Companionship > Passion

True love exists, I believe, but it is not—cannot be—passion that lasts forever.

True love, the love that undergirds strong marriages, is simply strong companionate love, with some added passion, between two people who are firmly committed to each other. …

Companionate love … can never attain the intensity of passionate love.

But if we change the time scale from six months to sixty years, as in the next figure, it is passionate love that seems trivial—a flash in the pan—while companionate love can last a lifetime.

When we admire a couple still in love on their fiftieth anniversary, it is this blend of loves—mostly companionate—that we are admiring.

Source: The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt