First relationships can be intense, passionate and inspire a great deal of bad poetry. But, according to new research, if you want to find happiness in later life, it is best to avoid puppy love altogether.
The claim comes in a book called Changing Relationships, a collection of new research papers by Britain's leading sociologists, edited by Dr Malcolm Brynin, principal research officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.
Brynin found that the euphoria of first love can damage future relationships. "Remarkably, it seems that the secret to long-term happiness in a relationship is to skip a first relationship," said Brynin. "In an ideal world, you would wake up already in your second relationship."
While researching the components of successful long-term partnerships, Brynin found intense first loves could set unrealistic benchmarks, against which we judge future relationships. "If you had a very passionate first relationship and allow that feeling to become your benchmark for a relationship dynamic, then it becomes inevitable that future, more adult partnerships will seem boring and a disappointment," he said.

Dr Gayle Brewer, a lecturer in social psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, agreed: "If you judge adult relationships against your first relationship, you are using a single benchmark: that of an intense and unrealistic passion," she said. "Adult relationships need all sorts of other virtues to survive, many of which are not compatible with that level of intensity. For example, you might have felt passionate about your first love because their spontaneity was breathtakingly exciting.

But Professor Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, believes that striving for that initial intensity of emotion can help relationships to survive. Using MRI scans, Fisher observed similar brain activity among those who had been happily married for more than two decades with those who had been in relationships for less than six months.
"I found incontrovertible, physiological evidence that romantic love can last," she said. "It appears that romantic love exists not only to initiate pair-bonding but to maintain and enhance long-term relationships."
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