each other, over and over, even in the face of complete familiarity.

The fantasy bond isn't a sign that you've failed. It's simply what happens when you stop actively choosing. The antidote isn't finding a new partner—it's becoming new yourself, and seeing your partner anew.

Remember This "You don't need to learn to love your partner all over again. You need to become curious about them again. You need to remember that the person sleeping next to you is still someone you don't fully know. They're still changing. They're still becoming. And so are you. That's where the possibility lives. That's the practice."

The Choice Is Yours

Passion fades not because love fails, but because we stop actively loving. The spark isn't gone—it's waiting for you to create the conditions that will allow it to burn again. The question isn't whether your relationship can have passion again. The question is: are you willing to become curious again?