Fourteen months in and the constant thinking-about-them feeling has largely gone. Nothing is wrong. We're good together, no fights, still enjoy each other. But I notice I'm not counting hours until I see them, and I keep poking at that like a loose tooth wondering what it means. First relationship past a year so I have no baseline.
Fourteen months and no fights is the part I'd look at, honestly. Not because fighting is good, but because most couples have found a couple of real disagreements by then. If you've both been avoiding them, the flatness might be that rather than the timeline.
We've had disagreements, just nothing that became a fight. I'll think about whether that's compatibility or both of us being conflict-avoidant.
Practical rather than reassuring: the intensity dropping means the relationship now runs on what you do rather than what you spontaneously feel. Shared novelty is the input. Go somewhere neither of you has been, take a class, do something mildly difficult together. That's not manufacturing romance, it's just that new experience is what generated the feeling the first time.
Fourteen months was almost exactly when it happened for me, and I spent a month quietly convinced I was falling out of love. Eight years later I can report it was the settling. Doesn't mean yours is the same, but the timing is not unusual.
@hip_opener_hana · last yr. · 3 replies
Extremely normal and roughly on schedule. The early phase is a specific, temporary state and it isn't built to last, since nobody would get any work done. What replaces it is quieter and doesn't announce itself, so people mistake its arrival for the other thing's departure.
A more useful test than "do I feel a rush": do I want to tell them about the thing that happened today, and do I feel steadier when they're around. If those are yes, you're fine. If you're relieved when plans get cancelled and you've stopped being curious about them, that's a different signal and worth paying attention to.
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@mulch_mule · last yr.
Relieved when plans get cancelled is a clear test and the answer is no, I'm still disappointed. That helps a lot.
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@weekly_review_wes · last yr.
The poking-it-like-a-loose-tooth thing is worth watching on its own. Monitoring a relationship for signs of decline is a reliable way to manufacture some.
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