That is long? Sheesh, what do you think about marriages that have lasted decades - oh please don't tell me, I shudder to imagine. In all honesty the first pangs of love are intense, passionate and lead to the general "I can't live without you" feelings. once those pass they are replaced with 'huh, what, can't you see I'm watching the game?' and of course the loaded 'Does this make me look fat?' type questions. This is all part of the normal development of relationships. Love - true, deep abiding love is one of compromise and concessions and even thinking about murder in the middle of the night she she is snoring so looudly and all you want to do is get just one decent hour of sleep... Yeah that's love too, because you don't kill the spouse. We stay together because of companionship, because we are comfortable, because we benefit being part of a 'Us' more than being simply an 'I'. Folk have been brainwashed to thinking that that mad passionate intense first flush of love is REAL LOVE, it isn't, that is just the cold wash of the waters when you jump in, the water gets warmer and the longer you stay in the better it feels. (swimming analogy for a cold December night). Work, life, and 'stuff' usually end up taking up most of a persons a couples time, and if they allow it these things can push them apart. Wistful thoughts of 'if' and 'what could be' also cause relationships to fail. The old 'grass is greener' phase is the deadliest phase when one or both partners think they are missing something and want to taste the grass on the other side of the fence. Humans are strange critters, they are unhappy when they should be content, and always seeking something more when they have more than enough.