Lighting a Fire When the Love Light Grows Dim

What leads us to become “bored” with a partner? Relational boredom involves a lack of interest and excitement—an absence of positive and satisfying qualities, the scarcity of high-arousal pleasant states, a lack of communication/conversation, and physical, emotional, and sexual disengagement (Harasymchuk & Fehr, 2012).

Keep in mind that our perceptual skills influence our relationships and many aspects of our lives regarding the excitement or boredom we experience. Humans develop perceptual skills based on a mechanism in the brain that can select redundancies and other trends across time from the flow of sensory messages (Tomkins, 2008). Repetitive sensory experience and habitual sensory input alter our perceptual and phenomenological responses (Proust, 1928). For example, if we eat the same dinner every night for a month, our attention to certain flavors and textures may be heightened at the first meal, but they will become progressively less noticeable by the end of the month.

Although perceptual skill is part of our evolutionary makeup, familiarity may cost us when it is linked to an appreciation of another person, and it may impact our relationship. Just as we do not “taste” a certain meal we have been eating for a month, we may also become habituated to a close relationship with someone. Thus, if the relationship ends, we may believe we have under-valued the person most important to us when it is merely that our brain has become familiar with them. Regrets follow in wishing we had been more attentive or had overtly expressed and appreciated their value. Nevertheless, this valley of our perceptual and phenomenological responses to someone is a human tendency, not a personal fault. Yet what can be done about it?

Novelty-Seeking and Self-Expansion

Interest and excitement are inherently gratifying. Human beings can sustain long periods of excitement about anything that is sufficiently uncertain, complex, or novel (Tomkins 1962/2008). Shared excitement and joy promote intimacy and long-term satisfaction in relationships. Therefore, introducing continuous novelty, uncertainty, and complexity into a relationship will keep it interesting and exciting. Novelty, a broadening of one’s sense of self, excitement, and challenge, is positively associated with vitality and the presence of meaning in life, along with promoting satisfaction in relationships (González-Cutre et al., 2020; Muise et al., 2018). The need for novelty was found to be positively related to adaptive outcomes and optimal functioning in life, and its frustration was negatively related to these outcomes (González-Cutre et al., 2020). Gravitating toward the unexpected enables us to experience awe—a personality trait experts call an “openness to experience” (Keltner, 2023). The echoing of intellectual interests and personal pursuits creates a resonance between two minds that can bind people together and allow the self to grow (Bromberg, 2009).

Self-expansion is a process through which people alter their self-concept by incorporating novel content into their sense of identity (Hughes et al., 2021). Generally, researchers have found that people who are curious and who embrace novelty, uncertainty, and challenges of everyday life are at an advantage, compared with less curious peers, in creating a fulfilling existence (Kashdan & Silva, 2008). Engaging in self-expanding activities with a partner is associated with higher sexual desire and greater relationship satisfaction—that is, how couples excite, inspire, and connect predicts whether they stay together and maintain satisfaction (Muise et al., 2018).

Emotions and memories guide and bias how we feel in the present. Within ourselves are the emotional foundation and memories of what brings us pleasure within a relationship. Interest motivates novelty-seeking and exploration, whereas enjoyment motivates attachment to familiar events, such as having a favorite vacation destination (Tomkins, 1962). Pursuing mutual interests can provide a couple with the possibility of shared novelty-seeking. Beyond that, mutually interesting and novel activities link people together, and such connections are important to an enduring relationship and keeping the love light burning.

The Inhibition of Excitement

However, we may avoid the excitement of novelty if we fear experiencing negative emotions such as disgust, shame, or distress. The culture and environment in which we were raised contribute to how we respond to excitement and to the promotion or acceptability of expressing positive emotion. For example, excitement may have been dampened and subsequently linked with shame in a person’s childhood, such as being told to calm down when excited. As a result, excitement may be immediately inhibited by shame (Tomkins 1962/2008). If the existence of excitement was denied, the ability even to perceive it may be overshadowed (Nathanson, 1992).

Novelty’s Dark Side

Unfortunately, novelty itself has an unhealthy side. A person can become "addicted" to excitement, which commands unceasing novelty (Tomkins 1962/2008). At its extreme, novelty seeking may refer to a tendency to pursue new experiences with intense emotional sensations, which can involve risky sexual activities, substance use, eating disorders, or pathological gambling (Arenas & Manzanedo, 2016). Sensation-seeking is linked with basal dopaminergic activity and may affect an individual’s susceptibility to developing behavioral disorders (Arenas & Manzanedo, 2016).

Similarly, relationship drama—turmoil and conflict—can be mistaken by the brain as novelty and excitement. Further, when turmoil creates distress and arousal in partners, its absence may be experienced as rewarding or pleasurable. The intensity of an endless cycle involving distress and relief—abandonment fear and reunification—may keep an unhealthy and compelling fire burning in a relationship.