Cinderella Anyone?

I read a really interesting article in Readers' Digest about "How to live happily ever after?". Basically there are 4 stages that everyone has to experience before they can be considered in a happy long-term relationship. By the way, this is from scientific point of view..

1. Romance - The stage when 2 people starts falling in love, where everything is happy and perfect. There is a high level of oxytocin a.k.a bonding hormone that hides the irritating behavior of each person from one another.

2. Disillusionment - After romance stage, both people will start to think and notice that their partner is not perfect (in other words, full of flaws). They will start to feel anger, irritated, fear and insecure towards their partner. This stage is what the scientist call as a "normal chemical letdown", and it is due to hormonal and barin chemistry change.

3. Power Struggle - This is after still being together after the second stage. At this stage, each partner will try to encounter the chemical letdown by trying to change their partner, so that they will be like the person that they were (or thought they were) at the Romance stage.

4. Awakening - The couple finally realise that they cannot erase each persons individuality. They realise that after being too close, they need to psychologically separate, not physically. At this point, all the feelings (irritated, anger, fear) will be mostly ignored. They try to be not that emotional about the whole imperfection of their partner.

Ayoh pening la pulak kan cerita macam nie.. But the conclusion of the article is that, in order to have a happy long-term relationship, there must be enough independence, and enough togetherness. Both parties must realize that there must be a balance of separation and intimacy.

Heheh... cukup la.. penat.. huhu...