If we aren’t careful, we may come to take the love of our life for granted.

This may be surprising, especially in Western cultures where there is a lot of emphasis on finding true love.

“How do we get into these relationships with such high hopes and expectations, and then where does it all go wrong?” said Amie Gordon, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who researches interpersonal relationships.

As relationships evolve and mature, conversations between many couples devolve into discussions of checklists, tasks and events, but not the relationship itself, said Julie Gottman, a clinical psychologist. “They’re in danger of becoming a managerial relationship,” added her husband, John Gottman, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington. The Gottmans are co-founders of the Gottman Institute and conduct research on marriage and relationships.

But this change is not inevitable, psychology research and relationship science shows.

Why we may take our relationships for granted

The beginning of a relationship is usually full of novelty and excitement, and satisfaction is high during this honeymoon phase.

But that passion and intensity are difficult to sustain, and relationship satisfaction tends to decline over time as we fall victim to what Gordon calls “unfortunate human tendencies.”

The first is hedonic adaptation, a classic finding in psychology, where we tend to “get used to the good things in our lives unless something comes in and reminds us of what the good things are,” said Sara Algoe, a psychologist who runs the Emotions and Social Interactions in Relationships Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This applies to our relationships — romantic or otherwise — and across life, Gordon said.

The second is our built-in negativity bias, which is thought to confer an evolutionary advantage because avoiding harm is more important for survival than seeking out opportunities.

But in a relationship, these tendencies can be detrimental. After the honeymoon phase, couples may look for “what their partner’s doing wrong, but not what their partner is doing right and saying thank you,” Julie Gottman said. This can become “a habit of mind,” John Gottman added.

Life’s many stresses also cause us to turn inward “and block us from reminding ourselves of the beautiful, wonderful human that we were interested in,” Algoe said.

Read the full article on The Washington Post.