This is what happens to your brain when you get the 7-year itch
Why does long-term love stop feeling the way it did at the start? The seven-year itch is usually framed as a character flaw, proof you picked the wrong person, or that you're the sort of person who gets bored. Neurologically, it's far less dramatic than that.
The phrase itself came from a 1955 film, the one with Marilyn Monroe and the subway vent. The writer landed on seven because it sounded better than ten. But there is something in it: research following newlyweds across their first decade of marriage found satisfaction dropped sharply, levelled off, then began to slide again around the 10-year mark. And European separation data has repeatedly shown divorce risk peaking around the seven-year mark. I spoke to Stylist about what's actually happening in the brain across those phases, from the dopamine of early romance to the very different chemistry that replaces it.